Wednesday, March 25,1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
Police Beat
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The following were reported
to the University Police Depart
ment:
MISDEMEANOR THEFT:
• Five bicycles were reported
stolen.
• A backpack and a textbook
left unattended were reported
stolen from Lounge F.
• Two backpacks left unat
tended were reported stolen
from storage areas in Sbisa and
Commons dining halls.
• An officer noticed a stop
sign w'as removed from a campus
parking lot exit.
• A sapphire ring with di
amonds was found on the floor in
the shelving department of the
Sterling C. Evans Library after
being reported stolen from a lost-
and-found safe in the circulation
department.
• A student reported that her
moped had been stolen after
she’d lent it to a friend who never
returned it. An officer found the
moped undamaged two days
later, parked near a delicatessen
on Boyett Street.
BURGLARY OF A BUILDING:
• Several hundred dollars
worth of equipment were re
ported stolen from a grounds
maintenance building.
BURGLARY OF A HABITA
TION:
• Someone came in through
the window of a Hart Hall room
and removed the master keys to
the building.
HARASSMENT:
• A student confessed to mak
ing obscene phone calls after an
other student reported to police
that she suspected him of making
the calls.
• A Krueger Hall resident re-
E orted receiving phone calls at all
ours of the day and night since
the beginning of the semester.
• A student reported receiv
ing five harassing phone calls be
tween 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
ASSAULT:
• Two women reported they
were assaulted while visiting
friends in Cain Hall. Three Uni
versity police officers investigat
ing the incident the next day also
were assaulted by a man in Cain
Hall.
INDECENT EXPOSURE:
• A student reported that,
while studying in a second floor
lounge of Sterling C. Evans li
brary, the man sitting next to her
was masturbating.
PLACES WEAPONS PROHIB
ITED:
• An officer found a pistol in
the glove compartment of the ve
hicle he was towing. Police ar
rested the vehicle’s owner after
finding he had six outstanding
Department of Public Safety war
rants.
• Patroling officers stopped a
car traveling near the Research
Park and found a T 2-gauge shot
gun and a .22-caliber pistol inside
the car.
• A student reported seeing a
rifle hanging in the gun rack of a
pickup truck parked in a campus
parking lot.
Researcher working to facilitate use
of computers in work with children
By Sandra Saldivar
Reporter
If a child can learn to work on a
personal computer, then any adult
also should be able to operate the
machine, a computer scientist for
Apple Computer Corp. told over
100 people in Rudder Auditorium
Tuesday night.
Alan Kay is working with chil
dren, trying to discover how they
learn to use computers, in order to
try to help him build machines that
are easier for everyone to use.
Kay, who sometimes is referred to
as “the father of the personal com
puter,” has done research for over
10 years.
When Kay was at the Palo Alto
Research Center of Xerox Corp.
(PARC), he headed a group of
young computer scientists who de
veloped one of the very first per
sonal computers.
“None of us (researchers) ever
knew the computer could be used
sensibly at such young ages,” Kay
said.
The youngest user of a personal
computer Kay has seen was 17
months old.
The child found it easier to use
the “mouse,” a computer writing
tool, instead of a pencil to draw the
various designs on the screen.
A 22-month-old girl, who also
used the mouse, learned to store and
erase her designs on the screen.
These children didn’t know the
technical names of the keys they
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Alan Kay, computer scientist for Apple Computers, speaks in Rudder Auditorium Tuesday night.
were using, but they understood
how to work them, Kay said.
Children may find computers
easy to work with because they can
just plunge into new tasks without
worrying about doing the task incor
rectly, Kay said.
When people begin thinking too
much about a task, their bodies don’t
know what to do, he added.
Natural learning abilities occur
when a person concentrates on a
task and ignores any doubts over
success, Kay said.
“The parts of the body don’t know
English, so our minds must teach the
body,” Kay said.
The American education system
shouldn’t just teach about math and
science, but should force children to
apply what they learn, he said.
With computers, the brain not
only absorbs information but also
puts it to use, he added.
Kay’s latest computer concepts
have been adopted for the Macin
tosh by Apple Computer — where
he is now a research fellow — to
keep the personal computers easy to
use and versatile for everyone’s use.
The computers of tomorrow will
have what Kay calls “agents”
software that can do any number of
specified jobs, such as assembling a
personalized newspaper from data
bases or automatically shepherding a
memo through a bureaucracy and
letting its author know where it is.
Kay’s visit was sponsored by the
Texas A&M Macintosh Users Group
and the Apple Computer Corp.
, Brownsville tries to attract teachers with beach climate
in Page etfitp
■ SOUTH PADRE ISLAND (AP) — One
of t he state’s fastest growing school districts,
-*|<imbling to find 200 new teachers by fall,
Am: hopes the beach here that attracts college
<SWHa«> stuc j ents on spring break will bring them
back after graduation to work.
■ The Brownsville Independent School
District says it can’t find enough graduates
Ibcallv to fill its growing need for teachers.
So this year, it turned to the students party
ing in this Gulf Coast resort town.
■ “Love the beach, live and teach,” says a
billboard on the highway between Port Isa
bel and Brownsville.
The school district also bought radio
time and newspaper advertisements and
has placed brochures in businesses fre
quented by students.
“If I can get 15, I’d be really happy; 15 or
20, every little bit helps,” said Oscar Bar
bour, assistant superintendent for person
nel for the school district, on the border
with Matamoros, Mexico.
The BSID began recruiting students on
spring break last year and received more
than 5
50 responses
were hired.
Barbour said. A few
“We’re not getting the teachers (locally)
we need to staff our schools,” he said. “For
the last several years, we’ve had to go out of
state. There’s a shortage in Texas and rapid
growth in Brownsville.”
The school district has more than 2,000
professional teachers on its staff now and is
growing at the rate of a new school a year,
he said.
A middle school will open this year, two
elementary schools opened last year, and
the city’s fourth high school will open in
1988-1989, Barbour said. Another elemen
tary school is on the drawing board.
“As long as economic problems in Mex
ico continue and the maquiladoras keep
growing, we’ll continue to grow at the same
rate or more,” Barbour said.
He said the maquiladoras, or twin plants,
which operate on both sides of the border,
are responsible for part of the district’s
growth, along with a surge in people from
Mexico and a trickle from Central America.
The school district, in trying to convince
college graduates to move to Brownsville, is
promoting the sub-tropical climate, “the
beach, a good salary schedule, good work
ing conditions — we’re trying to keep class
sizes low,” Barbour said.
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MSC OPERA and
PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY
Presents
CLASSICAL AND BROADWAY PERFORMANCES
AND
WE WANT YOU
WHO:
ANYONE INTERESTED IN APPLYING
FOR THE OPAS STUDENT COMMITTEE
WHAT,
A MANDATORY NEW MEMBER
INFORMATION SESSION (IT IS ONLY
NECESSARY TO ATTEND ONE SESSION)
WHEN
AND WHERE:
MONDAY, MARCH 30,
ROOM 410 RUDDER TOWER
AT 7:00 P.M.
or
TUESDAY, MARCH 31,
ROOM 701 RUDDER TOWER
AT 7:00 P.M.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL:
SARA WALL 764-8279 OR 845-1515
Constitution & Foreign Policy:
A Question of Control
Moderator Howard K. Smith
Dr. leane Kirkpatrick
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Dean Rusk
Former Secretary of State under
Kennedy and johnson
Senator Edmund S. Muskie
Member of the Tower Commission,
Former Secretary of State
)
Wednesday, April 1, 1987
Rudder Auditorium 8:00 pm
Texas A&M University
.
ibMSC Wiley
Lecture Series
Texas A&M University
Officially fect>gni/<*d
on the Bkenrenmdl of Ticket Information: Rudder Box Office and Dillards Ticketron
Students: $6, $8, $10
the United States
Constitution
Non-Students: $8, $10, $12