Montgomery County sentinel., 1961-07-13
Gobbledygook

Gobbledygook
This weeks so-called explanation by two Mont
gomery County school officials of the purposes of the
Monocacy Summer Program is classic exercise in
obfuscation and gobbledygook
After reading the joint statement of Stanley Gaub
and Miss Martha Satterfield first reaction to
throw up our hands in despair the complete lack
of concrete facts.
For example, one of the programs objectives
mentioned by the two educators is ito learn and prac
tce good citizenship in practical and vital situation
What sort of situation is practical and vital"
and how does it involve good citizenship"
Another objective is ito see, hear and feel and
smell through abstract methods much of what is
usually learned in the regular classroom"
We had always thought the classroom was in
tended to teach children such tangible things as read
ing writing and adding, subtractng and multiplying.
Certainly there is nothing abstract about these tools
of learning.
Mr.. Gaub's attempt to clarity the statement mud
dies the waters still further.
He states for instance the special consideration
Gin selecting the lucky youngsters to attend the
mer program) given those whose past records in
dicate they may be underachieving in view of tre
mendous potential which they have not yet reached"
Then he goes on to express the hope that the pro-
gram viii help "motivate them to higher achieve
ment"
And he climaxes this double-tak by speaking Of
the subjective analysis" which school officials will
use to measure each students progress toward reach
ing his learning potential"
We can assure Mr.. Gaub that his fondness for
meaningless distractions would bring him prompt
'F in any college English class in the country For
Mr.. Gaub's information, "F" means failure and has
nothing to do with achieving his potential 1t has
great deal to do however, with his failure to up
to the level of understandable English
! We defy Mr.. Gaub or anyone else to measure ac-
crately students potential without subjecting the
child to lengthy session on the psychiatriss couch.
We suspect, on rereading the entire summer pro-
/ gram prospectus that it is nothing but glorfied
summer camp So let's be honest about it, Mr. Gaub
and Miss Satterfield Let's not deceive the taxpayers
into believing that there's any easy substitute for the
hard work involved in learning how to read, write
and spell.
You can talk all you want about motivation" and
Learning potential" But unless child learns now,
the hard way, that he must come up to certain
standard in the classroom, he will find that when he
leaves school and gets job all the psychological
terms in the world aren't going to help him if he fails
to DO his work the way his employer expects.
Now if officials in our school system would be
perfectly honest and tell us this Monocacy Program
was ZOE the sole purpose OF giving children two weeks
of nature study combined with science field trips and
the importance of conservation, it would make sense
There is such program conducted in Frederick
County schools All sixth grade children are taken to
Green Top, regular mountain camp owned by the
Crippled Children of Maryland, for five days during
the spring or fall The teacher goes with the students
and there are counseors from the State Teachers Col
lege who help This done during the regular school
year.
The children enjoy camp life from Monday to Fri
day. There Is no pretense of learning academic SUBJ
Jects. Furthermore, they go congenial classroom
group And when it is they asked to tell the
things they liked best and the things they liked least
about their week on the top of mountain One little
fellow said there wasn't "any least"
It is refreshing to talk to school officials who
speak plainly that communications are understand
able.
School officials in Montgomery County should be
perfectly honest in their detectives If they want to
provide interesting two-week period of nature study
where the kids will learn important things and have
some fun besides, then why don't they say so? Bu
they should not lead parents to believe that there
would be regular school subjects They aren't foolng
anyone but themselves if they think they 'hope to
follow up those youngsters in their regular classroom
studies in the future to see whether this summers
approach to learning has helped motivate them to
|. higher achievement"
We believe they are expecting too much for a two
week period.