Word: ridgewood
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Earlier this year, Wilkins conducted a week-long cold-turkey cure with elementary-school pupils in Ridgewood, NJ. Her accounts of the week of abstinence often sound like the minimelodramas at a fat farm. Some families balked; some began and gave up; several starving mothers furtively watched General Hospital; one frustrated father resorted to taping Rangers' hockey games. In general, parents seemed to suffer the pangs of withdrawal more acutely than their children...
...officially over at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School in Ridgewood, N.J., but a handful of students are still hard at work. They are "Muller's disciples," followers of a popular math teacher named Bob Muller, 30, who heads Benjamin Franklin's computer program. Oblivious to the clang of the last class bell, the disciples are hunched over their desktop computers, while long reams of paper clatter out of printers and green phosphorescent TV screens dance with ciphers and letters...
...closeness can be contagious. Explains Nick Newman, 15, Muller's chief disciple at Ridgewood: "The more you do on the machine, the more enjoyable it gets. It becomes habit forming." In Alpena, Mich., youngsters who had learned computer skills in junior high were devastated when they got to senior high school and found too few machines to go around. Says Alpena Elementary School Principal Burt Wright: "I've got high school kids begging to come in after school and use our machine." The truly addicted-known half scornfully, half admiringly as computer nerds-may drop out almost entirely...
...company called Aristotle Software to sell their own computer games and graphics programs. Says Kay: "The nice thing about the computer business is that there is no real bias against children. In the computer magazines, you read articles by twelve-and 13-year-olds." Laura Hyatt, 15, of Ridgewood, helps a stymied local insurance office figure out how to use its software. Says she: "It's better than babysitting." And, at $3.50 an hour, somewhat more profitable...
...youngsters take equally to the machines. In a typical computer class, only about one in five students becomes seriously involved. Says Steven Scott, 16, of Wausau's West High: "Either you get the hang of it or you don't." Even so dedicated a computernik as Ridgewood's Nick Newman finds programming interesting but only for a purpose. His own goal is to apply his computer knowledge to a career in science or medicine...