The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 26, 1968 Page: 1 of 8
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VISTA visits to recruit volunteers for tutoring program
By ELAINE JENSEN
Two VISTA volunteer work-
ers recently spoke to a large
group of Rice students inter-
ested in getting involved with
a new tutoring program in
Houston's sixth ward, a low-
income, predominantly Negro
area.
Students participating in the
program will have the oppor-
tunity to tutor those children
in grades two through six at
Harper Elementary School who,
due to inadequate facilities and
lack of individual attention from
overburdened teachers, have
fallen far below their grade
levels in arithmetic and read-
ing ability.
VISTA workers Francie Di-
m
Jr
Susan Ki'iik-rt
the rice thresher
vol. 56, no. 4
rice university, houston, texas
thurs., sept. 26, 1968
Asks for mass support
Hyiden wants student opinion, oid
By LAURA KAPLAN
SCEP chairman Tom Hyiden
called "mobilization of student
opinion" the primary concern of
his committee this year during
an open discussion on educa-
tional policy at the Senate meet-
ing Tuesday night.
In a statement summarizing
currently effective innovations,
^ such as self-scheduled finals
and the pass-fail option, Hyiden
criticized these procedures as
"decision-making by procrastin-
ation," as skirting the real is-
sue of basic educational policy.
He noted that only the col-
lege courses offered opportuni-
ties for creativity.
Planned Irrelevence?
Generalized projections from
the Ten-Year Plan, from which
Rice is to emerge as a "center
of excellence," such as increased
faculty and student body,
strengthening the social science
and fine arts departments, and
raising the quality of the fresh-
man class, are, said Hyiden, on-
ly quantitative, external meas-
ures.
Caus'es of dissatisfaction
which remain unresolved include
increasing-the level of relevance
of humanities requirements for
SE's and math-science require-
ments for Academs. The ques-
tion of the necessity of a for-
eign language requirement is
one aspect of the problem.
Disciplinary Blinders
Dr. Franz Brotzen, professor
of engineering and a member
of the faculty council, pointed
out that the most exciting dev-
elopments in science are affect-
ed by problems in the social
sciences. This suggests that an
inter- or even non-disciplinary
approach might create an at- position.
mosphere of greater awareness.
The present system has in-
stead tended to produce gradu-
ates who leave the University
without real appreciation of
how fields outside of their own
discipline will affect "their lives.
Conflicts
A major aspect of the prob-
lem then evolves as the conflict
between specialization or com-
mitment to a department, and
the diversity which has been a
standard of proponents of a
liberal education.
Members of the faculty coun-
cil who attended the meeting,
including Drs. Ronald Sass and
John Margrave of the Chemis-
try Department, and Dean
Gordon of the Engineering De-
partment,'agree that realization
of this conflict placed the pro-
fessor in an almost impossible
Humanism Second
For because he is trained and
hired as a specialist in a parti-
cular area, his first obligation
is to teach this material. So on
a priority level, his awareness
as a human being must be sec-
ond.
Yet, as Dr. Douglas Milburn of
the Germanics Department ad-
ded, it is extremely difficult to
see how education can be made
more relevant to life when hum-
an values are relegated to a
secondary position.
Most students regard the Uni-
versity as a temporary place
of residence where they receive
necessary training to carry out
their life plans. Thus it is of
highest importance for the Uni-
versity to be a system in which
human sensitivity can survive
(See SCK1* on pajte 71
Grad students unaffected by draft
The draft has had no signifi-
cant effect upon graduate stu-
dent enrollment at Rice, claims
Dr. George Richter, Dean of
Graduate Studies.
The Selective Service decreed
last spring that graduate defer-
ments would be discontinued for
all but those in the fields of
medicine and dentistry, and
many prominent educators ex-
pressed fears that graduate
schools would lose m^ny of their
students to the draft. Hai-vard
University President Nathan
Pusey remai'ked that grad
schools would consist of "the
lame, the halt, the blind, and
the female."
Citing statistics to substanti-
ate his belief that students'
fears about the draft are great-
ly exaggerated, Richter noted
that of 140 students at Rice on
NDEA Fellowships last year,
only ten percent were not on
the rolls this fall. Several of
these 14 were terminated from
the program because of work
deficiencies, others had dropped
out to accept teaching posts,
and four, anticipating being
drafted, had enlisted in the
Armed Forces. None were actu-
ally called to active duty.
Richter pointed out^however,
that 1968 offered an extrawdi-
nary set of circumstances as an
election year, and that perhaps
political considerations were re-
sponsible for the draft's failure
to achieve its anticipated effect.
Carlo and Fred Fowler are or-
ganizing the program which
will eventually be turned over
entirely to the Rice stu^fents,
Tania Bemko of Jones College
and Chris Stansell and Andrea
Primdahl of Brown College are
working with the VISTA volun-
teers to organize Rice students
for the program.
Sensitivity Training
Three training sessions, each
lasting three hours, will pro-
vide tutors with information
that will enable them to max-
imize the benefits of tutoring.
These sessions will be held on
the evenings of Oct. 1, 3, and
8 on the Rice campus to sign
up students prior to the train-
ing sessions, and it will then be
announced exactly where the
sessions will held.
The training sessions will
attempt to prepare the tutors
for all aspects of their new
situations. Three psychologists
will conduct "sensitivity" ses-
sions, a type of group discus-
sion which will be helpful to
tutors in realizing their capabil-
ities for working with under-
privileged children.
Foo tball m a gaz i n es
As another part of the pre-
paration, students will learn ef-
fective methods of tutoring,
such as gearing the material
to the needs and interests of
the tutee.
O
-For example," said Miss Di-
Cario, "if your tutee is a little
boy who loves football and foot-
ball ^pfrs, the -best way to get
him interested in learning to
read is to use a football maga-
zine rather than a reading text-
book."
The third aspect of the train-
ing program will consist of
orienting the prospective tutors
to the background and environ-
ment of the children they will
be tutoring.
"This is the hardest part of
the training," said Miss Di-
Cario, "for it involves trying to
comprehend a way of growing
up that is drastically different
from what we are used to."
Horizons, alternatives
She pointed out that most ol
the children have never been
Harwood forms
group to discuss
right-wing issues
Dr. Edwin Harwood of the
Department of Anthropology
and Sociology is laying prelim-
inary plans for a conservative
study club on the Rice campus.
If the group is formed, Har-
wood said, "We would go full
tilt at the liberal editorializing
of the Thresher as well as pro-
vide a forum for conservative
points of view on campus
through seminar discussion."
Harwood, in announcing his
plans, suggested electing offi-
cers from both the student body
and faculty, and conducting
monthly meetings.
Initial topics he suggested for
discussion included "American
Social Successes," "Why Gov-
ernment Cannot Solve the Ur-
ban Problem," "Poverty and
Slums in Fi-ance and Italy,"
'"What Socialism Costs the Mid-
dle Classes in Sweden," "How
to Bring Order Back to the
American University," and
"Should Rioters be Considered
Law-Breakers ? "
Harwood invites all interested
students and faculty to contact
him in his office at 302 Rayzor
Hall, or by telephone at Ext.
750.
outside of their immediate
neighborhood, that some of
them have never ridden on an
elevator, and that many of
their homes are entirely barren
of books or magazines.
An integral part of the
VISTA program is broadening
the children's horizons and in-
troducing them to ways of life
alternative to the life of the
streets. Tutors will occasionally
take the children to such places
as the zoo, shopping centers,
museums, or even the Rice cam-
pus.
Recalcitrant Board
After the training program,
tutors will be assigned to chil-
dren at Harper School on a
one-to-one basis. Each tutor will
be expected to meet with his
tutee for two hours a week on
a regular day convenient for
both.
Fowler said that the tutoring
sessions would have to be held
at nearby St. Joseph's Church
rather than at the Harper
School, since the Houston School
Board will not allow the school
to remain open after hours tor
"activities not sponsored by the
school." A car pool or possibly
a bus will transport Rice tu-
tors to St. Joseph's and back
every weekday.
The VISTA volunteers stress-
ed the importance of establish-
ing a friendship with the tutee,
using the first few sessions just
to" get to know eaeh'other rather
than starting to tutor right away.
One of the first things the tu-
tor will do is to visit the child s
home and meet his family. He
will also talk to the child's
teacher about areas of weak-
ness before the tutoring begins,
and will maintain close contact
with, the teacher th> oughout
the program.
Frust rat ion
The students were warned
that tutoring is not easv. "It
you let yourself become in-
volved at all, there are almost
certain to be times when you
will be depressed and foe! frus-
trated with the whole thing,"
said Miss DiCario. "Progn
sometimes very slow and
will feel like you aren ; i
accomplishing anything."
Foreseeing such difl'icu.ties,
the volunteers plan to have the
tutors meet occasionally t<> tanc
about these frustrations ami to
work out solutions to common
problems.
Miss DiCario, from Buitalo.
N. Y., and Fowler, from lioul-
der, Colo., have taken a year's
leave of absence from college
to become volunteer workers in
VISTA, the "domestic Peace
Corps." VISTA, volunteers live
right in the area in which they
work and receive just enough
pay to live on.
Initiative
There is no pre-formulated
plan for the VISTA worker to
carry out. After living in the
neighborhood for a while, talk-
ing to the people, and finding
out what they want, the VISTA
worker must use his own ini-
tiative to devise projects and
seek financial backing for them.
The Rice-Harper School tu*>
toring program is one of the
projects Fowler and Miss Di-
Cario have come up with in
response to the needs of their
neighborhood.
The project will be left en-
tirely in the hands of the Rice
students when the two volun-
teers end their VISTA service
in January. It is hoped that the
Rice students will later expand
the program to include such
possibilities as tutoring high
school students and organizing
children's theatre groups.
- S IS
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Bahler, Dennis. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 26, 1968, newspaper, September 26, 1968; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245036/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.