Word: sizer
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...January 15, the preliminary closing date for applications, MIT recorded a 7-per-cent increase in applicants compared to statistics from the same time last year, according to Irwin W. Sizer, dean of the graduate school...
...THOUGH SIZER brings to his work thorough knowledge of the political problems involved in educational reform, he ignores some of their consequences. He hopes that collegia will give students a true understanding of society. But he doesn't explain how he will get government funding for a kind of "social studies" that has never before been allowed in public schools...
...Sizer's traditional liberalism also informs his vast hopes for the power of education in the future. He believes the right kind of education can create a "real unity of mankind" in opposition to the simple homogeneity fostered by mass culture. But it is simple optimism to say that schools, alone, can bring about this kind of future. Other than the traditional aphorism -- that knowledge provides the ability to resist -- Sizer gives no evidence for this belief, and the conclusions he reaches are not obvious...
ALONG WITH his central proposal Sizer advances other interesting speculations about reform. Many are old hat, but in his program they achieve greater validity. In connection with the collegia, he thinks guidance counselling, traditionally reserved for telling students what colleges or jobs to apply for, should expand to service entire communities. They could offer advice and lay-therapy to both parents and children. He also broadly defines the functions of academies where basic skills are taught. They would concentrate on encouraging children to discriminate and reason logically, focusing on process rather than coverage of basic topics...
...Sizer's appealing program for balancing life and work in school would work well at Phillips Academy, Andover where he is now headmaster. It is an ideal educational environment free from many social and political pressures. In most other American schools his program would be a welcome relief from current bad education. It would probably be very successful in teaching basic skills and self-awareness. But in the moral and political ends it sets for itself, it would fail...