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PAGE 14—FOCUS —— SAT., MARCH 6,1971Schools: Are They Relevant?Kids and jobs.Can the schools bridge the gap between one and the other?THE ANSWERS, depending on where you turn, vary.“When I get out of here I’m going to have the training to go looking for just the job I want,” said one Norwalk vocational education student.ON THE other hand:“I guess I’d have to say I really don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m a junior now and I can’t see where I’ve learned much that’s going to help me get whatever job I want,” admitted a disenchanted Port Clinton girl.Throughout the five-county Register region, reactions to questions concerning the value of education to today’s high school students parallel these disseparate views on the importance of school.Kids about to enter a grownup world tend to view existence outside the schools as a life market — a place where you bargain for those things which have value to you.THEY WANT changes — not serious ones — in the school systems. They are asking for different attitudes from the schools’ professional staffs. They want direction to the point where they will enter the life market. They want to be , ready. And they are asking these changes at a time when life styles, and life markets, are changing more rapidly than at any other time in the history of mankind.To find out some of the changes the kids are seeking today, The Register’s Young Horizons section asked some questions of some of the people who, in a few short years, be charged with directing the nation’s future.We asked them whether the school today are filling that historically traditional role of fitting with the major dilemmas of each segment of society; whether they see education as a time tunnel going to the heart of each need as it appears in the society of the era.SELECTEDBYschool administrators at the request of the Register, this week’s FOCUS panel .^•talked freely about the schools, their purpose in the changing society and the corresponding changes they’d like to see in the educational system.Included on the panel were:—Pat Kirnar, 17, Sandusky High senior—Sue Logan, 17, Edison High Junior attending EHOVE —Maryla Kerber, 18, Sandusky senior —Gaile Lasch, 17, Monroeville senior attending EHOVE — Glenn Shaw, 17, Sandusky junior —Ron Evans, 18, New London senior attending EHOVE.Their talk centers around the individual: making each person a better citizen while at the same time benefitting him or herself to the maximum degree.FOR INSTANCE, Ron Evans, preparing for a vocation in printing, views the purpose of today schools as teaching “a trade, so you will have that ■-•job.” However he disagrees with the current curriculum in that ‘‘schools should let you learn what you want to learn and not just what’s in all the texts they push on you.”* The three vocational students, including Ron, Sue Logan and GaileSUE LOGANLasch, each stress the need for having a definable skill and a job immediately upon graduation. That’s why, they say they attend EHOVE — the central vocational school for Erie, Huron and Ottawa Counties.GAILE, WHO’S studying to become a dental assistant, challenges the system based on what it’s doing to adapt kids to the life market. “What happened 50 or 100 years ago just isn’t that relevant to me. I believe subjects should be in keeping with the times and with the purpose being to prepare a graduate for a job.”Three members of the panel who say they are college-bound view the life market from another angle.For instance Pat Kirnar tells-us “Education should teach us to live in our society but to learn and understand things about the rest of the world. We need to see what’s happening today and why it’s relevant and important. ’’HOWEVER, Pat, who says she wants to major in elementary education, finds some fault with present teaching methods currently being used in some of her classes. “I especially can’t see how (the routine forced by) lesson plans are purposeful.”Students want to talk in class about what concerns them at that moment. Not if it is required by the state or not the trio agreed.MARYLA KERBER, 18, also planning an education career, thinks schools should prepare students for college, but offer a needed interface with the vocational world. “Schools should get us ready for college. But, if I wasn’t going to college, then I’d be stuck. Once you’re in college-bound courses, you can’t get out.”Allowing college-bound students to take business courses, accounting,GAILE LASCHshorthand, is one way Maryla sees that the schools should change.“Schools shouldn’t be split so vocationally and academically,” she added.NONE OF the six students believed that there should be a national education doctrine. But the academic trio considered a national curriculum requirement.The three pointed out how different colleges have varying requirements and that some high schools across the nation don’t have some included in their graduation requirements, say trigonometry.Once the sextet came up with their general consensus saying the purpose should be individualistic and not with the national policy or dilemma, FOCUS asked how they would change their system.Shorter school days, fewer or no study halls, better teaching techniques, and integrated schools were the most obvious changes these six youths wanted.“By getting out of school earlier,” said Sue Logan, who is studying to be a secretary, “having shorter study halls, practicality could survive. Kids could get a job after school instead of wasting their time in school.”ROBERT SMITH, superintendent of Sandusky schools, initiated a concept of dismissing students early if their last period of the day is a study hall.Huron High School has adopted the policy this year of allowing seniors to choose between staying in their last period study hall or leaving at two o’clock.“TEACHING should be more relaxed,” relayed Glenn Shaw, the youngest of the panel. “Teachers should be allowed to teach how they like and atPAT KIRNARall students’ rate of speed. Some just go too fast and only a few understand what’s being taught.”Pat Kirnar coupled Shaw’s ideas of relaxed, useful teaching. “Personally I’d go for open classroom — meaning, we’d have subject matter, but if a question or outside material was brought in, we’d discuss that if the class wanted to and forget about following those lesson plans. We’d tdlk about what kids want to know.”Gaile Lasche believes that there should be no discrimination in school — financial, race, creed, religion, or social. “First of all, students should be treated on an equal basis — no matter what color, name, or your past performance. Too many teachers judge you too personally. Like at Monroeville, names matter when it comes to grades. If you had a brother or sister who got in trouble in school or didn’t have top grades, automatically you’re compared and identified with him.”HIRING YOUNGER teachers not from the immediate area was one method of preventing discrimination suggested by Gaile. “Too many older teachers, are set in their own ways and nothing can change that,” she said.Today's students see the complexities of schools as a personal thing — a system which should be more tailored to the desires and needs of the individual as opposed to the assumption of homogenousness imposed on the jam-packed classroom.THEY SEE their entrance into the life market as serious. They are working toward that goal. They want all the help . the schools can provide.If they have their way, they will make changes. Which is what their fathers and forefathers did. They will again construct the time tunnel which will hopefully traditionally borrow to the heart of the job/education dichotomy.
Newspaper Details
Sandusky Register
Sandusky, Ohio, US
Sat, Mar 06, 1971
Page 17
Full Page
Clipped by
Sandusky P.
OH, USA 19 Jul 2023
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