1I Sev enty-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS Of THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Learning as Process in the Pre -School 'a A" free- 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICi-. Prevail Ni~ws PHONE: 764-4552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8,1965 NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN MEREDITH The Diag Housing Rally: A Commendable Start STEWART GORDON and Russel Linden said some surprisingly relevant things at the Voice-sponsored housing rally on the Diag yesterday noon. With ideas and approaches such as they espoused, the growing. student concern with housing at the University could accomplish much. But still, the complexity of the issues they face is appalling indeed. In the dorms, the problem centers around a baby boom that arrived on schedule. and a University that did not. Administrative and legislative apathy have pit the University far in the rear of the nation's race to equip its colleges for increasing enrollments. Not the smallest of the dorm's problems are the tradition-bound financing prac- tices currently used in University resi- dence halls. The policy of financially isolating the residence halls, which pre- vents the University's.investments profits from aiding dorm financing, is an ana- chronism which should be eliminated. Apartments begin with the same prob- lem;, the baby boom, but wind up in a dif- ferent financial mess. That mess is, of course, the totally disproportionate rents charged almost all students in Ann Arbor. Voice has estimated owners' profits at something like 25 to 45 per cent of their original investment, while the national average runs around only eight to 12 per cent. Their estimates appear to be quite accurate; no apartment owners have de- nied them. and several have admitted them, Surely it is a gross understate- Ment to;say that something is very wrong. PROBLEMS SUCH AS THESE will de- mand a great of thoughtful intensive work to unravel. Evidently, Voice is be- ginning such work, but whether or not it can 'gather the popular support neces- sarys to put its solutions into effect will have to be seen. There were,. nonetheless, two unfortu- nate, though minor, tendencies in what Voiee's spokesmen said yesterday. The .first is a somewhat paranoid ten- dency to blane several administrators personally for the University's housing mess. That is blatantly unfair in any but the most doctrinaire sense. It cannot be denied that the adminis- tration was probably much less alarmed about the baby boom than it should have been. It also is probably true that the'ad- ministration has acted far from ade- quately to correct housing problems once they have become evident. For these, ad- ministrators can be reasonably criticized. But to accuse them of some shadowy "deal" with The Establishment is to verge on a schematic analysis of the problem which is false itself and which cannot help but lead to further errors in pro- test policy. THE SECOND unfortunate tendency is an as-yet-unspoken possibility which should be guarded against as strongly as the first. There was talk on the Diag yes- terday about student action to construct housing independent of University con- trol. In itself this is a pretty good idea, whether or not it is too practical. The danger lies in the possibility of such thinking leading to de facto ignoring of housing problems within University-own-I ed buildings. Any housing movement cannot afford to ignore as much potential support for its cause as can be found within the resi- dence halls. Residents there are disad- vantaged as residents anywhere; their needs must not be ignored. AT THE MOMENT, though, these are mere statements of precaution, not indictments of errors. Voice, and the general united front for good student housing, appear strong and growing. Most important, they seem to be gathering the beginnings of the large following they will need to be effective. With a realistic, large-scale approach to housing problems, they may soon be well able to strike out at the causes of their discontent. -LEONARD PRATT AMONG THAT LARGE majority of college students who feel neither politically alienated from their society nor especially ap- prehensive about finding some sort of satisfaction in their lives, at least one increasingly evident characteristic is a strange mixture of outward and spoken obeisance to The Way Things Are (plus How I Have To Be To Fit In and a deeper, unexpressible and uncomprehended sense of frustra- tion and fear. This mixture is reflected in the tremendous energy investment in many of the common leisure ac- tivities as students search for ful- fillment in assertion; in vague doubts about personal and social futures; in shallow defenses of Establishment politics and among a few the cautious but noticeable adoption of certain dress patterns commonly thought of as "beat." TO DETERMINE the source, of this condition, one must inevitably trace the whole history of an in- dividual's opportunities for de- veloping self awareness and of his experiences with others. Taking this probe back to the person's early pre-school years, one finds a peculiar pattern more or less evident for whole populations. The two aspects of that pattern _both found in educational ex- periences-are a relative lack of opportunity for spontaneous, un- restricted and purely interest- based expression and exploration and the relatively forced, artifi- cial nature of group involvements. In most of our kindergartens and public schools, curriculum, grad- ing and promoting requirements, teaching methods and even teach- er personality are generally rou- tinized, standardized, inflexible and unrelaxed, as well as un- stimulating and unresponsive with respect to the child's changing and unique interests, moods and needs. (For instance, the teacher and the school have their quotas- complete the workbooks, promote so many out of the class, cover so much material, indoctrinate the children with such and suchideas -and inevitably the children must fit the quota and the curriculum instead of the quotas and curricu- lum following the interests and needs of the children. Even if it can be assumed that there must be preset stages and standards applied equally to every child, and that every child ought to be or is interested in or needs what the curriculum presents when and how it is presented, even if all this can be granted there is still precious little of that spontaneity and personal discovery and doing for oneself which are the only bases of real intellectual ability and real self knowledge." AT THE SAME TIME, much of the child's day is taken up with reading, discussing, listening and going on field trips with his peers. During much of that time, how- ever, he nmight well want to be alone, may want to be engaged in some different activity, may not like some of his classmates or may feel positively intimidated by hav- ing to compete for attention and having always to measure himself against the others. Instead he would naturally develop personal goals against which to judge him- self if he could structure his time more freely and if the elders present wholly accepted him and acted mainly as resources. Now. however, they are usually frown- ing directors and graders. Supposedly "groupness" in- creases the child's ability to deal with and tolerate others. But the 4unnaturalness of the group ex- periences and their perceived un- relatedness to the child's usual patterns of associations make co- operative functioning uncomfort- able and dissatisfying and estab- lish the nexus of most future group relationships at a low level of personal meaningfulness. In actuality, the ways in which the child learns to interact with others are useful to him only in the relatively useless and vaguely dissatisfying world which has been prepared for him-not the world he might discover and like if left to explore and associate as and when he wants. IF THIS PATTERN is repeated throughout grade school and high school, the adolescent who emerges is highly unlikely to feel any natural social consciousness, and he is unlikely to know or be able to express (or plan on expressing> his own personal needs, talents and perceptions. It is improbable that the kind of life he enters in today's universities or the world of (at best) menial white collar occupations is any more inher- ently satisfying than what he has known, yet he will not know how to remove himself from his rut. Nor can he really find much meaning in the kinds of interper- sonal relations of which he is capable: others are only partially interesting, even though the ado- lescent may not really regard him- self as interesting either. At the same time, however, mainly from not knowing himself or how the rest of the social system and its constituents would I-- +_ h_ - 1 fr% '1Ghanl stamina or self-confidence exist wholly on his own. to TO MAKE the argument in a slightly different way, the lack of unrestricted stimulation and re- sponsiveness in most American classrooms today inevitably kills for the child the need and ability to question, to examine, to get to the root of personal and social phenomena. This ability and this need are fundamentally procedur- al in nature-their consequence is the act of learning and in no way whatsoever do they limit or define the content of the conclusions reached. It is this capacity and love for the process of exploration and ex- perimentation which are perhaps the most salient characteristics of the whole person, the (radical) in- tellectual. He cannot be stifled by frustration or failure because what matters most is how he operates and not whether he succeeds; he is capable of creation and of the far more honest and far deeper happiness which comes from self- understanding. OF COURSE it should not be ignored that in many places in these United States, at all levels of education, there are 'some cour- ageous attempts to make the ex- perience of going to school fit the needs of human beings, instead of vice versa. The whole purpose of this column, as a matter of fact, is to tell about (and plug) one such experiment which is going to happen right here in Ann Ar- bor. Its one class will be only for very small tots, but then it is crucial to let a child live wholly from the very beginning, for there are certain things four- and five- year-olds need or else a bit of them dies. At the start, The Children's School will be a mere 18 chil- dren and one teacher in the base- Why Not? By JEFFREY GOODMAN. ment of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, but the 10 people open- ing the school (mainly faculty and student wives) have hopes of expanding by at least one grade a year. The school will enroll children from poor families as well as from the founders'- own more or less middle class homes- and the 10 hope also to form a learning and interchanging com- munity among parents and sym- pathizers to make the whole con- cept more complete and effective. The purpose of this new en- deavor-born in discussions over the summer-is hardly to change the world; quite simply, it is to provide 18 little children a good place to begin growing up. THEIR BASIC conception rec- ognizes the significance of the atmosphere of the school in how meaningful the curriculum will be. A section of the school's "philos- ophy" prospectus paints this "tone" in terms of respect and trust: To respect a child a teacher has to accept and encourage spontaneous behavior, sugges- tions, etc. She has to be un- usually sensitive to his particu- lar background so that she can help him understand what is good in himself and his people and so she can help him to take, on his terms, what the school has to offer. To trust a child a teacher must allow him to make mis- takes so he can come to dis- covery. She must allow him to argue, because she knows this is a good way to learn to solve problems. She must avoid using shame, because she knows that simple explanation and continu- ed experience will be good teachers of behavior. She must allow for a good deal of self-regulation in each child's learning of the basic skills, because she understands that as with talking, walking and drinking from a cup, the clild' will develop these skills when he is both ready for and needful of them. THERE IS ALSO, the strong notion of "fraternal conscience and tolerance:" There will be a lot of con- versation in our school, both between students and teachers and among students. There will be plenty of movement, be- cause life is full of movement and movement is imperative for interaction. There will be dis- cussions in the classroom where hostilities and resentments can be worked out. The teacher must have the ability to direct anger into creative channels, e.g., a paint- ing or story ... She will under- stand that a child who shouts, "I don't like you" at another child may be making the first step on the path away from the need to show anger physi- cally. THE SCHOOL'S curriculum it- self will be maximally flexible: At all times . . . children will have a freedom of choice among activities. The teacher and as- sistants will be available to di- rect and assist individual chil- dren in following out their in- terests. 'there will be several periods each morning when one of the activities that children will have to choose from will be lessons given by the teacher. The teacher will understand that some children must be di- rected to be self-directed. She will give these children extra support and specific directions as long as they need them. . . .If what the teacher has to teach is interesting enough, most children will, in their own time, come to want to learn with her. Private self -decriptions and telling stories about one's family and friends will hopefully en- courage self-acceptance. Avoiding competitive rewards, cultivating the idea that learning should be shared and stimulating coopera- tive projects will hopefully con- tribute to tolerance. There will be a wealth of artistic materials. Talking about new and different peoples, learning about phenom- ena in the outside world and go- ing on field trips should bolster children's curiosity. And after the children are older there will be someone to help them learn to read-what they want, when they want, at whatever speed they are able. Pius direct involvement of all parents in suggesting and modify- ing curriculum, in assisting in the classroom, in learning about the educational principles informing the school, in discussing and com- ing to understand their reactions to their own children's behavior. PRE-SCHOOLS across the na- tion already harbor the most ex- perimentation, the most flexible and respecting atmosphere for children. This one is particularly exciting, however, because it is so close; because it is new, because it is guided by some very intelligent and interested, people, because it offers a very delightful and brittle and important bit of hope. The Children's School will cost almost $6000 at the start. Its treasurer is Mrs. Nancy Frappier. How- Can SGC Best Be Improved? Tuition Hike-Good Timing IF HIGHER UNIVERSITY rent must be paid,If tuition is indeed destined to rise further, there is a consolation-maxi- mum advantage was made this summer of the timing of the increase. The reasons for a tuition increase may be manifold, stemming either from an ac- celerated and 'more adequate education- al effort or from rising costs, or both. These reasons may be calculated and ,defined, but the appropriateness of the increase depends upon individual inter- pretation. However, there can be little fault found with the strategy recently performed-except perhaps the dubious ethic of absolute openness with the state -which yielded the University the maxi- mum funds available for its budget. WHAT HAPPENED: Governor Romney approved a 1965-66 legislative appro- priation that included an increase of more than $6 million for the University after intense conflict between the Michi- gan House of Representatives and Senate. The following day University officials announced the tuition and rent increases -amounting to a rental hike of $50 and a tuition increase ranging from $15 to $100 per student. Why this action was best: Had the rent-tuition hike been announced prior Editorial Staff ROBERT JOHNSTON, Editor' LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM JEFFREY GOODMAN Managing Editor Editorial Director JUDITH FIELDS......... Acting Personnel Director LAUREN BAHR......... Associate Managing Editor JUDITH WARREN .. Acting Assistant Managing Editor ROBERT HIPPLER ....... Associate Editorial Director GAIT BLUMBERG................ Magazine Editor LLOYD GRAFF............... Acting Sports Editor NIGHT EDITORS: Susan Collins, John Meredith, Leonard Pratt, Peter Sarasohn, Bruce wasserstein. ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Michael Badamo, Clarence Fpnto, Mark Kilingsworth, Robert Moore, Dick Wingfield. Business Staff CY WELLMAN, Business Manager ALAN QLUECKMAN ............ Advertising Manager JOYCE FEINBERG................Finance Manager to the time the budget increase was sign- ed, the assumption--however true or false -would have prevailed that the Univer- sity needed less than the proposed in- crease because the tuition-rent hike could be expected to partially offset the need. IN APPORTIONING state funds there is rarely an absolute necessity to be re- garded-rather, legislators must respect the relative needs of Michigan's other schools, That is, this University would not have been so ruined as to be forced into the "desperate" action of dismissing its corps of dormitory housemothers or leasing out Angell Hall if the budget in- crease had not been granted. Rather, the quality and extent of re- search may have been impaired some- what, library book purchases may have been curtailed or perhaps teaching fel- lows may have had to take a cut in salary. The latter matters are (hopefully) rela- tively important to University officials, students and others interested in the quality of education here. Being charged with the responsibility of bringing more financial resources into University research, making available more library materials and maintaining (at least) a status quo in teachers' salar- ies, University officials acted wisely- playing trump cards after the legislators' hands had been shown. IN REGARD TO ETHICS: There is an aura of naivity surrounding Sen. Jan B. Vanderploeg (D-North Muskegon) who said University policymakers were acting in "ill faith" by boosting tuition rates, "They paraded before us, in all their typical splendor," he said, "a list of fig- ures, a raft of charts, an outline of basic needs. "But never once in the presentation ... was there an allusion to a possible tui- tion increase." 1ION'CTR ATTTT ATTONS GENTL.MEN. To the Editor: LEONARD PRATT'S editorial of September 3 "'"'Pockets of In- terest': A Way To Improve SGC") suggests not a way to improve SGC, but to transform it into a mockery of the democratic proc- ess - a powerful organization which could easily be dominated by a willful but small minority. Mr. Pratt speaks of ad hoc groups, such as the groups pro- testing the war in Viet Nam, 'fill- ing a "void" of action because of SGC's weakness. These groups are not filling a void, but func- tioning in a proper way, and in a way which would not be proper for SGC. If SGC were dominated by a group with this specific interest, and if it acted on this interest, either through stands taken or fi- nanced programs, it would be out of place on two accounts. One, it would not be representing the ma- jority student opinion on this campus; and two, even if it did represent majority opinion, it would be unfairly using its voice and funds. SGC's voice speaks for all of us and its funds come from all of us. Why should a student be forc- ed to pay money to support a particular Viet Nam interest, just so he can attend this university? Specific political programs should be financed and carried out by student voluntary groups, as they are presently. If they seem more active and effective than SGC, it is because their membership is more interested. SGC's "membership," at least financially, is the entire student body, and its program must be based on this fact-even if the apathetic constituency weakens the government. I AM AGREED with Mr. Pratt that SGC needs, improvement. Better it attempt to strengthen its base by trying to interest more people in working on its commit- tees, through greater and more creative advertising, perhaps tak- ing a lesson from MUSKET, Soph Show, Homecoming, and other campus groups. 1 -Paul Kirby, '67 Irresponsibility? To the Editor: YOUR "EDITOR'S NOTE" after the letter from E. J. Smith is of course a mere weasel. It high- lights the irresponsibility of your paper's editorial policy. No responsible paper-amateur or professional-tries to evade re- sponsibility for the opinions ex- pressed in its editorials. Most of them have periodic meetings of the senior editors to determine the paper's official attitude on issues and specific editorials are then assigned to the individual best qualified to express that atttitude. The public is accustomed to think of the lefthand columns on fh nra+Aral 1am O~+,m d -n..!i Underdevelopmient %61 The result is that from the editorials offered you are able to select those representing your par- ticular bias, yet hide gutlessly behind the claim that "it's an in- dividual opinion, not the Daily's." It's as obvious as a sledgeham- mer that you do have a policy on every subject in the world. Why don't you have the courage (the first requirement of editors) to stand up and be counted as a pa- per? WHILE ON the subject, why don't you give a far larger portion of your editorial page to dissenters from your opinions? You certainly don't kid yourself (whatever you tell others) that you represent the majority-or even a large minor ity of student opinion on this campus!. As Smith said, "I ask that you print this as a public service," but I doubt you will. -T. V. Bede, '66 Two Questions To the Editor: JHAVE TWO unrelated ques- tions to raise, one concerning the Cinema Guild, the other, the tennis courts on campus. Possi- bly someone in an authoritative position can answer them. Regarding the Cinema Guild- it would be of benefit if its lo- IN MY MIND the legality con- cerning the case is not really im- portant. What is important is that whether or not Eadie and Hornberger "pulled a fast one" on the students, there are many who think that they did. Thus a cer- tain aura of shadiness will -always surround any future Hornberger administration and will make it clearly impossible to win the full student support which the IQC so desperately needs. An election would clear the air and would'at least give the IQC a chance to have a president whose very'xist- ence is not challenged and won- dered. If Mr. Hornberger is the best candidate for the office, he should have no fear of such an election. I would urge him to forget his petty "delusions of grandeur" and to place his name in nomination in a freely-contested election. --Mark Rosenberg, '69 EQC Representative Greene House Newman Protest To the Editor: ANYONE READING the New- man Association's diag sign one September 7 would have concluded that Newman was sponsoring that day's activities protesting Ann Ar- bor's "seedy housing and villain- ous landlords." However, after considerable in- vestigation, one would have dis- covered that the noon diag rally and evening meeting at the Un- ion were actually sponsored by Voice's Housing Committee and that the Newman Association had not been approached in posting Voice's publicity banner. The Newman Association also opposes any unfair housing, but objects to this irresponsibility by Voice. -Lawrence Cogut, '66 Undergraduate Director, Newman Student Association Why Have Classes? To the Editor: YNN A. METZGER raised some intriguing questions in her edi- torial in Wednesday's Daily, espe- cially when she asked, "True, we must fulfill the University's re- quirements . .to earn the right to have a degree from here, but why must these requirements consume my valuable time which I feel could be put to better use?" After reading Miss Metzger's edi- torial, I have begun to wonder about some similar academic prob- lems. I would like to know why we can't do the frugue on top of our desks during lectures. Why the University doesn't provide free scotch and soda during examina- tions? Why we have to wear clothes at recitations? When the instructor tells us to write at the board, why we can't write dirty words?' College,. in fact, would be all -._ VL - 4-- ----- tt1.. Li. year round sport here, it's never- theless important enough to merit better treatment than it has re- ceived on Palmer Field or on the grounds near tht I-M Building. -Steve Shavell, '68 IQC Controversy To the Editor: AS A FRESHMAN and especial- ly as both a freshman and a member of the East; Quad Coun- cil, I find that the dispute over the Inter - Quadrangle Council presidency presents an interest- ing if somewhat disconcerting view of my new home at this Uni- versity. Somehow I expected the dormitory government of such a large and famous institution as Michigan to be efficient, ably-led and dominant in the realm of stu- dent affairs. I have not been on campus long enough to fairly judge the work of the IQC, but I must admit that I am a bit suspicious of an organization which has trouble even keeping a president. The first thing that occurs to me when I think of the situation is that Mr. Hornberger seems to be going to a lot of trouble to avoid an election by the house presidents. His supporters assert that he is the only man for the job, but if this is true then what could he possibly have to fear in a free election? Of-course, I realize' that my status as a lowly fresh- .-- - - -.- . . - -If h