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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1968-05-30, Page 9FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1968 Many features at open house The $2,200,000 addition to South Huron District High School will be officially unveiled at a special open house next Week. On Monday night, area civic officials and other invited guests will attend a banquet at the school for the formal part of the week's activities. The general public are Invited to functions on Wednes- day, including a barbecue sponsored by the school's agri- culture department. This at one time was an annual affair and is being revived this year. After the dinner, the public will have an opportunity of viewing the new facilities, featuring the latest in modern equipment and teaching aids. The equipment to be found, and the-type of instruction received by the students; is detailed in this special supple- ment. A fashion show will be held at the school during the afternoon of May 29 and during the evening after the bar- becue there will be gymnastic displays, two plays, per- formances by the school choir and demonstrations in various shops. The Times-Advocate wishes to extend sincere thanks to the staff and students at SHIMS for their co-operation and assistance in preparing this special supplement so parents and the general public will know more about their school. Special thanks also goes to the advertisers, who gen- erously donated their normal advertising space to permit us to produce this comprehensive report for the residents of the area. Pictured below is an artist's sketch of the entire South Huron District High School as it now stands with the add- tion completed. • • a yew. School tries to give youths la place to .stan 0 p • WQQ. PPINc/PAL Four asPePts of the seq.- ondary school make It the most difficult level of edu- cation with which to cope. The four areas with which this brief article Will On - cern itself could be given as folloWs: 1, The problem of aims or goals. In other words the pUrPose of secondary edu- cation. 2. The technological re- volution in education, 3. The secondary school student's time of life. 4. The heterogeneous compesition of the second- ary school's population. It is suggested that these four areas of consideration, among others, contribute to the very difficult situation that secondary educ at io n finds itself in at the present time. In terms of aims or pur- poses it seems fairly safe to suggest that the element- ary school has a function that has not changed in its funda- mental aspects. The essen- tial objective remains, that being the development of the child's capacity to read, to write, and to manipulate numbers. In other words the child is taught to master basic tools. Certainly the elementary level of education exposes the child to greater or less- er amounts of science, hist- ory and geography. Indeed, it is possible to expose eight and nine year olds, with prof-- it, to set theory, quadratic functions, the conservation laws in physics, foreign lan- guages and other such sub- ject areas. The elementary school in- itiates the child into the for- mal learning situation and its major problem is not one of fundamental aims, it is rather in the area of tech- nique or methods. Similarly the Universi- ties, the professional schools and the other third level institutions are able to establish, with some degree of clarity, their objectives. The professional schools are engaged in the process of training doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers, etc. The Universities have their tra- ditional roles as well as some new ones imposed by a technologically oriented so- ciety. The secondary schoo 1, however, faces a problem when defining its purposes or aims. Is its main purpose to dispense the traditional lib- eral arts subjects? Should it inculcate the t rad i tio nal moral and ethical values of society? Does it prepare the student for University? for the trades? for business? Is it a trade school? Is it es- sentially an academic in- stitution? In other words there is no easily enunciated objective or easily expressed philoso- phical base for secondary education. Thi8 is a major concern since it is very dif- ficult to arrive at answers to questions about what is to be taught, how it is to be taught, when it is to be taught until some answer has been developed to the question of why we have the school at all. In the modern secondary school the only possible so- lution is to arrive at a phil- osophical position that deals separately with the great variety of programs. 6o that for the technical or com- mercial aspectS we have one set Of goals Slid for the aca- demic subjects other goals. What is lacking in public education, as in the cam•• niunity at large, is a unify- ing point of view. The com- munity is pluralistic, the school is pluralistic. The community is relativistic and pragmatic; the school Must reflect its society and is therefOre, also relutivlsr tic and PragMatIc, The secondary school has trattItIoaettY he0a :4111eStitar tiOn abOplUte rules And has been roptivated'by well defined :.ohjectives; :for eN, ample one. of the duties of a teacher is "to inculcate by precept and example respect for religion and the prin, Cipl9S of Phrtstlaa moral- ity and .the highest regard for truth, justice, loyalty, love of country, humanity, J. L. WOODEN benevolence, sobriety, in- dustry, frugality, pur it y, temperance and all other virtues." .This, in a society which is post Christian and relat- ivistic in its morality. An- other example: the second- ary school teaches history in a society that collective- ly considers the past irrele- vant. It would be possible to pursue this problem of the aims or purposes of the sec- ondary school further, how- ever, the point has bee n made. The school functions within a community and must reflect the community's pur- poses. Suffice it to say that at this point society's purposes are ill defined consequent- ly, how would the school's be otherwise? If there is a confusion of goals there is added con- fusion in technique. Below is a list of equip- ment and developments in education: 1. Television 2. Video-tape 3. Close circuit 4. Electronic Teaching Laboratory 00440P9A-4.1.4.. — a. banguage Laboratory 0, Programed Learning 78: ni,rn film. TeachingMc4nes 16 9. 0 m.m Wm loops 10. Thermo plastic cording 11. Multiple projection systems 12. Computers 13, )data transmission systems 14. instructional pack- ages P. PSSC system-physics 16. Team teaching 17. Library Technology 18. Information retrieval 19. Overhead projector 20. Controlled reading techniques 21. Tnizuheisstoso9Pie tech- 22. EDL Listen and Read programme 23. Multi-media com- munication Skills Sys- tem. it would be possible to ex- tend this list very consider- ably but it is enough to make the point that people involved with education to-day are in- volved with a technological revolution that further com- plicates and confuses the picture. There is no question about the emphasis which our so- ciety places on education. We spend more money, time and energy on education than has ever been spent before. One would think with this revolution in education that we would have reached so- lutions- to the basic prob- lems. But instead we find that the more expenditures of money and energy the less we seem to be to solving the basic problems. We seem to be running faster and fast- er toward increasingly elu- sive and indefinable meth- ods of approaching educa- tion. The teacher and student is faced with a constantly changing pedagogical tech- nology which aims at making the learning process more efficient and more interest- ing. It is challenging for the dedicated teacher but it is also ulcer producing. The third problem area concerns the psychology and physiology of the young peo- ple in high schools. This area has been perhaps over laboured, however, the fact remains that the secondary school deals with the human being when he is pe rhaps most restless, most uncer- roost d ern a riding ,of freed9M and yet tic4h1e to fully Wept the responsi- bility that accompanies freer These POPPle regOre sympathetic and very human teachers in secondary school. The teacher has to understand the teenager who, when told that he IS, in. the best time of his life re- PPonds with, "My God!, what is the rest of it going to be like then." The last point concerns the heterogeneouP Or very mixed bag that makes up the secondary school. Thereare students, who will proceed to University and on to very ad- vanced academic work and there are students who have considerable d if f ieulty in reading fairly simple ma- terial with facility. The Ontario composite high school tries to provide a valid educational experi- ence for everyone. This is impossible, but in fact a re- markable degree of success is achieved with those stu- dents who make the best of the opportunities. The programs available at South Huron are briefly given below. A. The Arts and Science Branch 1. Five year Program 2. Four year Program B. The Business andCom- merce Branch 1. Five Year Program 2. Four year Program 3. One Year Special Program C. The Science, Technol- ogy and Trades Branch 1, Five Year Program 2. Four Year Program 3. Two Year Occupa- . tional Training Pro- gram The secondary school, from what has been discuss- ed appears to be a difficult type of institution to operate. It is; but it is, also, in many ways, the critical level of education and is, conse- quently, challenging to stu- dent and teacher. The response to its chal- lenges will determine the value of the secondary school's programme to the students. The secondar y system in Ontario tries to- day to give every young per- son "a place to stand". Whether this "place" is taken or left is up.to the in- dividual. I