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Tuesday, September 23, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Basics still needed
When this year's high school graduates posted lower average scholarships, the country all over group since 1964, educators all over America asked themselves why.
Scores for 1975 graduates were an average of 10 points lower on the verbal part and eight points lower on the mathematics part of the test. This was followed steadily since 1964, this was the biggest drop from one year to the next.
Among the reasons educators gave for the decline in the scores were that more low income and minority students wanted to go to college but were uninterested in take the SMT, and that students were watching too much television.
THESE SEEM TO BE minor considerations, however, when compared to a far greater cause of the lower scores—new methods of teaching.
In elementary school, junior high and even as a senior in high school, I was taught the elements of grammar, punctuation and spelling. We learned the parts of speech and diagrammed an endless number of sentences.
Apparently English is seldom taught that way now. Today, more emphasis is placed on literature courses and not on grammar. You learn the mechanics of speaking and writing.
THIS CAN SERIOUSLY impair the student's ability not only in English, but in his other subjects as well. If he is unable to spell or to write coherently, he must be able to do well on term papers, essay tests and reports when he gets to college.
The ability to express ideas effectively, whether verbally or on paper, is the greatest asset a student can have. This ability isn't one that is developed overnight, however. If a student hasn't learned the rules of grammar and
syntax by the time he enrols in English 101. chances are he won't.
DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES may not be as much fun for a student as reading an entertaining book, but in the long run, he can truly benefit from it.
The old, traditional methods of teaching mathematics are also going by the wayside. Unfortunately, there was never a uniform adoption of the "new math." Some schools taught it one way, other schools taught it another and still other schools stuck to the traditional method.
A student who has had new math throughout primary and secondary school may discover that the math problems on the SAT differ radically from anything he's ever worked. His math grades may have been outstanding, but if he is unfamiliar with traditional math problems and gets a low score on the SAT, some colleges may refuse to accept him.
ALTHOUGH NOT ALL colleges study SAT scores closely, others use them as a basis for admission. Many educators think there is a strong correlation between a student's SAT scores and his ability to do well in college.
Because of the wide variety of teaching methods, not all students of comparable intelligence are equally prepared to take the SAT. If a student has had English courses that stressed literature and ignored grammar and spelling, or if he has had an unusual type of background, he will keep him from attending the college of his choice, no matter how good a student he actually is.
Schools owe it to their students, college bound or not, to provide them with the basics they need to be successful. The ability to express yourself well is invaluable, no matter what position you're in. In Jain Penner
Contributing Writer
There were 600 lucky people on campus Friday night.
They were lucky because they had the privilege of listening to one of the best concerts ever presented at the festival of Kansas—KC Jazz Revisited.
They were lucky partly because of fettulous circumstances and partly because of SWI.
Jazz masters treat KU
The jazzmen, among whom were Jay Bud Johnson, Gene Ranahan, Bud Johns, William Williams and Paul
Quinichette, treated the audience to a rare revival of a music form that is almost extinct. There are younger musicians who still carry the banner of jazz, but the ones here Friday night were some of the legendary masters.
Our thanks for the opportunity to see and hear these musicians should go to SUA. Let's hope that we see more of this kind of entertainment brought to KU.
Ward Harkavy Contributing Writer
WHILE OTHER COUNTRIES have rewritten and reviewed constitutions like new ones, the United States has stood firm. While other nations have been ravaged by coups and countercups, the United States has maintained its original system of government. The country has proved itself capable of overcoming setbacks such as the Civil War, the bombing and even Watergate.
By JOHN JOHNSTON Assistant Campus Editor
This country was founded on principles that supposedly guaranteed its citizens the right to express their happiness. A system of government was established that provided for self-preservation through a three-stage system of checks and balances.
The University of Kansas has been named a bicentennial university. Lawrence has been named a bicentennial city. The university is one of the bicentennial yearbook. The campus food service sells turkey sandwiches wrapped in bicentennial packaging. And the students pressed pride in his convolution address that KU was more than half as old as these bicentennial United States. It's almost enough to make one regurgitated one- or two-year turkey sandwich.
These accomplishments are impressive, but it wasn't parades, flag waving and hoopla that allowed America to survive. Hitler was a master of such tactics. Thought, debate and moral responsibility are the foundation of our free society.
Bicentennial ideas Bicentennial exploitation
BIRTHDAY PARTIES are a tradition we shouldn't abandon. But the marking of an event as big as the NBA game shouldn't be all fun and games. If it's fun and games one's interested in he should enter the National Football League's superbowl. Or the NFL in American History."
This nation faces severe problems that ultimately threaten its existence. The country is divided into bitter opposing factions; the right and the racial minorities and the whites, the haves and the havenots. Any significant observance should attempt to improve this disgraceful state of the Union. The ideals that are often forgotten in flag-wavers are too often forgotten when the party is over.
There are many ways the
celebration could be made a valuable starting point for another 200 years.
Americans could set aside a day when the nation totally shuts down and people are forced to be with themselves. No TV. No radio. No cars. No distractions. Maybe a few
would use the time to think about what personal commitments have to be made to improve this country.
National symposia of intellectual leaders could be scheduled on such topics as race and gender, education, welfare, crime and the en-
viviment. All forms of media could then be used to present these events to the people. An attempt could be made to integrate each individual report into a national plan.
A SPECIAL REPORT by the Organization of American Historians warns that the
teaching of history is rapidly being replaced by interest in "current events. Maybe a teacher of historical events teaching of traditional history would improve our understanding of current events. Intellectuals throughout the world have learned through studying the past.
The main objective should be a balanced, thoughtful program of observance. In this regard, the university should be commended.
KU is stressing American artists in cultural and dramatic programs this year. The Humanities Lecture Series will feature a bidentenal theme. A traveling exhibition from the University of Arkansas. Interview projects dealing with Alfred M. Landon, former governor and 1936 presidential candidate, and the role of blacks in Kansas history will add resource material to Spencer Research Library, which houses several databases of historical interest. These constructive, non-commercial programs should characterize the observance nationwide.
THE GREAT THING about the United States is that its citizens (and those of other countries) have the constitutional right to peddle their bicentennial wares wherever they want. Capitalism can be a very restrictive with very few restrictions. This is the way it is, and this is "the American way."
The bicentennial should be celebrated, but it shouldn't be exploited. Any meaningful observance of America's birthday season on what has been accomplished in this country's first 200 years and debate on what is needed to preserve America for another 200 years. If something constructive isn't done, other things may be the commercialized Americans can indeed be bought.
Blacks' bicentennial role debated
By DWIGHT THOMAS
The August issue of Ebony magazine has three articles by three professionals, each in a field of specialization, concerned with the question of whether black people should participate in bicentennial activities.
'Silent majority' unsuspected
The People's Bicentennial Commission—that's the Tom Paine type one, not to be confused with the official outfit—published a poll recently that may set you back on your heals.
By MARY McGRORY
Sandford College
YOU HAVE TO understand that the People's Bicentennial, which is run by young Jeremy Rifkin, an intensely bright and vocal peace-movement alumnus, takes the position that big corporations are the British proper way to celebrate our 200th birthday is to throw off their shackles.
What it says, briefly, is that there is a new, unsuspected threat from the other side no longer believes, if ever it did, that "what's good for General Motors is good for the country". Marie Claire Wilson" goes to it.
Rather bravely, the People's Biocentennial board decided in July to find out whether anyone agreed with them. They complied with Hart, a completely republic polster, to go out and ask.
Hart's findings, based on a telephone poll of 1,209 Americans, are startling.
Fifty-seven per cent,
fifty-seven per cent,
think both
Democratic and
Republican
downtown business
over the average worker.
THIRTY-THREE PER CENT think our capitalist economic system is "on the decline," as we know, and who think it is getting better.
Fifty eight per cent think America's major corporations tend to dominate Washington. But as it turns out, it is the other way around.
FORTY FOUR PER CENT would favor public ownership of oil and other natural resources as doing "more good than that" for 42 per cent who thought would do "more harm than good."
A whopping 68 per cent would like to work for a company owned and controlled by its employees.
"The ideals that found expression in those historic documents have to be revived, and it is black people who are the only ones to contribute to the education of a nation consumed by anti-social perseverance and a decayed morality. Freedom, liberty and equality appear to have lost their meaning for many white Americans today. And as they speak about concepts still live and breathe, they still move us."
Forty one per cent want sweeping changes in our economy. Thirty-seven per cent favor minor adjustments, and only 17 per cent favor letting the economy try to straighten itself out.
Forty nine per cent, as against 45 per cent, think big business is "the source of what is wrong today."
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One author, Joseph J. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., gives a resounding "Yes." Jackson said, "By refusing to celebrate this bicentennial of color would negate or deny a great contribution to the history of their contribution to the life of this great nation"
Constitution, a document to be evaded," Jordon said.
Lerone Bennett Jr., senior editor of Ebony, gives an adamant "No." "Two hundred years of evasion of the central mandate of our revolutionary segregation, inequality, unemployment, racism and poverty; 200 years of Little Rocks and Little Born Horns and Scottsboro and South Bostons have brought us to the brink of national disaster," Bennett said.
It's all bad news for the corporations whose most conspicuous good friend, Gerald O'Connor, was commiserating with them for six months past and recently promised passionately to deliver them from "the claw of oppressive government regulation."
Our political institutions are in disarray. Our spiritual temperature is at an all-time low. This spectacle is an affront to our culture and desecration of the ideal. It is a mirage, an illusion, designed, at least in part, to divert attention away from our failure to create a human environment not only because but also for whites and reds.
AND THE CORPORATIONS have been engaging in extravagant self-promotion attesting to their patriotism, selflessness and the true spirit of the American spirit.
The entire issue discussed by Jackson, Jordan and Bennett is a moot question, and one that should be answered independently. Whether one is white, black, red or yellow, a celebration of reuniting your past with your present ends with you. A writer once put it this way: "You can't know where I'm going, until you know where I've been."
perfectly natural development growing out of the Port Huron declaration of 1862, the charter of the New Left which laid down the then-outlandish idea that ordinary citizens can run a law office as well as elect officials—participatory politics, in fact.
Rifkin, needless to say, has been soaring since the results of a study in 1976 on tenennial is planning to run the idea of sweeping economic change the way so many other candidates in 1976.
A Mob ad has assured us that Sam Adams certainly would have opposed regulation because he particularly solidious of oil companies, who he feels can never be rewarded sufficiently for their valor in exploring new markets. The fact that is expected to lift controls.
He says he is not really surprised. He thinks it is a
charge, just as yesterday it knew it could handle Vietnam better than the mighty.
The transition to participatory economics simply reflects a generation that feels more connected to those better than those currently in
The public, with no help from the politicians, apparently has decided the big corporations are greedy and unscrupulous, and insiders care more for them than for the common people.
But the Hart poll suggests the rhetoric has been in vain. The negative picture of big business that comes out of these figures should send a shudder to executive suites across the land.
Begging the question. .. Should black participate in the bicentennial? If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, should we celebrate it?
“It’s a constituency without a leader,” says Rifkin, who cannot understand why public figures have failed to pick up the signals of what he calls “economic self-determination.”
Another author, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, constructive" black participation
"THE PEOPLE ARE way out ahead of the activists on this one," Peter Hart told Jeremy Rifkin.
If the anti-corporation forces get a captain, we might have a revolution to celebrate the bicentennial after all.
Jackson added: "The American Negro, from the days of the Revolutionary War until now, has in some form rejected him. He is bestowed upon him that downgraded his dignity and cheaned his manhood. . . He must not now exclude himself from the protest for a positive performance in this celebration."
The Declaration of Independence has become another old piece of paper; the
"Our economy is in shambles.
Hot stove leagues savor imaaes
Baseball buffs feed on trivia
The baseball season is ending soon. But only on the field.
Baseball is a year-round sport among those members of hot stove leagues throughout the country.
What are hot stove leagues? They were originally stores or barbershops or any place that sold baseball fans or baseball fanatics willing to discuss baseball trivia during the winter. Although most heating stones are gone, hot stove leagues are still going strong.
Statistics are very important to baseball buffs. People mull problems such as hitting average, runs average, run average, home runs, triples and doubles. For those more committed to baseballana, they agree that figures to consider: sacrifice, walk ratio, men left on base.
Baseball is a game unlike any other. Every sport has its history-statistical and emotional. But baseball has both. It has more emotional memories than any other American sport.
subsequent decline, Marvelous Marv Thorberry and the Mets Stan Musial's sweet song, "The Gentleman's gentleman demaner."
Emotional memories? How about these: Bobby Thomson's dramatic pennant-winning home run, any of Willey Mays' remarkable basket catches, Herb Score's eye injury and
Ward Harkavy Contributing Writer
for baseball buffs, these names evoke both humorous and tragic memories.
The best thing about baseball is that one doesn't have to witness the sources of its history. Baseball events are handed down from father to son, and from one player at the radio (straining to hear Harry Caray's "Holy Cowl") and by baseball cards. Of course, one must have an abiding interest in the game to
develop expertise in the world of baseballiana.
Baseball buffs can be spotted by their conversations. After one has been immersed in baseball for a certain length of time, they may have brevided style of communicating to other baseball fanatics. Words come to mean paragraphs; names convey long passage of memory. One can recognize these details remaining unspoken.
"Jackie Robinson." "1951."
Such a conversation may sound like this:
"Dave Nicholson." "Herb Score."
These names mean nothing to some people, but they represent books of knowledge to baseball balls. They evoke paroxysms of laughter, a few words of complaint in those who express the magic of baseball. They tell of the first black major league baseball player, of the memorable pennant race
between the Giants and the Dodgers, of a slugger who never displayed his awesome potential by playing in the tragedies of baseball history.
Other names evoke other memories. Even a team as new to the Royals has acquired, by a natural process, a complicated history. One didn't know that Jackie Hernandez, Fred Rico and Arianna Hernandez imbedded in Royals fans' memories, but they did. For those of you interested: I'm not hard to believe that Lou Pinelli opened Royals history by playing center field? Or that they played against the (fractile red faced head from Amarillo, Tex). were once part of our hopes for a penant or World Series in Kansas City?
The powerful Oakland Athletics were once the lowly Kansas City Athletes, with such players as Jim Rivera, Bob Grimin Dale Daley Glee and the miserable A's started to develop such stars as Reggie Jackson, Dagoberto Cam-
paniers and Sal Bando, the evil Charlie Finley (remember the man who helped behind home plate that spewed baseballs?) stole the A's from under Roe Bartle the immense boy and moved them to Oakland.
Baseball's history is filled with the good and the bad, the brightest stars and the burn out phenomena, the colorful and the mundane, the fixers and the incorruptibles.
"Say it不ain't so, Sheoolee Jess" was the plaintive cry we sniffed in our childhoods, although the happened ages before our time. We Eddie Cicotte for helping to throw that 1919 World Series; we loved Kesawan Mountain Lands for saving baseball. It was far removed from that era, so far removed from that bad, and do have, memories
Baseball may no longer be the national pastime; that point is debatable. But its memories linger; they're pleasant fantasies for those lucky enough to have them.