THE
COUNCIL
Communication Comes
Federation
Where by ROBERT Engineering
We’re
CAVANAGH
Rep, and Vice-President
There has been much criticism lately about student activism and Federation policies in general. I would like to take this opportunity to explain student action and where it leads to. What is an activist? I would define an activist as one who, when analyzing a problem and reaching a solution, attempts to implement his findings. A student activist is usually branded as leftist. This probably happens because of confusion in the minds of most students as to the meaning of “The New Left”. This phrase immediately brings to mind thoughts of hippies, and anti-US demondraft-dodgers, strators. True, many of these people would consider themselves “New Left” tut many other “acceptable” people are also “New Left”. The New Left is basically Participatory Democracy, a system of government where all citizens have the right, even the responsibility, to participate, either personally or through elected
NEWS
of Students-University THURSDAY,
In
DECEMBER
Many
of Waterloo
Forms
7, 1967
At - Ehby
representatives, in the making of decisions which effect them. Being “New Left” brands no one as Left, Right, or Centre in the economic spectrum. The common ideal is participation. What’s so wonderful about participation? One of the biggest problems of our society is the diminishing influence of the average individual. Joe Citizen reacts to this by withdrawing to his family and circle of friends, not caring what happens outside of his sphere of influence. No wonder we have wars, racial strife, and poverty. No one cares about the other guy. What can be done about it? A reason must be given each individual to become involved with matters affecting his neighbours across the street or around the world. We must revolutionize the attitudes of the whole world! Henry Miller once said, “The only possible revolution, the only worthwhile revolution, , must be created not by politicians or militarists but by educators.” So it must start with us. We must
democratize the educational institution. By giving each student access to the decision-making processes and involving him in them a responsibility will develop which will carry over into his life after graduation. Where does “Power” fit in? Anything constructive must be done with power, Our daily lives are aided with the use of power, electric, heat, gas, etc. Any change, whether mechanical or social, requires power. Power under control can work miracles. Student Power can make a better world. I hope I have shown you some of the reasons why I firmly believe in the approach taken by the Federation of Students (all of you) and your elected representatives (members of Students Council) must have more interplay of ideas than has occured in the past. Talk to your representative or come and talk to me. I want to know what Yost think and why Yost think it. I also welcome the opportunity to explain my ideas and opinions to you. Let’s work together towards the world of tomorrow.
THE BIG PUSH: The Quality
Quahi relate discus Unive center
ty of education is the big push this year. One of the major questions to the reason for and utility of big lectures. On page two Stephen Ireland ses the MacPherson Report, a study on undergraduate education at the rsity of Toronto and Peter Warriarn takes a look at the theory of student ,ed teaching and its relevance to our present problems.
of Eda Committee
INTRODUCTION by CHALMERS History
A couple of years ago I heard someone call this university an “intellectual wasteland”. I was too busy with course work to think about it at the time. Yet for some reason I remembered the phrase. Slowly I came to realize that my “busy-ness” was a sign that I was on the edge of that wasteland. I was spending a considerable amount of &-ie reading and writing and very little time thinking, exploring, and conversing. Did this constitute the intellectual ferment which was supposed to characterize the university? Maybe I had been a part of this ferment without recognizing it. So, I began to look about the campus trying to identify the places where this was going on. Classrooms? Lots of good lecturers on campus; I had a few. Still, they had courses to cover. Alright, but what about after classes ? “Come to my office.” Sure! - That seldom worked. It’s something like Gordie Howe vs. fierman Fizzlefritz. If Fizzlefritz does not know the moves, Howe will beat him every time. A doubt gnaws at you but you can’t even find the question whose answer will dispel that doubt. You want Professor Browbeat in the open where a group of students can have a go. You wander off having been given no answers to the problems you see in the things you’re studying. Venture into the open alone and you jeopardize your course work. Yet how else are you
by IAN CALVERT
ADAMS
Physics
IV
going to find your own dimensions. Fall in with him or miss out when the label is placed on the package. After all, you came here for the degree, didn’t you? The university interlude is an opportunity to find yourself. This university is growing quickly. Unless we take a look now at what it is trying to do to ensure that you have the chance to study along the lines which will best satisfy your needs, Waterloo could easily lose track of what the university is about. The most important question you will ask yourself this year is: “What does my education mean to me?” The “Quality of Education” project is an opportunity for all of ~1s to focus our thinking on this question. By tak-
by GARY Electrical
BLACK
Engineering
IIIB
A fact of life: students must be their own ombudsmen! No one else is able or willing to provide the feedback that is so necessary in faculty decision-making and curriculum planning. There are a great many significant changes being made in curricula at present at Waterloo but there are an equal number of problems that are not being solved. Many solutions work in theory but are distorted in their application. Often, faculty in re-
ing a look at what is, we can get an idea of what ought to be. What do Yost want here and what are yogi getting? More information is available from the federation of students offices.
John Dewey identifies the essential question in education as studying how “the young assimilate the point of view of the old”. “The answer, in general formulation, is: By means of the action of the environment in calling out certain responses.”
Next Council Meeting, Monday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m., Hammerjold House at the Co-op on University Avenue.
sponse to problems adopt the cliche: “The operation was a success but the patient died”. They seem incapable of expressing objective selfcriticism and acting upon it. A university must stop and look at itself periodically to re-determine which direction is “forward”. This task is as difficult for faculty as it is for a man without a mirror to look at his face. In fact, the students represent the only “mirror” that can reveal the blemishes in the educational complexion. It is through such channels as
Your education should be an enriching and satisfying experience. Can you say that about the instruction you are receiving? If not, then do something about it! As one student, your comments to your particular department head will most likely be ineffective (that is, if you’ve got the nerve to see him). But if you, along with a large number of other students all present your problems and suggest possible solutions, and if all these comments are organized and given to the faculty in report form, presenting overall student opinion, your comments will be very effective. The faculty does want to satisfy the student body, but they will act only on problems which are common to a significant portion of the students, The
“Quality
of Education”
Com-
the current “Quality of Education Study” that the problems can be defined. This requires “student action” and students willing to carry this “mirror” to faculty. In the past it has been too heavy to lift but the present student body should have the strength required. In fact, the student response to this opportunity will reveal the number who still treat university life as a long tour through a museum - no real participation, merely observation in passing from one artifact to the next in silent reverance.
Ill
mittee is a student
group, with repre-
sentatives in all faculties,
that is trying
to bridge the communications
gap be-
tween students and faculty. In order to be effective, however, the committee must
what
know
prevalent.
problems
are most
By now all of you
have received
should
a copy of the question-
naires passed out two weeks ago. If not, then please pick one up at the Federation
Office.
By
answering
the
questions which you feel are most important,
by stating how you feel your
programme
could be altered to satisfy
you more fully, and by submitting
your
comments in writing to the Federation . Office, you will be making a significant contribution
to this study
of under-
graduate education. Your problems and suggestions, along with those of all other students making
submissions,
will be seriously
considered by the committee, and a report will be issued to your particular faculty
and department
presenting
the
views of the students under their authority. And changes in your favour bound to result,
are
You have two choices: the first is to write a submission and therefore help to change your programme more of your liking, forget
this study and continue
plagued by your What’s
problems.
it to you?
to one
the second is to being
The
ly Internal by STEWART SAXE Arts Representative Chairman Board of External Relations
well, summer flights and sailings to Europe are oflered to university students and their families.
It seems to be a fact of life that certain issues are bound to be bitched about: camp, food, hours of work, mothers-in-law, are some of the topics that have classically formed the centre of diatribes.
The Board has become one of the centres of study and research on ways and means to help the Canadian Indians.
Within the Students’ Council administrative set up, the “bitched” about area is very often the Board of Ext-ernal Relations. The old image of a small group of political science students getting together to spend money to help the natives of Afghanistan still haunts uninformed discussions about what the Board is doing. While the natives in Afghanistan may well be in need of help, such programs aren’t even on this year’s Board priority list. The only foray that has been made into issues external to Canada, involved a “Chevron” ad showing why a boycott of South African products could have some real effect in furthering human rights. What is the Board doing since it isn’t introducing motions on draft dodgers and universal accessibility this year? Let’s have a look. (The following are not in any order) : Studerlt Travel The Board co-ordinates an extensive program whereby students may investigate work, study and travel abroad. As
Democracy by PETE WARRIAN President Elect Canadian
Union of Students
The question to be explored here is whether or not there can be SLK~I a thing as “democracy in the classroom”. And, if so, how such a situation would differ from the present classroom situation, given that few people would characterize the situation in the average present class as being democratic. One constant theme heard around the campus in the past year has been, “democratization of the university”. The main rationale for the push for student participation and representation on various bodies in the university government has been that people should have a voice in the decisions that effect their lives. This seems consistent and, in fact, necessarily follows from our society a committment to democracy. For, it would seem to be contradictory to attempt to educate people for participation in a democratic society by the use of undemocratic educational institutions. The average classroom is now characterized by what we might call “teacher-centered teaching9’. The professor or lecturer is set in an authority role in his relationship to the students of the class. In fact, the communication lines are usually drawn so that the student sees only the back of his fellow students heads and only one face, beautiful or not, the face of his teacher. The point is that the communication is all one way, the student is not able to communicate with his fellow students without breaking the assumedly proper pattern of communication in the class. What this se& LIP is the situation ; \ where the professor is the authority, i he is the one who has all the good ideas, as if they could be monopolizj ed. Hence, the student is already plac: ed in a passive role in regard to his ;2 education. As a result the student, as ! he always has, just scribbles down notes i and is called apathetic, as he always i has! ; ? i ; ; i k
The above, it is suggested here, is a down right poor learning situation. In fact, is it possible to “teach” in the sense of one person feeding knowledge to another in some sort of supplierconsumer role? It may be possible for some things, mostly rote learning of
Guest Speakers A number of invitations are extended to interesting guest speakers to come to campus every year. In the past, this has included Russian students, Negro civil rights organizers, and Company of Young Canadians organizers. High School Visitatiom The Board provides a service whereby local high schools may have university students go and speak about the campus and how to get here. High School Tutorial Service The Board also provides a service whereby local high school students may request free tutoring in areas they are having difficulty in. The Board grants formal recognition to student groups interested in international problems. The Student United Nations Association and the World Federalists are two such groups. Intertlatiorlal Aid Program The Board acts as the administrative agency on campus for local students wishing to serve overseas in a number of nationally run programs such as
There seem to be two basic assumptions operating in the present teachercentered teaching situation which need to be challenged. One of the assumptions seems to be epistemological, the other ethical. First, there seems to be an operative epistemological assumption behind placing a teacher in such an authority role, namely, that there is a schema of knowledge that reveals the truth and this is what the teacher transmits. This many sound too dramatic, but all too often the teacher’s statements, whether by conscious decision or not, seem to be treated by all as definitive. Consequently, the student can only be expected to write them down. What the professor says is not often treated by himself or the students as heuristic, one set of conclusions following from a number of methodological decisions and assumptions, all of which needs critical examination and challenge. Alternatively, what comes from the professor should be considered as arl answer, not necessarily the answer. This point may seem small, but it is crucial if the level of critical dialogue in the university is to be increased. The second assumption operative in the present situation in the classroom is ethical, namely, that ~OLI can’t trust the student. The student must be motivated, if at all, by the teacher. Hence, the system of examinations which function largely as a means of coersion to force the student to work. Behind this seems to be the assumption that students do not have the capacity to be self-directing and responsible, and therefore an authority and coersion system must be structured into the sit-
YOU
Crossroads Africa and the Canadian University Services Overseas. Representatioil and Semi?lars A small function this year, this service provides for University of Waterloo students attending national seminars on a wide variety of topics from the French-English problem to social barriers to higher education. As well the Board sponsors a number of similar activities on campus. A rapidly expanding library is being built LIP on many subjects of interest to students and of importance to Council programs. Some of the topics now or soon to be covered are: China, work and travel opportunities abroad, the Canadian Indian situation, educational philosophy and practice. Research projects on local housing and local government are also underway. This is all too brief a list and other programs include the foreign student welcoming program, the committee for student discoun@ the inter-regional scholarship exchange plan. All these programs are generally low in cost (the Board’s budget is half of the Orientation ‘67 alone), but they need a high level of campus participation. Our biggest problem right now is a lack of people willing to do about two to three hours of work a week for the benfit of the general student body.
in the Classroom basic information, to be transmitted in this way, but is would seem to be better done by teaching machines, why waste a professor on such a mechanistic activity? Hewever, “education” as we might think of it, would seem to best go on when a “teacher” sees himself as essentially in a role of facelifting the learning of his students. This is different from him playing an authority role which seems to take the teacher as the point of departure for the learning situation, Instead, this “student-centered teaching”, a concept developed by Carl Rogers, would take the students as its point of departure, making the teacher more of a resource than an authority.
U. and
uation. This, it is here suggested, can turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If students are brought up in an educational system where they are not given the opportunity to be self-directing and responsible, then they are bound to turn out passive and relient upon authority structures. The student-centered teaching approach is an attempt to come to grips with some of these problems. Ideally, the students and the professor sit down together at the beginning of a course and collectively decide how they are going to proceed. The professor would contribute from his experience in the fi.eld an outline of traditional questions of interest in the area of the subject matter and what sorts of alternative approaches that there are to the subject matter. The students would articulate what their interests are in the area and what they would like to get out of the course. Collectively then and within the bounds of people’s abilities, both the teacher’s and the student’s, an approach to the course would be worked out, plus a collective decision on the best teaching method to employ (seminar, lectures, both or other) and the method of examination, if any. The assumption being made in the above is that the student can be trusted if given the chance to be responsible for his education. Practical? Realistic? It may be or it may not, that will bear testing. In a Toronto grade school last year, two new teachers decided to use this approach with their classes. One teacher went into her Grade 1 class and told them that they would have to set up the course of study for the year. After several weeks of fooling around, the little people had set up a curriculum having in it what amounted to arithmetic, reading, etc. By Christmas, this group of Grade 1 students were reading at a rate equal to that of the Grade 6 students, The other teacher went into her Grade 4 class and told them the same thing. They refused, that was the teacher’s job! All records of the federation of students, including the financial ones, are open to inspection by any member of the federation.
by STEPHEN
President
all full of vim and vigour
And now it’s early December and you’re trying desperately to get caught up on these notes you missed and read that awful textbook. Get the facts. Learn what the man said was important. Memorize what he told you you’re “responsible for.” Is this education? U of T’s MacPherson Report, “Undergraduate Instruction Science” says “NO !” And in 143 pages (available in the Bookstore through the Federation Office on loan) they tell us why not. Take the discussion
of lectures
in Arts and at $1.50 and
and labs, for instance.
Some critics of the lecture system often carelessly dismiss the need for lectures since the printing press made the lecture obsolete in the Middle Ages. But the report talks about other uses: 1. providing an overview of a subject; 2. conveying to students the professor’s enthusiasm and zeal for his subject: 3. showing students how to tackle problems of interpretation; 4. showing a scholar’s mind at work grappling with ideas? theoretical relations, intractable problems; 5. conveying to students theoretical insights and advances to knowledge unique to a particular professor; 6. transmitting information which the student must know in order to comprehend the subject; The first five are best performed by lectures - if only because one prof can reach more students at one time than any system of group instruction. But what do our lectures
do? -
Number
six -
and that can be by print.
How do we make the lecture perform its proper functions (l-5 above)? The two factors which encourage this misuse are ( 1) the number of lectures given in each course, and (2) the prevailing relation between lectures and examinations. For all of us who hate getting up and walking down the Village path or up the wind tunnel called University Avenue, MacPherson has a welcome suggestion: “That the number of lectures in each course which now gives two or three lectures a week be reduced to a maximum equivalent to one lecture a week over the whole year.” The Commission suggests an addition of one tutorial - session a week of ten people. The effect of this move would be to make it impossible for professors and students to use the lectures to “cover” the course and thus restore lectures to their proper functions, to release some of the student’s time for more work on their own and to release some of the professors’ time for supplementary forms of instruction (including more tutorial work, and possible more preparation of collateral material for distribution). On labs, the Report has fewer recommendations. Recognizing that the natural sciences, no matter how deductive or hypothetical, depend at some sta&: on observation or experiment. The Commission concerned itself with the proper functions of undergraduate teaching laboratories. These are not “carrying out the recipes and getting the official answers.” The solution: cut the number of required lab periods to reduce the routine tendencies which convert them into “recipe and official answer exercises.” Lengthening periods would allow them to be more open-ended so that significant discussion and the following-up of insight can occur. The governing philosophy how to analyze, how to judge students new perspectives. And the regurgitation in three hectic
is that lectures and labs should show students relevance, how to tackle problems and to give this carries over into discussion of exams hours of seven months of lecture notes.
The Report adopts the challengeable position that regular exams are inevitable but it does usggest some significant tinkering. Not less than one half of the final mark should be based on term work - and in second year there should be no exams, except for those students whose term mark was not adequate. Then in third year (because of grad school requirements), all student.s would be examined on their grasp of their subjects attained during their second and third years, Fourth year should be a year of more independent work and optional studies, with little in the way of final formal exams in each course. There is much in the MacPherson Report to commend it - it also discusses loosening up the rigid course structure, increased student participation in academic decision-making, honours and general courses, and counselling. But it doesn’t discuss the philosophical basis of higher education, the underlying rationale of the honours and general courses, the relation between the university and society and the university’s self-appointed role as a certifying body. There is no rationale given for continuing with the compartmentalized groupings of knowledge called courses and why these are ultimately assembled into things called course structures and programmes. It does not recognize that in many cases, student interaction and studentfaculty contact outside the classroom have been found to have a stronger and more significant influence on students than what goes on in the classroom. And while student views were sought (almost 75% of the 43 1 submission-s were from students), no undergraduate students were involved in the writing of the report which was done in an atmosphere of almost total secrecy. Nevertheless, the report, “Undergraduate Instruction in Arts & Science at the U of T” is a beginning and a valuable document for all members of the university community interested in improving the quality of education.
THE COUNCIL NEVVS Published
by the Federation
on a one time Opinions Production
Student council meetings to any interested individuals.
IRELAND,
So you arrived at the University of Waterloo all set for that new intellectual experience.
only
expressed
of Students,
University
basis. are
Co-ordinator,
those Stewart
of the
author.
D. Saxe
are open somehowikeepgettingtalkedintodoingthesedamnthingstimeaftertime
of Waterloo
presently