Queens College - Silhouette Yearbook (Queens, NY)

Page 16 text:

TEA-TIME Every other Thursday finds the Social Science Seminar storming over its collective tea cup, when more often than not the traditionally dispassionate, academic atmosphere is rent by cries of students in the throes of intellectual birth pangs. A faculty committee drawn from each department of the Division of Social Sci- ences, and a small group of specially selected students enter lustily into these informal dis- cussions that call forth the utmost in free speech and independent thought. The seminar constitutes a very real recognition of the role the social sciences play in a democratic state. Aiming at the training of minds in techniques of analysis and interpretation, the seminar takes as its area of investigation problems common to all the disciplines repre- sented 3 problems upon whose solution hinges the fate of the democratic ideal. In times of crisis especially the job of the social scientist assumes a new importance, for his job is to keep democracy a dynamic thing by constructive criticism based on scientific research. His job is to refuse to allow his research to be colored by cultural biases. His job, if not to settlerthe issues of contemporary civilization, is at least to show what the issues are, and what the alternatives may be. Answers are not the goal of inquiry, but rather a clear comprehen- sion of questions. And perhaps this, too, is an essential characteristic of democratic education, that the ideal be always two jumps ahead. I2

Page 15 text:

Frantic freshmen, sweating seniors, sophs, and juniors collectively swearing at the Registrar as new lists of closed classes are continually appended to the blackboard, do not realize that: First, they are in the process of acquiring a Broad Cultural Back- ground. Second, they are laying the groundwork for their futures as special- ists in a chosen technological field. That, in the long view they are fitting themselves for meaningful citizenship in a democracy. Contemporary civilization, required courses in literature and the arts, in math, science, and health education may seem to have little to do with a working democracy. juniors and sophomores plagued with the necessity of filling out concentration blanks see no connection be- tween modern technological society and those blanksg and perhaps on the surface there is no connection between technology and concentra- tion, between required courses and democracy. But the fundamental plan of Queens College goes deeper than the surface. The founders turned educational architects and drew up the blueprints of their scholastic edifice before attempting to build an institution which would fulfill the omnipresent need for specialized skills, and broad under- standing of social problems in a democracy. Specifically, the Queens College curriculum with its tri-part plan provides first for given required courses, designed to sketch in the be- fore-mentioned background, provides second for intensive work in a field of concentration, and third for credits in grouped electives in other chosen fields. These are the blueprints for democracy. This is the plan by which some two thousand students are fitting themselves for the social, and individual problems they will meet in the times ahead. But plans are always cold things. In the execution hinges that spirit, that atmosphere, which is crucial to the goal Queens College has set itself. And here too one finds the emphasis and re-emphasis upon prin- ciplesithat guide 'a free people. The advisory system whereby teachers are made available for personal discussion of the individual problems of students, the accent upon service to the community at large that leads to the city internships, the children's speech clinic, the institute meetings and radio programs, the stress upon individual student work resulting in seminar courses, and independent research are as much a part of the Queens College blueprints for democracy as those frighten- ing credit requirements neatly listed in the college bulletin.

Page 17 text:

, l Bryant High School students who whistle at that pretty student teacher from Queens College, South Jamaica grammar school students tolerantly amused by the seemingly strange antics of the green young teacher who take over their classes, speech defectives made suddenly aware of their alveolar ridges and glottal stops, all serve as unwitting guinea pigs for Queens College teaching aspirants. But there is no real danger in this service. In fact in many cases the unwitting guinea pigs find themselves influenced to the good by the educational experi- ments of the eager young men and women trying their hands at putting educational theory into practice. For the Department of Education of Queens College has exercised strict care in teaching the college stu- dent who would make teaching his career how to make classes interesting and Well organized, and, especially in the case of speech and mental de- fectives, how to put a pupil in the proper psychological frame of mind for learning. It is the aim of democratic education to provide to every citizen the training that makes for equality of oppor- tunity. In turning out skilled teachers, well aware of progress in the field of education, in giving underprivileged children the chance to correct speech defects that might hinder their future success through the Speech Clinic, in making educational theories workable, Queens College is laying the groundwork for the future accomplishment of that great aim. Practice teaching is but one of the means toward that end. I3