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University Daily Kansan
Monday, May 12. 1952 Interpretive Article
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Editorials
Test Week Interferes With Learning Process
Exam week is a farce.
Exam week is a farce. The campus political wizards who first convinced the faculty of its worth will ever be remembered as contributors of the biggest time-waster in collegiate annals.
Test week was going to be the cure-all, the preventive medicine for students' semester-end intellectual pains. It was going to cut down on suicides, nervous breakdowns, and pupillary insomnia.
By concentrating examinations in the space of one week and excusing all classes, the panacea was expected to spread tests out over decent intervals and afford the student plenty of time for preparation.
What is the result?
Jay or Jane Hawker, carrying 18 hours, finds that he has two 2-hour tests on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and nothing to do for the rest of the week.
This fanaticism for useless scientific testing has reached the point where it is actually interfering with the learning process. The week set aside for exams could be much better utilized by small seminars, private conferences, and oral quizzes, effectively testing the student's knowledge of a subject, and perhaps imparting a little more of that knowledge.
It's about time we're spending more time for learning and less time for testing.—Chuck Zuegner.
Feature
Poll Finds Most Students Favor Use of Honor System
Most American college students approve of the idea of an honor system for their school, although students at the larger universities tend to think such a system impractical, according to the Associated Collegiate Press.
The honor system is used in many schools. Students are on their honor not to cheat on tests and examinations, and they are not checked by proctors.
A cross section of the nation's students was asked: In general, do you approve or disapprove of the honor system for your school? Here are the answers:
1. Approve ... 62 per cent
2. Disapprove ... 33 per cent
3. No opinion ... 3 per cent
4. Other ... 2 per cent
Those who approve sometimes feel the school administration is under-estimating its students. "We're not children," says a junior at River Falls State Teachers college, Win. "We would prove ourselves if some trust were shown in us."
And a senior taking business at Becker junior college, class, agrees: "I think if students are treated in this way, they will develop their honor and integrity."
But the more cynical slide is expressed by a coed at Hope college, Mich. "It wouldn't work here," she says, "due to the former education of the students and their general ability to think for themselves."
Two opposing views as to just how the system would work are voiced by a coed at Colorado A&M and a student at Iowa State Teachers college.
Says the coed: "Must be started with freshmen; it is hard to break what has been started in upper-classmen."
Says the fowan: "This (honor system) will be desirable at the graduate level, or after you have a more select group."
In the same poll, students were asked: In your college career, do you recall ever having seen a student copy an answer from another student's paper, or in same other way
break an examination rule?
Of the students polled, 75 per cent replied yes, 25 per cent answered no.
JUST SIGN HERE . . .
Last year somebody in Madison, Wis. tried to find out how many people would sign the Declaration of Independence if it were passed around in the form of a petition. The majority were timid and unwilling to sign.
"We give the bearer of this petition permission, upon receipt of our signatures, to hang us by the neck until dead."
Now we have a reverse situation. The Penn State Daily Collegian circulated a petition reading:
This clause was buried in the middle of an otherwise harmless petition.
Chinese Reds Overcome Propaganda Problem
There is no TV in China, radios are seare, telephone and telegraph services are sketchy, newspapers are few and most people can't read anyway.
The Chinese Communists nevertheless are able to get their propaganda message across with speed and efficiency.
Hinterland farmers, in isolated villages connected with the outside world only by the paths atop paddy dikes, are for the first time learning about the "friendship" of Russia, the "atrocities" of UN troops in Korea, and the "persecution" of minority groups and "peace loving" people in western countries.
In the set and stilted phrases of Communist propaganda, they are getting the first news they've ever had.
Radio Peiping carries a voice news broadcast at "dictation speed." It is copied on the blackboard newspaper and read aloud to the crowd which gathers.
To do this mammoth job, the Communists have mobilized their sketchy services and the energy of party members.
The entire postal system, always one of the most efficient public services in China, now has the job of handling circulation for the major official newspapers. Postal workers deliver papers, collect subscriptions and canvass for new readers. In rural areas, where illiteracy is high, they organize "reading groups" where illiterates meet regularly with a leader who reads and explains the news from the party newspaper.
A recent official announcement said that in east China alone, more than 100,000 blackboard newspapers have been set up, "bringing millions of formerly isolated readers into close touch with the affairs of the nation and the world."
In more isolated areas where regular delivery of newspapers is impossible, the "blackboard newspaper" is used. The blackboard newspaper is simply a slate at the local party headquarters, which is equipped with a radio. Each eyening.
Official reports say that 1,550,000 propagandists are engaged in work of that type. Individually and in groups, they are assigned to up-country villages and towns, or in some cases they are given circuit-riding assignments—territory which contains several small communities.
Some of these propagandists are called "reporters" not because they report to the government, although they do that too, but because they report "to the people."
"He is responsible." the Peoples Daily said, "for their receiving the right interpretation of current events."
The duty of a reporter, according to the Peiping Peoples Daily, is to "interpret the policy of the Party and explain the governmental instructions to the people outside the Party."
Reports from Canton said that in December, when five Canadian nuns were tried for the deaths of children in the orphanage they operated there, few people in the city failed to hear of the trial. The proceedings were broadcast over the Canton radio and every radio owner in the city was told to place his radio in the window next to the street, and turn the volume on full—U.P.
Letters:
Dear Editor:
Student Decries Campus Political Methods
On May 6, the FACTS minority of the all-Student council voted as a block against my appointment as associate justice of the Supreme Court. I was thereby deprived of the two-thirds vote necessary for confirmation, despite the fact that a clear majority of those present and voting favored my candidacy. On May 7, Dean F. J. Moreau of the School of Law, exercising his independent judgment, appointed me chief justice of the same court.
I shall consider my appointment
In view of this peculiar sequence of events and in the particular attempts to keep Demi Moreau from becoming enmeshed in the low level of politics which FACTS has brought to this campus, I propose the following action.
as a temporary one until a clear majority of the ASC's student-elected representatives either endorse or reject me as chief justice. In the event that a majority of the Council disapproves my appointment, I shall tender my resignation immediately.
I ask that a consideration be given of the motives of those on the Council who blocked my prior appointment. It is very probable that they did so in order that one of their own followers could be selected to do their will. This is especially suspicious in view of their appointments last year which were conspicuous for lack of legal knowledge on the part of the appointees.
Secondly, the minority on the Council is of a party which is highly dependent on the continued support of the Co-op-Socialist Study
club-Upstream clique which I have consistently opposed. It bears investigation whether or not the minority party was paying on political debts.
If affirmed, I shall endeavor to the best of my ability to conduct the business of the Student Court in proper and orderly fashion.
Alan Kent Shearer second year law.
Student-Faculty Ties . . .
Chapel Hill, N.C.-A student-faculty committee at the University of North Carolina is working on the problem of how to better student-faculty relations. The group has $400 provided by the Edward H. Hazen foundation and the school to supplement a program of closer teacher-student ties.
Mali Subscription rates: $3 a semester or 14.50 year (add $1 a semester if in lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University oldays and examination periods are second class from July 7, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan. Post Office under act of lawrence, Kan. March 3, 1879.
March 3, 1879.