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THE COLLEGE NEWS Page Five

Sponsor Schoolteaching Symposium
Panel Discussion
FeaturesV ariety

Friday, November 10, 1967.



McBride Praises
Computer Work





Of Techniques

Following a symposium on newly-
developed teaching techniques held Satur-
day morning November 4, in the Goodhart

‘ guditorium, Bryn Mawr students gathered

in the Common Room for a panel dis-
cussion featuring former graduates of
the College who have gone into the field
of education.

Moderated by Isota Tucker Epes, class
of 1940 and Headmistress of Shipley School,

“ the panel consisted of Mrs. Elizabeth Mon-

roe Boggs, class of 1935; Mrs. Martha
Fuller Chatterjee, °58; and Mrs. Dorothy
Bruchholz Goodman, ’46, All three have

* developed new methods in some field of

elementary education,
Mrs, Boggs, a Bryn Mawr European
Fellow with a Ph.D, in physical chemis-

try, has worked with retarded children. A’
-founder of the National Association for

Retarded Children, Inc., she is presently
serving by presidential appointment on the
Joint Commission of Mental Health.
-\ Although during her college years Mrs.
Boggs had expected to organize secondary
school education for intelligent students,
she later became interested in those on the
opposite end of the mental scale. Working
with the retarded, she believes, is one of
the most challenging fields in education
today because more and more research
is being done and because the teacher
here, more than anywhere else, must
guard against the temptation to succumb
to hopelessness and to’ blame the child
for his lack of progress. The teacher
must have infinite patience and be able to
survive the frustrations of his job. There-
fore not everyone is qualified. A program
called Student Work Experience and Train-
ing gives undergraduate and graduate
students a chance to work temporarily in
the field to see if they, are suited for it.
Mrs. Chatterjee has combined an in-
terest in education with a love of drama
and international affairs in her work asan
English teacher at the United Nations
School, She teaches children of forty dif-



photo by Bill Harris

Mrs. Thacher introduces the first event at the symposium. The panelists were

ferent nationalities with vastly different
cultural backgrounds and says that her job
is a very rewarding one, demanding a
great personal commitment, flexibility,
and a willingness to experiment. She
stresses the need for an active intellec-
tual interest in the subject and the teacher’s
ability to communicate it. In her class-
room, she tries to use drama to encourage
her students ‘‘to feel the life of the
written word.”

Mrs. Chatterjee is interested also in
the use of drama in teaching children
from disadvantaged areas. She told of
competitive street-corner dramatics for
teenage gangs, one of which performed so
well that it was taken to repeat the per-
formance at Expo ’67 in Canada this
summer,

Mrs. Goodman did graduate work in
Russian and Balkan studies and took her
Ph.D, at the University of London. After
several stints as a history professor at

‘all graduates of Bryn Mawr and the kids were from Germantown Friends.

American and Howard Universities, which
she found dissatisfying because of a lower
level of intellectual curiosity and stimu-
lation than she had known at Bryn Mawr
and Oxford, she founded the International
Bilingual Primary School in Washington,
D.C, two years ago.

The school’s function is to prepare its
students for admission to universities here
and abroad and is seeking to impose the
rigorous demands of the major national
systems onto an international system with
multilingual instruction. The school, which
started out with three students, now has
ninety-three children of thirty nationali-
ties, and nineteen teachers, only one of
whom is American. Teaching is conducted
part in English, and part in French or
Spanish. The children, who speak- their
second language all day, develop a great
proficiency in it.

Sue Averbach

The school teaching symposium culmin-
ated ina luncheon at Rhoads and a speech by
Miss McBride. Her topic was the use of the
computer in education.

The great advantage of the computer is
that it can give individualized attention to
every student. The computer makes it
possible to change mass education into a
one-to-one tutorial system.

This kind of teaching, tailored to the
needs of each student, is possible be-
cause the computer is not an unchange-
able’ textbook. Rather the computer
responds to the student -- teaches ata
rate at which he can learn, goes over
things he has problems with, does not
labor things he picks up quickly. The
student and the computer are essentially
talking to each other all the time.

Miss McBride said that the ‘‘computer
will make a greater difference in educa-
tion than any other technological inven-
tion.’? The only thing computers have not
yet been successfully programmed todois
to correct essay questions.

Computers not only can teach standard
subjects better than a teacher with 30 or
40 pupils can, it can teach new subjects
or combinations of subjects. The computer
can set up a simulated circumstance for
the child to face. For instance, a situa~-
tion can be devised -to teach the child
history, economics, decision-making pro-
cesses and empathy. The computer tells
the child that he is the king of a feudal
manor. Me has only a certain amount of
grain for the winter to divide among all
his people, Suddenly a neighbor is des-
perately in need of food because he is
being beseiged. What does the child king
do? .

The computer can be of great help in
teaching children from disadvantaged
areas who have what Miss McBride termed
‘personality problems with their teach-
ers.’”? Learning from a machine by-passes
conflicts that might otherwise arise if the
student is black and the teacher is white.

Kit Bakke

Psychiatric Services ... Undergrad Pres. Answers Queries

(Continued from page 2)
and spilling over with children).

and the psychiatrists, West House
performs a valuable service.
However, some students have

On Organizations Dues, Spending

Some are unable to cope with their
new freedom; these are given help
in time-organization. Some are
slow readers; for them, West House
offers a six-week reading-
improvement course, which em-
phasizes depth more than speed.

Sophomores have a special set
of problems, too. In the second
year, the newness of college has
worn off. A second-year student
is not yet in her major field and
may still be tangled up in require -
ments. It is at this level that West

_ House gets the most ‘‘Did-I-really -

come-to-the-right-place?’’ .cases.
The counselor helps the student
to decide whether this is a valid
question or is simply a tempor-
ary depression.

Juniors have a relatively trou-
ple-free year. Their position is
new enough to be interesting but
not so strange as to create prob-
lems. Their cases, which are less
frequent than those of the other
three classes, tend to be not aca~-
demic but social. For them, the
counselors recommend extra-cur-
ricular activities and opportuni-
ties for meeting people.

On the senior level, there is
again the problem of coping with
change. What is in the future?
is the general question, and the
counselor must help the student
weigh the rewards of alter-
natives.

Mrs. Rachel Cox, Director of
West House feets that the Stu-
dent Counselling Service is effi-

not purport to solve serious prob-

lems, but only to make difficult-

problems too involved for the Stu-
dent Counselling Service to deal
with. For these girls, Bryn Mawr
offers a psychiatric service lo-
cated in the infirmary.

Three consulting psychiatrists
come to the campus for six hours
a week. Students see the psy-
chiatrists for forty-five minute
sessions, anywhere from one to
fifteen times. The doctors try to
hold only five or six interviews,
because of the time press. (About
ten percent of the campus has
at one time sought out psychia-
tric aid, and the figure is steadily
Climbing.) If, however, a girl
clearly requires more intensive
therapy, the consulting psychia-
trist recommends an outside doc-
tor.

Outside care presents fresh dif-

‘ficulties. The student is respon-

sible for financing the extra ther-
apy herself; parents are the log-
ical source of funds but are not
always sympathetic towards psy-
chiatry for their child. Here the
school’s responsibility stops; as
in other things, Bryn Mawr can
help a girl only so far.

Maggie Crosby



“The Role of Students in
International Affairs Cur-
riculum Development.’’

Nov. 17, Airlie Confer-
ence Center, Warrenton, Va.

Interested . students
| should contact Mr. Kennedy
| of the political science de-
partment.







Since the beginning of October
Undergrad has been working on a
revision of finances and reconsid-
ering the stingy way we have been
spending money. There have been
two open meetings with NEWS
coverage; and reports ofhall reps,
minutes, and budgets in the dorms;
not to ‘mention a campus poll
reaching 2/3 of the campug. In
this article I am answering those
who complain that they do not
know where their fhoney is going
and how additional money would
be used; but I feel in a rather
frustrated fashion that if by now
-you don’t know it’s kind of. your
own fault.

First of all, the dues raise is
not meant to be the least amount
that will cover present expenses.
It is true that with rising costs
and with each organization using
all of its funds (and sometimes
more), we need a $2.00 raise
anyway. However, we are sug-
gesting that we almost double the
dues. At the moment each stu-
dent pays $14.00 per year. $25.00
would solve many of our prob-
lems, and in the hall polls 85%
of the campus supported this
change.

There are many reasons justify-
ing a raise. First the concrete
pleas of the Big Six, some of
whom resort to selling cookies
(5¢ apiece - what a rook) to try
to make ends meet, They need
more money to continue with their
present projects, and, above all,

‘to expand. Arts Council wants the

money for speakers, more Hallo-
ween-type parties, more Art

Shows, a small (but good) concert
(folk singer? jazz?) and money for
groups that come begging (the
New Chamber Music Orchestra).
Curriculum Committee needs
extra money even this year to
pay for the duty work of self-
scheduled exams, and they want to
plan a seminar but have no money
for publicity. League spends over
$300.00 every year for the col-
lege station wagon for tutoring in
Philadelphia, and often the station
wagon is unavailable. They need
a car. Dance Club and Sailing
Club beg AA’ for more funds’ so
that Dance Club won’t have to
charge admission and so individual
membership fees in Sailing Club
will be less than $50.00. Alliance,
too, wants money, to sponsor con-
ferences on campus (Black Arts?),
for BMC registration in other con-
ferences (note: not traveling ex-
penses, etc.), for good NAME
speakers, and - especially impor-
tant in an election year - publicity
and transportation costs to get
students involved in local politics.

Those are the Big Six’s demands
but there are others too. Little
clubs need money to start (de-
bate), existing clubs sometimes
need more money for a particular
project (Exchange Committee), and
sometimes they sponge off their
counterparts in neighboring
schools (eg. Haverford). Under-
grad needs money for new pro-
jects (eg. a one volume Fresh-
man Handbook, constitutions, Aca-
demic and Library regulations,
Student Director, and picture book
for all students).



And most of all - SOCIAL
CHAIRMAN: Sure, we want more
things going on on campus and
with other schools; but at the mo-
ment, there is money left for only
one big mixer. Not only that, but
we impose on Haverford’s funds to
an embarrassing extent. We
haven’t money for a formal dance,
or for entertainment after con-
certs (or for concerts), or for




limited activities such as picnics
at Batten, not to mention Valley
Forge, bridge, chess, tennis, and
stretch tournament-mixers.

Does this sound like a list of’
petty demands? I hope not; it’s
all part of a conspifacy to fight
apathy and generally support what
community spirit does exist on
the.zampus. How can we feel much
besides academic and dorm ties
if our whole extracurricular pro-

(Continued on page a