THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1978
Page 3
S
Administrators queried on basics
Survey shows ‘Three R’s are dead’
The “Three R’s” are dead.
At least that’s what 149 Texas
school administrators said in a sur
vey conducted by two Texas A&M
University researchers.
The poll, conducted by Dr. Les
ter S. Richardson and Research As
sociate Bob Carruthers, asked 209
Texas school leaders what subjects
should be included in a basic educa
tion.
“If Texas educators reflect the
mood of administrators across the
country, the ‘Three R’s’—readin’,
writin’, and rithmetic—will have to
be changed to readin’, ’rithmetic
and personal hygiene,” said
Richardson, educational administra
tion professor at Texas A&M. “The
only R’ all the educators could
agree on was reading.”
Educators were asked what they
would do if their budgets had been
drastically reduced and they could
County agents attend
refresher courses here
By SCOTT PENDLETON
Battalion Staff
Over 1,000 staff members of the
Texas Agricultural Extension Serv
ice are on campus for a week of
speeches, tours, and refresher
courses.
The staff members are county
agents of the Extension Service.
Their job is to demonstrate the
latest innovations to farmers in their
area.
During the week-long confer
ence, the agents will attend one of
41 refresher courses on topics such
as “sheep and goat production” and
“weed identification and control.”
Courses on photography, creative
(writing, and visual arts will also be
| offered to help the agents communi-
| cate more effectively with farmers in
! their area.
The tours are intended to
!familiarize the agents with Texas
A&M. For many, the biennial con
ference is their only opportunity to
visit the campus.
“The conference also helps gen
erate an esprit de corps,” said Dr.
William Tedrick, head of Agricul
tural Communications. The county
agents can see that they are part of a
larger organization with important
goals. The conference allows them
to talk to each other and exchange
ideas. “A&M is their home office,”
Tedrick said.
As a land-giant college, A&M
administers the Extension Service,
though apart from the teaching
facilities.
only teach the basics, Richardson
explained. They were given a ques
tionnaire with 85 courses which
ranged from arithmetic to sex edu
cation and with 11 major headings
such as as science, social science and
foreign language.
“We figure with all this talk about
going back to the basics’ we could
find out what the basics were,”
Richardson added. “We couldn’t.”
“The response from the survey
showed that the basics in education
have yet to be defined,” Carruthers
siad. “Until the definitions are
made, school boards in Texas are
wasting their time trying to go back
to the basics. It’;s obvious they can’t
agree on what they are.”
“One of the things this shows is
school boards have to define what
the basics are on a local level,” he
added. “You can’t make one set of
basics fit everyone. It’s obvious a
basic education in Houston wouldn’t
be what’s considered a basic educa
tion in Bug Tussel. ”
Both Richardson and Carruthers
point out that there is some danger
The conference started Tuesday in school districts throwing their
morning with a general meeting in
Rudder Auditorium. Dr. Jack
Williams, chancellor of the Texas A
& M University System, welcomed
the conferees in a general speech
about tjre lessons of history and the
importance of economic freedom.
Other speakers this week include
Dr. Lome Parker, director of in
structional communications at the
University of Wisconsin; Dorothee
Poison, food editor of The Arizona
Republic; and Dr. W. Neill Schal-
ler, acting deputy director for Ex
tension, USD A Science and Educa
tion Administration.
The closing session Friday will
feature presentation of the Knapp-
Porter Award. The award, the high
est given by the Extension Service,
recognizes outstanding contribu
tions to agriculture and family living j
in Texas.
curricula into reverse and heading
for the ‘basic education’.
“The danger with the back-to-
basics idea is that in some cases you
wind up throwing the baby out with
the bath-water, Carruthers mused.
“In other words, we wind up losing
some of the good things we’ve got
ten, along with the bad. What we
need is the best of both.”
“People tend to look at a basic
education as a cure-all,” added
Richardson. “There is no cure-all in
education. The basics will change as
the times change.”
The top ten selections the
educators made are: 1) reading; 2)
arithmetic; 3) personal hygiene; 4)
writing-cursive; 5) biology; 6) life
time sports; 7) life science; 8) state
history; 9) civics and 10) earth sci
ence.
Sports fans will be interested to
note that football was ranked 21st
out of 50, just below geometry.
Economics, which is a required cur
riculum subject in grades 1-12 in
Texas, was ranked below auto
mechanics, in the number 30 posi
tion.
HSIHSS CUUft
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