fund supplied regularly by new experiences, new thoughts and discoveries, by reading and moving around among people from whom

he can acquire such things."

B. Should a teacher plan all the procedure of a lesson?

"The rest of that summer Miss Dove mapped her strategies in her bed-chamber. To represent a classroom she laid her father's

chessboard on a table by the north window. The squares were desks. The ivory men were children. For hours on end, moving them

about the board, speaking to them in unequivocal terms, she did what might be called "practice teaching". To the last detail she

planned her procedure. The greeting to each class, as it entered the room, the ceremony of its dismissal, the rules and penalties and

forms were all settled upon. The presentation of her subject matter was carefully considered."

C. Should compulsory school attendance be abolished?

"We should abolish compulsory school attendance. Our compulsory school attendance laws once served a humane and useful

purpose. They protected children's rights to some schooling, against those adults who would otherwise have denied it to them in order

to exploit their labour, in farm, shop, store, mine, or factory. Today, the laws help nobody, not the schools, not the teachers, not the

children. To keep kids in school who would rather not be there costs the the schools an enormous amount of time and trouble, to say

nothing of what it costs to repair the damage that these angry and resentful prisoners do whenever they get the chance. Every teacher

knows that any kid in class who, for whatever reason, would rather not be there, not only doesn't learn anything himself but makes

learning harder for anyone else. For many kids, not going to college, school is just a useless time-wasting obstacle preventing them

from needed money or doing some useful work."

D. Should fixed curriculum be used in schools?

"Some harder reforms are required. Abolish the fixed, required curriculum. People remember only what is interesting and useful

to them, what helps make sense of the world or helps them enjoy or get along in it. All else they quickly forget, if they ever learn it at

all. The idea of the "body of knowledge", to be picked up at school and used for the rest of one's life, is nonsense in a world as

complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anyway, the most important questions and problems of our time are not in the curriculum,

not even in the hot-shot universities, let alone the schools. Check any university catalogue and see how many courses you can find on

such questions-as Peace, Poverty, Race, Environmental Pollution and so on."

16. Role -Playing.

Formal Versus Informal Teaching

The group of students is divided into two teams, each of which performs the same role play. While discussing formal and informal

styles of teaching be sure to show their advantages and disadvantages. Expand on the ideas of your character. Disagree with some

participants and share the others' points of view. At the end of the conference you should come to a conclusion about the desirable