Word: midtown
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...most educators, classroom permissiveness died of overindulgence ten years ago, and the return to discipline is well advanced. But to Ken Reiner, permissiveness makes happy children happier and good teachers better, and at his Midtown School in Hollywood's Silver Lake district, he has taken it to new heights. The children may write on the walls, throw sand and food at each other, shun their classes and practice card tricks and wander about the fanciful school grounds all day, smiling at the wonder of it all. The teachers, wary of inhibiting the children, let them do whatever they want...
...Midtown's 60 students are set apart in four groups-the 2½-to-5, the 5-to-7, 5-to-9, and a top form for the 9-to-17-year-olds. Eleven teachers are on hand to offer guidance, but their classes are chaotic and short. If the children take no interest in the lesson, the teachers spend their time sawing up boards or joining the children at play...
...Looked Foggy. Learning without knowing it may mean making applesauce (a big thing at Midtown), or it may mean taking a trip to the mountains to gather material for class. One group spent a day on Mount Baldy last winter, played happily in the snow, then came back to school to have their teacher record their conversation. The result is Midtown's beginning-readers' primer, a work of the children's own creation: "Snow in the mountains. It looked smoggy. It looked frosty. It looked foggy. It looked dark. It felt cold. Then it rained. Then...
Teacher Walter Merlino last week provided his students with a superb example" of the Midtown dogma of doing, not learning. He suggested that his class go to the Los Angeles Federal Building to join women demonstrators in a march against atomic testing. "You should feel strongly against atom testing before you march." cautioned Merlino, who then talked foggily about fallout, concluding: "The point is to at least stop the U.S. and at least cut the amount of fallout in half. Who wants to go?" Every child, presumably filled with strong feelings, raised his hand...
...Peppermint Lounge and its Twist might well have remained just another flesh spa for the midtown beatnik crowd had it not been for the sharp eye of New York Journal-American Society Editor "Cholly Knickerbocker" (Igor Cassini), who somehow spotted a few members of the smart set slumming there one night. No sooner did Cholly break the news in his gossip column than the Peppermint Lounge became an instant fad. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford showed up. So did Porfirio and Odile Rubirosa, and Bill Zeckendorf Jr. and Judy Garland and the Bruno Pagliais (Merle Oberon), and Billy Rose...