"The Drivel Poured Out"

"More and more young people with good minds simply cannot take the drivel poured out by schools of education."

This is the considered opinion of white-thatched Joel Hildebrand, 75, of the University of California. Hildebrand, a highly respected chemist, is one of the tartest critics of the life-adjustment and how-to-get-along kind of education being dished up by some of the nation's schools and teachers' colleges. Last week his horrible example was a 395-page teachers' manual published by the Chicago public-school system and put together by Paul R. Pierce, now a professor of education at Purdue. The manual bears the formidable title Source Materials of the Educational Program: A Guidebook of Living and Learning Experiences. In the six years it took to produce it, no less than 100 people contributed to it, but to Joel Hildebrand it is one of the most fantastic distortions of education "I have ever seen."

If the authors entertain the notion that traditional subject matter has any validity, they give scarcely a hint of it. They begin by outlining the "scope" of the curriculum in terms of nine "major functions of living"--"Practicing American Citizenship, Using the Tools of Communication, Developing Economic Competence, Improving Family Living, Protecting Life and Health, Building Human Relationships, Enjoying Wholesome Leisure, Satisfying Spiritual and Aesthetic Needs, and Meeting Vocational Responsibilities."

44 Brands of Listening. According to the manual, a high-school social-studies class is just the place to take up such weighty matters as "sharing in making necessary repairs in the home" and "acquiring the realization that all lines of work have problems and responsibilities, as well as pleasures and rewards." If the student is expected to know much of anything about history aside from some fatuously chauvinistic scraps out of the American past, the manual does not say. Under the high-school section "Using Tools of Communication Effectively," Hildebrand counted 44 items on "listening," e.g., "listening to a telephone conversation," "listening to the words of a song." He also noted under "Using Mathematics" such items as "counting change as cashiers do" and "opening a checking account and making out deposit slips." Bottom ways of "using mathematics": "making geometric constructions" and "forming and using equations to solve problems."

In the subject called "language arts," high-school students might spend time "reading messages on movie and television screens to check their accuracy and relevancy" and "reading invitations, greeting cards." They can also master "using sign language" so they can interpret "directions indicated by hand or head signals," "the sign language of animals" and "traffic lights." Under the major function of "developing economic competence," they may learn about "returning things borrowed from fellow classmates promptly" (social studies), "operating audiovisual equipment" (science), "telling how a department store facilitates trade" (mathematics) and "observing 'Do It Yourself programs" (practical arts). Social studies can also include "greeting parents and other members of the family with affection," while science can mean "proper methods of ventilating home."

Initiate, Develop, Cultivate. Who decides what "study unit" to take up? Why, says the guidebook, mostly the pupils themselves. But once they have made their choice, e.g., "Building Good Relationships with Our Parents" in an eighth grade social-studies class, they are in for an elaborate process. First comes "initiating the unit," i.e., discuss why bother with it?, then "developing the unit" by 1) deciding on its objectives, e.g., "to cultivate the social customs which are necessary for gracious living," 2) planning the work, e.g., "select pupil personnel for the various activities," 3) carrying out the activities, e.g., "making a list of good family shows on television and radio" and 4) integrating the work "with other learning areas," e.g., under arithmetic, "refraining from making unnecessary requests for money." Finally comes "culminating the unit," possibly by "presenting skits from the unit in assembly program."

Even though Chicago's more discriminating teachers may indulge in this nonsense only sparingly, it will still take time enough away from subjects like history, chemistry and physics. Besides, says Joel Hildebrand, "why write it all down? Why make teachers read this stuff? The flabby condition of education demonstrated in this book is going to put us behind the Russians in more areas than the military."

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