Word: martin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bold Orion is 25 ft. long, 6 ft. in diameter. Upon launching, a long lanyard from the plane to the rocket jerks free, firing the first stage directly ahead. After first-stage burnout and separation the second stage fires, guided by a new type of system devised by Martin Co.. then arcs upward at a 45° angle. Before reaching the top of its arc, it releases the nose-cone, which follows a ballistic curve to the target over the horizon...
...Martin concept: replace live professors wherever possible with filmed lectures, projectors and closed-circuit television rigs. The project is going strong: 919 students at Compton (enrollment: 4,800) taking a first-year psychology course need never face a flesh-and-blood lecturer, and 1,099 students in freshman algebra and English courses are film-fed most of the time. Their education is largely seen to by a woman worker in a central control room, who feeds the proper reels into the correct machines, and a faculty-member monitor, who patrols four TV theaters at a time, sees that sets work...
Breakthrough. Martin talks enthusiastically of his "breakthrough in education," scorns the experimental nature of other TV projects, says emphatically: "We are not making comparisons with live classes. We're just not in the business of conducting research. We are putting three more full courses on film, and by the end of the year we will have another three under way. This is not an experiment; we are switching over...
...Martin rammed through the project without bringing his teachers into the planning and faculty feathers are ruffled. Some objections: students are supposed to bring questions to teachers, "but several of us have the impression that the students are just letting their questions go rather than take the trouble"; day-to-day happenings cannot be related to course material; teachers filming new courses have to be careful not to drag in anything topical. Said one teacher plaintively: "They say it takes the pick-and-shovel repetition out of teaching. But some teachers like to teach...
Revolution. Students by and large are cool to Martin's revolution; during a half-hour of one television lecture recently, one or two students walked out and four others fell asleep. Most of the rest talked away the time. Said one boy afterward: "I can't concentrate...