Nichols School - Verdian Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

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J J. HERLAN LANGUAGES A graduate of but a few years ago returning to our foreign language curriculum would find fundamental changes in almost every area of language learning. Gone are the vocabulary sheets C105 of them, remem- ber?J and the grammar sheetsg gone too is translation from one language to another, a technique which took up two thirds of our time in advanced classes, gone are the silent Cnumb'?J students listening to learned lec- tures on grammatical structure Cin English, of coursejg gone is Latin for two years and a foreign language for two years-the smattering which amounted to noth- ing. What have we now? First, an expansion of the cur- riculum at both ends: every sixth grader chooses his foreign language and studies it for a compulsory six years, with a seventh year optional, while at the upper level the long desired fourth year is now offered every year. The effects of this expansion are the delight of the foreign language faculty. Language learners coming into the Upper School have most fundamentals under control, allowing much greater progress in the upper levels. The fourth year courses mean the study of liter- ature and civilization to a degree never possible before. ALBERT R. SUTTER Chairman This year, students of French V are devoting them- selves to an in-depth study of the literature and ideas of the eighteenth century, that glorious flowering which made France the undisputed intellectual leader of the world. Also new is the abandonment of the grammar-trans- lation method of language learning in favor of the audio-lingual method. The philosophy and techniques of the new method are too complicated to describe here. Suflice it to say that each student speaks about one hundred times as much foreign language in one year as former students did in threeg that translation is out, out, out, as is the memorization of columns of words and ffor the first two years, at leastj the study of grammar as an abstract set of rules in lieu of prac- ticing the language itself, that class activities are rapid, varied, and, best of all, as much participated in by the student as by the teacher. From the teacher's point of view, audio-lingual classes are much more fun to teach: something happens, someone speaks, things move. But does the method really work? See the Verdian for '67! Albert R. Sutter 26

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Among other things, science is a body of knowledge, but it is much more than this. Science is a way of thinking and a way of life. To a scientist, science is a game. It is a game because it is the activity itself which is interesting, a scientist may be aware that the results of his activity may be of great use to mankind. But basically, he engages in the activity because he wants to, because it is fun. No one can proceed for a long period of time, con- tinually modifying his own thinking by comparing it to the real world, without developing a deep sense of hu- mility, an awareness of his own personal limitations, a realization of the need to eliminate his own errors. He comes to a realization that the human mind is none too good, if it is even good enough, to handle the vast profundities of the world. Along with this sense of humility must go a sense of pride, pride in his own accomplishments. He- feels that he is insignilicant and unimportant in the total scheme of things, that man's understanding of principles is far more important than his own identity. One of the motivations for developing the new type of course such as that taught in physics QPSSCJ, bi- ology CBSCSJ, and now chemistry KCHEMJ is the thought that in standard science curricula, the student retains only a small percentage of what he is taught. The basic aim of these new courses is to teach him something which he can carry away with him. There- fore, instead of teaching a body of facts, we are inter- ested in developing the ability of the student to think clearly, accurately, and logically, to relate this thinking to objective reality, quantitatively, if possible. The heart of all the new courses is the laboratory. Week by week, the student tackles problems which are new to him, although not necessarily new to science. By fol- lowing the processes of a scientist, he may learn to think as a scientist does. Edgar E. Anderson SCIENCE PAUL A. SEAMANS GEORGE W. MICHALKO