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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1984)
v Texas A&M Mens Intercollegiate Soccer Mandatory Organizational Meeting Aug. 31 Friday 5:00 pm Room 167 East Kyle Officer Elections Discuss fall Activities If attending please call Chuck Holder 260-1294 or Dave Evan 764-8154 Petal Patch your complete Florist v eVe oew your headquarters for all your sorority and gift notions^ Page 4B/The Battalion/Friday, August 31, 1984 Computers: new teacher’s aid G//K ^°£q Shoestrings p *ct s Buttons p r op bags Greek Ribbon Post Oak Village 764-0091 United Press International The electronic schoolhouse is a fact of education, a report from the National School Boards Association says. Such a schoolhouse contains com puters, videotape recorders, cable television hookups, video discs and other technology linking it to the world of telecommunication. Some schools even operate in- house television stations and have links that connect school computers with home computers. Few schools nave all these things, but it would be hard to find one free of minimal trappings of the compu- terized-electrotncized era, the report on a nationwide survey shows. Use of computers for instruction in public schools is spreading fast, but policies and procedures to guide the schools in their use lag behind, said the report. It was conducted in cooperation with the National Insti tute of Education. Of 236 local school board presi dents responding, 96 percent said their school districts use microcom puters for instruction. But 86 per cent had no board policy or guideline in the selection of course ware or software. Nearly 80 percent said computers are being used for math; 48 percent, for spelling; 39 percent, for science; 25 percent, for writing. Other survey Findings: • 89 percent use local funding to buy computer hardware; 74 percent also use federal funding and 58 per cent also use state funds. In 29 per cent of the districts funding is sup plemented by parent groups and in 14 percent, by other private sources. • Among those cited as “strongly encouraging” the use of computers were superintendents, principals and teachers, 92 percent; local school boards, 66 percent; parents, 60 percent; computer manufactur ers, 20 percent. • 79 percent of the presidents said computers have not changed the methods or content of instruc tion in their schools. But 17 percent said computers have altered meth ods or content in mathematics, busi ness education, English or the sci ences. • 35 percent said computers have enabled students to take advanced or different courses not otherwise available to them, such as computer science and literacy, programming and mathematics. • 84 percent of the school dis tricts use videotape recorders; 52 percent have cable television, and 20 percent use video discs and other technology. • half the board presidents re ported school computers are avail able for use after school hours to families that do not own home com puters. In 44 percent of the districts, instruction is given to parents on the home-education use of computers. The report said 10 to 15 percent of families have home computers, used as follows; entertainment, 89 percent; education, 85 percent; busi ness, 60 percent; family finances, 41 percent. The total is larger than 100 percent since most families reported multiple uses. Stars scared on 1st day of school United Press International LOS ANGELES — Despite the confidence they display before millions in their adult years, ce lebrities asked to recall their first day at school described the expe rience as anxiety-filled and terri- fying. Olympic gold medal winner Bruce Jenner said he was the most terrified kid in town. Catherine Bach, who stars in the “Dukes of Hazzard,” said she gussied up for her first big day of school in Rapid City, S.D. “My mother was a teacher in the school and spent a lot of time preparing me for school,” Bach said. “I wore high heels and a new dress made by my mother — red and white polka dot. “I got to the stairs and I knew I was in for something and hid be hind my mother and 1 almost toppled over in those high heels they wore in the ’50s. The teacher came out to the front steps and coaxed me in, ‘Oh, come in, honey.’ And I said, ‘No. I’m not going in.’ “I was kicking and screaming and then, when I realized it was inevitable, I straightened up be cause I knew I was never going to cry in front of the other kids. I went into the classroom with the teacher holding my hand. She sat me down and by recess I was making a few friends. We were all pretty much in the same boat. “I was scared to death of all these big people and that big building. I hadn’t been far from my own home and our own block. “By the second week, I couldn’t wait to get to school.” “I remember most that I was al ways always afraid of falling down the steps,” the comedian re called. “But just in case, I always wore clean underwear in case 1 had to go to the nurse after fall ing down the steps.” Sid Caesar also recalled his first impression of the teacher. “I remember the teacher had long, curly hair, glasses and she looked like somebody from the ‘Three Musketeers,”’ he said. His first problem? “I could never make a figure eight,” he said. “1 couldn’t re member whether it started right to left or left to right so I put two zeros on top of each other.” Cieorge Cnakiris, who won an Academy Award for his role as Bernardo in “West Side Story,” also remember vividly that first day of school in the Arizona de sert of Tucson more than 40 years ago. "What comes to mind first is 1 re member sitting in class and there was this kid next to me named Edgar who was so very shy he wet his pants,” Chakiris said. “I re member I felt so embarrassed for him. I saw this puddle develop under this kid. “I also remember that the older kids teasing and scaring the new kids with dead snakes they found on the way to school. I learned to stay away from the older ones.” J Mines Back To School Blow Out} Working parents find day care inaccessible Welcomes Back the Rggies Mike's Discount Liquor 900-2 G HorvGY Huuy- 30 693-801 2 * * * * * * ^Bacardi Light Rum 80° 1.751 J^Jack Danielssiack Sour Mash Whiskey 90°.751 ^Seagrams 7 American Whiskey 80° 1.751 ^McCormick 80° vodka 1.751 ^Canadian L.T.D. 80° Canadian Ulhisk«v 1.7 51 )f<oke. Diet Coke, Sprite & 7-Up £ liter (limit £) Jf. * * * * * * $12.99 J $9.89 T $12.99 J $7.59 * $10.49 * $.99 ^ * ^Come sec Mik0 for discounts throughout tho ^ ^storo and groat soloction uuhilo supplies 3^lost...cr0dit cord odd 5% on solo itoms. * ^ if Sole €nds Sot. Sept. 1, 1984 J United Press International CHICAGO — Middle-income sin gle parents and working couples who need day care for children in preschool years and primary grades are finding they get little help from schools, businesses or any kind of government. The choices are live with it or have an income low enough to to be eligi ble for state and federal subsidies. “It is now more necessary for both parents to work to raise a child,” said Sue Howell, chief of the office for child development at the Illinois De partment of Children and Family Services, but “as fhr as a state-subsi dized program (for middle-income parents), there really is nothing at this point.” Howell said the federal child care tax credit does not offer much relief at this point. Lower-income families tend to fill school and church sponsored day care programs that are government- endowed or tied to larger aid pro gram for the parents themselves. A few companies are exploring the possibility of providing or subsi dizing day care for their employees, but most working parents are on their own. Parents “cope in as many individ ual ways as they possibly can,” said Karen Wellisch, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Na tional Organization of Women. “It’s a truism that there are never enough services for women to be full-time workers in the work place,” she said. “The kinds of things we need are both before and after school programs.” “They want something reliable, something they can trust,” Howell said. “It’s difficult to leave your child in someone else’s care for eight, nine hours a day.” Some state and federal subsidies are available for low-income parents. In Illinois, the maximum subsidy is $10.93 a day, with a dollar more for infant care. Other states have similar programs. One program that has govern ment financed slots is the St. Vincent De Paul Day Care Center on Chi cago’s North Side, which has been serving the community since 1915 as a day care center for working par ents. Day care “was a rare thing in those days,” said Sister Patricia Finerty, administrator of the St. Vincent De Paul center. “We started by helping immigrant mothers working in fac tories.” St. Vincent takes in 480 children, ranging in age from four months to 11 years, and requires the parents ei ther to be attending school or work ing full time. There are 800 children on the waiting list, resulting in a wait of up to two years for many families. The public school system has no special programs to aid working par ents, such as after-school programs. The problem is money, a plight shared with other cities. In New York City, for example, the school system does not provide any form of day care service for working mothers. The Denver school system also of fers no day care for mothers with school-age children, but some help is provided with a free adult education program that serves about 30,000 Denver residents. One program pays the cost of school, transportation and child care for qualified low-income mothers while they attend “fast track” classes designed to give them basic job skills in two to six months. Some parochial schools, chiefly in about disadvantaged areas, offer after school programs, said Levert King, program coordinator for early child- nood programs for the Chicago Ro man Catholic archdiocese. “All of the programs are located in parishes, and most of them are on the (parochial) school premises,’’ King said. “Each parish has its own number of (federally) funded slots for low-income families who are working.” King said there are also parishes that conduct their own day care pro grams, without federal funds. On the corporate front, Baxter- Travenol Laboratories Inc. has a pi lot program in which the company partially subsidizes day care for the children of employees working at its corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Ill., said Chuck Ebeling, director of corporate communications for Baxter-Travenol. “We don’t operate our own cen ter,” he said. “We provide a partial subsidy to enable the working par ents to drop their child off at the (public) center,” which is located about one mile from the offices. I he year-old program has ser 5 parents and “enablei number of our people to contii working here,” Ebeling said. “Wi still operating what essentially is a lot program,” and a rare progran that. Rudder Tower jSffisrt* 0 Where Can You Dash For Cash— 24 Hours A Day? •Between Rudder Tower and the MSC on campus •Behind Culpepper Plaza in College Station •At Texas Ave. and 29th St. in Bryan With a FirstNet card or any other FHil%4F member Bank Card, you get fast cash day or night. The Rudder Tower campus location makes getting cash even faster now for Texas A&M University students, staff, and faculty. If you are not on campus when you need cash, there are two more convenient locations in Bryan-College Station: behind Culpepper Plaza on Dominik and at First City Bank on the corner of Texas Avenue and 29th Street. We Did It! 'ome see why we bought at the #1 development in town. Visit Cripple Creek Condominiums today! BKarp: CONDOMINIUMS Developed by Stanford Associates, Inc. 904 University Oaks #56 College Station 779-8682/846-5741 Models Open Mon. thi 10 a.m. til Sunday 1 p.m. till Battalion Classified 845-2611