trw MICHIGAN iAIL
SUNDAY, DEGEMBERt 5, 1948
'ROM WISCONSIN TO LONDON:
Kaiser Frazer Buys Willow Run Plant
British,
U.S.
American.
LONDON-(A')-As an Ameri-
can school teacher working a year
in England, Agnes Dunne has
found her toughest task is teach-
ing the stiffly formal British
youngsters to come around after
class and chew the fat with,
teacher.
"At first they were astonished
when I spoke to them outside of
class, in the halls and outdoors,"
she said.
She has been fixing that. Now
they stick around after hours to
pop questions about indians, cow-
boys, penthouses, gangsters and
other phenomena of American life
as portrayed in Hollywood.
* * *
MISS DUNNE, ninth grade Eng-
lish teacher at Washington Junior
High School in Manitowoc, Wis-
consin, is one of 112 American
teachers now in Britain under an
exchange system. This system is
arranged by the United States
Office of Education and the Eng-
lish Speaking Union, in coopera-
tion with other organizations.
She is teaching for a year at
the Laxson Street Secondary
Girls School in a working class
of southeast London. ,, , .
"Our youngsters are more in-
formal than the English children
in their classrooms," Miss Dunne'
said in an interview. "Here there
is more of a gulf between the
teacher and the pupil."
"A formality of manner is taken
for granted. The children are
harder to get to know than ourj
children-but they are lovable
when you do get to know them."
* * *
SOME OF the questions her
pupils are poping at her-nowl
that. they know she won't bite-
show strong curiosity about the
United States. For instance:
"Do the cowboys chase red In-
dians?" "What are penthouses
like?" "What are bobby-soxers?"
"Do gangsters try to rob you."
Many ask Miss Dunne about Hol-
Teacher,
lywood and the makeup American
girls use.
"The influence of American
movies is very evident," she
says.
Miss Dunne believes Americans
have an "erroneous view" of con-
ditions here. She has found Brit-
ons better nourished and better
dressed than she had been led to
expect.
MISS DUNNE also found the
British schools better equipped
than she had expected. She
brought over dozens of pencils,
erasers, crayons and rules. An-
other teacher, she said, brought a
trunkful of classroom equipment,
only to find there were plentiful
supplies in the British schools.
"Of course we're all pleased
to see conditions so much better
than we had thought they
would be," she said.
There are 37 girls in Miss
Dunne's class, corresponding to a
group in an American junior high
school. They range in age from 12
to 15.
p p as
Trade Jobs
ItiIlsTM~
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British .
MANITOWOC, Wis.-(/P)-Be-
tween the spacious school building
and the prospect of winter sports,
Mrs. Winifred Rose MacVicar
thinks America-particularly Wis-
consin-is a very fine place to
live and work.
Mrs. MacVicar is an exchange
teacher who swapped jobs for a
year with Miss Agnes Dunne. Mrs.
MacVicar is teaching ninth grade
English in Manitowoc's Washing-
ton Junior High Sp hool; Miss
Dunne has taken over classes at
Laxson Street Secondary Girls
School in London.
* * *
THE MOST startling difference
between British and American
school systems are the buildings.
"Here you have a building the
likes of which I don't think I've
ever seen in England," Mrs. Mac-
Vicar said. "These big, well-light-
ed classrooms, the wide, open cor-
ridors, the gymnasiums with all
those seating accommodations and
the auditorium such as we in
England only dream of - all are
part of a modern building planned
for education."
She compared them with
schools in bomb - damaged,
crowded districts of the British
capital, with little playground
space and no gress.
Although Mrs. MacVicar is
firmly convinced that the job of
teaching children is basically the
same the world over; she still is a
little amazed at the lack of form-
ality with which her students ap-
proach her.
"When an English student walks
past me, he will say, 'Good Morn-
ing Madam'," she explained.
"When I pass one of my Manito-
wo" students outside the class-
room, he yells, 'Hiyah, Mrs. Mac-
Vicar'."
SHE ADDED that she's having
plenty of trouble learning which
"forms of speech" are acceptable
here.
"Certain things offend my ear
-not actually grammatical mis-
takes, but what to me is careless
speech," she said. "But, then we
also have that in London."
However, she's catching on.
fast and - as her assistant
principle declared-"the kids are
crazy about her."
The British teacher thinks
Manitowoc likes education better
than London does.
"There's greater enthusiasm.
Parents seem more interested and
the youngsters seem to like school
more."
* * *
"BUT MANITOWOC is an en-
tirely different community from
my school's section in London.
Circumstances are so different in
a crowded city. If those British
children had the facilities you
have here probably they and their
parents would be more interested
in school, too."
The blonde, smiling English-
woman is one of 112 British
teachers who arrived in the
United States Office of Educa-
tion and the British Committee
for the Interchange of Teach-
ers, joint sponsors of a program
now in its third postwar year.
After several months introduc-
ing her young, slangy charges to
the perils of the dangling partici-
ple and the stimulating chargs of
the English language. Mrs. Mac-
Vicar obviously likes her tempo-
rary job.
SHE FINDS that the organiza-
tion of the individual schools is
more free in London than in Mani-
towoc, however. In the British
capital, each school is permitted
to develop its own curriculum and
control its own activities-"like
your federal government, with
each state making rules for itself."
"Here all schools are organ-
ized along similar lines with the
same curriculum, books and
methods.
"In London each school decides
these things for itself. There is
more freedom of choice for the
teachers - more things left to
the teachers' judgment. We don't
have to produce education accord-
ing to a specific pattern."
THE BIG difference between
the two systems, she added, is that
in America 'every child has about
the same education as every other
child throughout his whole school
life."
In England, children of 11 years
are divided into three groups:
Those who may go on to college;
those with particular talents for
technical work, and the rest, who
attend modern secondary schools.
The classification is based on
inclinations and ability, parents'
wishes and teachers' judgment of
pupils.
DETROIT-(IP)-The huge Wil-'
low Run plant, one of the largest
of the government's wartime in-
stallations has been purchased by
Kaiser-Frazer Corp., for $15,100,-
000.
Estimates of the original cost to
the government have ranged as
high as $100,000,000 including
much of the plant equipment.
For plant construction alone it is
understood to have represented
a cost of $43,000,000.
Kaiser-Frazer which had a lease
and renewel options that would
have run until 1965 will pay for
the plant in installments spread
over 20 years. Under the lease
from the War Assets Administra-
tion it was paying $1,406,000 a
year for the use of the big plant.
Kaiser-Frazer took over the big
former bomber plant early in 1946
for the manufacture of automo-
biles. It built about 11,700 ve-
hicles in 1946 and 144,500 last
year. This year's production will
come close to 200,000 units.
The purchase involves 320 acres
of land and 35 buildings, with
I,®
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*
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from five cents and up
New Michigan Christmas cards fifteen cents each.
DO YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AT MICHIGAN'S OLDEST
AND MOST COMPLETE BOOKSTORE.
Wahr's University Bookstore
316 South State Street
OPEN SATURDAY AFTERNOONS FROM NOW UNTIL CHRISTMAS
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