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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1989)
Thursday, June 15,1989 The Battalion Pages ississippi fights illiteracy ith classroom computers ASSOCIATED PRESS the country, helping an estimated A prime weapon against illiteracy the computer. Far from being a rich child’s toy, e machine is touching children in I reaches of society, freeing teach- § for one-on-one attention to stu- mt! and helping unlock the written erd to many from illiterate back- minds. The state of Mississippi, with one of the highest rates of illiteracy in e nation, is putting computers into very school in the state in an effort teach basic reading and writing kills to every child. The first com- uters will be in classrooms this fall, d all the state’s elementary schools ill be equipped within four years. The state is using the “Writing to ead” program developed by a re- red educator, John Henry Martin, ind produced and marketed by BM. The company says it has been ut into at least 5,000 schools across one million schooFchfldren. In designing the program, which uses computers, audio cassettes, and typewriters, Martin sought to repli cate the comfortable interaction of the one-room schoolhouse. His own experience as a young teacher and with his later researchlnto how chil dren learn convinced him that a less structured atmosphere, not bound off by age and set curriculum, en courages children to learn better, at their own pace. Moving from one “work station” to the next, children first learn basic phonemes, or letter-sound combina tions, through computers and ear phones; familiar objects are illus trated and matched to written and oral words. Audio tapes at the next work station reinforce what they’ve learned at the computer, and the fol lowing one, the library station, famil- Hungarian officials announce new stance on failed 1956 revolt BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — [Every time Budapest residents pass a kiosk or street stall these days, a new book or article about Imre Nagy and the failed revolt he led against Stali nism in 1956 seems to have hit the [stands. The outpouring of literature, ac- [companied by lapel pins, postcards and large photographs showing the bespectacled face of Nagy, rep resents a national catharsis over the short-lived revolt. It was crushed by Soviet tanks and rarely discussed in [public for almost 33 years. “It’s as if more than 32 years of [collective amnesia have suddenly lifted,” a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “Even the people who were on the side of put ting down the revolt now suddenly remember where they were and what they did, and are speaking [about it.” The ruling Communist Party, [which under former General Secre tary Janos Kadar executed Nagy and his associates in 1958, has rehabili- ;tated Nagy in all but name. The party praised him in a May 31 statement as a symbol of commu nist reform and a “significant fig- jure” in Hungarian history. Ten days later, the supreme prosecutor ap plied for the legal rehabilitation of Nagy and nine of his associates, say ing they were unjustly imprisoned, unfairly tried and illegally execut ed. Nagy and his associates were bur- Group says death squads still operating LONDON (AP) — Guatemala’s army and police continue to oper ate death, torture and abduction squads, despite the rise of the ci vilian government in 1986 that pledged to end political killings, Amnesty International said Wednesday. The London-based human rights organization said it has re ports of 222 people who have dis appeared since President Vinicio Cerezo took office. Cerezo, a centrist Christian Democrat and Guatemala’s first civilian leader in 20 years, took power pledging to end killings, intimidation and other abuses of past military governments. Wealth is concentrated with a military-backed business and landowning minority. The im poverished majority are mainly Mayan Indian peasants. An Amnesty International spokesman said Cerezo was not apparently directly involved in the death squads, but his govern ment failed to investigate the kill ings. Officials to consider Georgians’ request MOSCOW (AP) — Premier Ni kolai I. Ryzhkov told Meshki Turks on Tuesday, after 10 days of ethnic violence, that a commis sion will consider their request to return to Soviet Georgia from four decades of exile in Uzbekis tan. The official news agency Tass said Ryzhkov toured a refugee camp outside Fergana where sev eral thousand Meshki sought safety after 90 people were killed and nearly 1,000 were injured in riots and attacks involving Turks and Uzbeks. Officials said most of the victims belonged to the ethnic Turkish minority. Boris Mikhailov, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told report ers in Moscow that 748 houses had been burned, 28 buildings of “economic significance” set ablaze and 974 people injured. Mikhai lov said 90 people had perished, including one policeman. Britain pledges to help stop rhino poaching LONDON (AP) — Britain will do all it can to stop the poaching of Africa’s endangered black rhi noceroses, Environment Minister Lord Caithness said Tuesday. But he also called on individu als to help end the illegal trade in rhinoceros horns. “We will certainly do at the government level what we can be cause this is a very serious ques tion,” Caithness said at the launch of an appeal fund for the charity Rhino Rescue. “A government can only do a certain amount. People pressure, rather than gov ernment pressure, is the solu tion.” The black rhino is threatened because poachers can sell a single horn for as much as $25,000. The horns are used as tradi tional medicines and aphrodisiacs in Asia and as ceremonial dagger handles in the Middle East. Only about 4,000 black rhinos remain in Africa, compared with an estimated 65,000 in 1970. ied in unmarked graves in a corner of a Budapest cemetery, but they will be reburied on June 16 in an elab orate, nationally televised ceremony. Tens of thousands of Hungarians, including emigres returning for the occasion, are expected to jam Buda pest’s Heroes’ Square for ceremo nies. In a move much joked about by Budapest’s increasingly outspoken media, authorities have even re moved a giant nearby statue of So viet founder Vladimir I. Lenin, but insist this is only because it urgently needs repair. Some Hungarians are tempted to see parallels between Nagy’s reburial and the reburial early in October 1956 of former foreign minister Laszlo Rajk, executed in a Commu nist Party purge in 1949. Then, as now, upheaval in Poland and a revision of Stalinist history in the Soviet Union helped unsettle Hungary. The crowds at Rajk’s funeral on Oct. 6, 1956, became the emotional force behind the uprising from Oct. 23 to Nov. 4. Historian Ferenc Toekei, a mem ber of %he party’s Central Committee and one of four people investigating the events of 1956 for the party, said in an interview that “history never repeats itself.” “It is simply unimaginable that in the foreseeable future we could ex pect an armed uprising,” he said. Emotions over 1956 clearly play a part in today’s politics, however. iarizes them with written English. They then use this knowledge to write stories based on their own oral language at the writing/typing sta tion. At the final station, children ex periment with new combinations of letters and words to develop word building skills, using many media — pencil, chalk, clay, rubber stamps, and so on. The aim is to expose chil dren to all wavs of writing. “We don't know from one child to the next which child learns best by seeing, by hearing, by feeling, or by holding, and we want to engage ev erything in the child,” Martin says. Children are not intimidated by the computer, and because the pro gram lets each one move ahead at his own speed, that child has no fear of failure. “The children know they are teaching themselves.” They learn to type even as they learn to recognize the letter symbols. Martin says that by avoiding the la bor of forming letters by hand, chil dren can concentrate on what they want to say. He estimates that kindergartners have vocabularies of around 1,000 words when they start school. “To reduce them to a hundred words in a primer is to ask them to go back to eating pablum. “There are a half million words in English — a magnificent intellectual achievement. But when you mess it up with all the peculiar spellings we use in English as a way of having children learn — to have them en code to write, then have them de code to read — you take the logic out of the system and you confuse things.” The children go straight to writ ing for meaning, spelling phonemi- cally. Later they easily learn ac cepted spellings. The program has been adapted for Spanish-speaking students — Voy a Leer Escribiendo, or VALE — and for functionally illiterate adults — Principle of Alphabet Literacy, or PALS. Martin, former chairman of the National Panel on High School and Adolescent Education of the Depart ment of Health, Education and Wel fare and the U.S. Office of Educa tion, developed the program on a personal computer while recovering from a heart attack in 1973. IBM agreed to produce and market the program, with Martin’s stipulation to run field tests first, under direc tion of the Education Testing Serv ice of Princeton, N.J. Students find new interest in environment ASSOCIATED PRESS Environmental studies — trendy in the early 1970s but dropped by many colleges for lack of interest — have moved back into the academic mainstream. New interest may have been trig gered by concerns about the threats to the ozone layer and by incidents like the Valdez oil spill, colleges say, but the more likely reason is that the field is maturing. “The typical environmental activ ist has been succeeded by the stu dent with purely academic analytical skills,” says Ortwin Renn, professor of environment, technology and so ciety at Clark University in Worces ter, Mass. Students today focus more on integration of technical and pol icy issues. “They are not advocates but people who understand science and the issues and can argue their cases effectively.” The most serious work is being done among his graduate students, many of them on sabbatical from en vironmental posts in agencies or pri vate firms, returning to school for advanced scientific study. “There is renewed interest in en vironmental issues, though it seems to be coming from our international studies students rather than our bi ology majors,” says Steve Anderson, professor of biology at the Univer sity of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. “Students are taking a more global view of the world situation, recogniz ing that the world’s political and eco nomic issues have definite environ mental components." Bowdoin College, Antioch Uni versity, and Hood College are among colleges reporting increased enrollments for environmental stud ies. Bowdoin, at Brunswick, Me., says the number of environmental stud ies majors has quadrupled in the last three years. “Some of our most ded icated students come from areas of major pollution. For example, we have several eager students from Chesapeake Bay,” says Edward Laine, director of its environmental studies program. Mitchell Thomashaw, co-chair of Antioch’s environmental studies at its New England Graduate School in Keene, N.H., also reports a dramatic increase in enrollment for its pro gram. 308 N. Main Bryan Tues.-Sun. 9:30 a.m.-8:45 p.m. Closed Monday 779-8702 4004 Harvey Rd. College Station Tues.-Sun. IIKX) a.m.-9:45 p.m. Closed Monday 776-8979 Sunday thru Thursday Thru July 6,1989 | 2 for 1 special S Buy one dinner and get the second value j FREE Nos good with any other special or coupon Please present coupon when ordering .Pine in only. All grilled meats, tajjtaj, se*-| I food and alcohol not included. Problem Pregnancy'? •IVe (Lsten, We care. 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