European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 31, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 4 the stars and stripes wednesday August 31,1988 Bennett says course improvements needed at Many elementary schools Washington a Secretary of education William j. Bennett said tues Day Many . Elementary schools suffer from defective curricula and need a Strong dose of the classics rigorous mat hand science and foreign language study As Early As the fourth Grade. Bennett held a news conference to unveil his proposed Model called James Madison elementary school a curriculum for american he said it is a sequel to the Jame Madison High school Model he issued last december and he joked that this one could be called Jimmy Madison elementary he said elementary schools generally Are in better shape than High schools but at most maybe a third of our schools Are offering a curriculum As Strong As the one he favors. If there s a crucial Point Here it s the fourth Grade he said. We see a fourth Grade slump in Reading. Math and he said american Grade schools prob ably devote More time to math than Jap anese schools do but too much of it misspent on Dull workbooks and too often parents teachers and students alike accept the notion that some students just cannot handle math. We need a Little More persistence he said. We have put together a curriculum for All children not just for the affluent or College bound he said. Bennett who is leaving his Post sept.20, called it my final report to the american people As the report outlines what Bennett Calls a sound elementary school Core curriculum from kindergarten through eight Grade in seven subjects English social studies mathematics science foreign language Fine arts and physical an health education. Its suggested Reading list ranges fro the tales of Pippi Long stocking and mrs. Giggle wiggle for the Early grades to the red badge of courage and Al ice s adventures in wonderland for older pupils. Bennett said he emphasized classics because they Are so often miss ing from elementary school Bennett has no authority to Force single school in America to follow any of his suggestions. Public school curricula Are determined by state and local school agencies and private schools Are free Coset their own courses. The 1979 Law that created the . Department of Educa Tion specifically forbade the Agency from prescribing curricula. Bennett said he was just offering som free advice. I do not presume to instruct teachers or parents principals administrators and school boards in the details of their daily jobs or in the exact shape sequence and specialized Content of their elementary school curricula he said. The document is not a monolithic program to be uniformly imposed or slavishly followed he said. Instead it i intended More broadly As a statement of Bennett s suggestions for social studies include american history in each of the first five grades world history and Geog Raphy in sixth and seventh grades and both world ge9graphy and american government in eighth Grade. He would have All youngsters take either algebra or pre algebra by eighth Grade. His science curriculum would recapped with biology in seventh Grade and some chemistry and physics i eighth Grade. He said foreign language instruction should Start no later than fourth turn of events Tony Larizza of Nova Ohio turns the tapes on his Mother Joan who brought along a video camera to film her son s response to the first Day of kindergarten class in the Mapleton school system. When mom was t looking Tony picked the camera up and recorded her reaction instead. Atlantic dumping of medical waste banned by Navy Norfolk a. A the Navy has ordered it ships in the Atlantic Ocean to Stop dumping medical waste at sea in response to complaints involving wast that washed ashore. Earlier this summer beaches in new York and new Jersey were closed after a Large Quantity of waste washed ashore. The Navy was not blamed in the dumping. The Navy admitted aug. 8 that medical waste was dumped from two Norfolk based ships after personnel from the Navy and the marines were used to clean up a 26-mile stretch of North Carolina beaches from fort Macon to Emerald Isle. Sailors and marines collected what the Nav said was a trash bag full of medical supplies. Adm. Frank b. Kelso ii commander of the Atlantic Fleet said monday he sent a message to All commands on saturday to cease dumping at sea. While Only one of these incidents involved a Small Quantity of medical waste attributed to Atlantic Fleet ships these incidents clearly dictate increased emphasis on proper disposal of All types of waste Kelso said. Regulations will be adopted immediately by ship commanders that will require special handling of All potentially infectious medical waste he said. Kelso defined potentially infectious waste As disposable medical supplies designed for use in diagnosis treatment Laboratory testing or training. Those items will include Al Sharp objects containers of blood and blood products pathology specimens and tissue he said. Founding fathers were Randy revolutionaries new York a the nation s founding fathers sired More than their country according to a historian who says sex was a mainstay of courtship inthe revolutionary War Era and often resulted in pre marital pregnancy. Judging from birth and marriage records american sin the late 1700s were More licentious than we imag Ine them to be Jack Larkin writes in american Heri Tage Magazine s september october Issue. Larkin cites records of several dozen communities to prove that in the late 18th Century pregnancy was frequently a prelude to marriage. The proportion of women pregnant at their wed dings had been rising since the late 1600s, and peaked in the decades Dunn and after the revolution. I Rural new England towns like Sturbridge mass., nearly a third of the brides already were with child. People today tend to assume we be reached the ultimate level of moral looseness and that you can look Back through our history at a steadily rising level of immorality building up to the present Larkin said in an inter View. But in tact these things have gone in the concept of Randy revolutionaries is particularly surprising in Strait laced new England considering the popular notion of what puritanism was a labout he said. Seventeenth Century new England was indeed a strict society but sexual Freedom began to increase As the Region became More socially and economically diverse. And a resistance to British Rule spread through the colonies in the late 1700s, All hell broke Loose he said. But Salem was no Sodom and Gloucester was t gomorrah. Pregnancies usually simply accelerated a marriage that would have taken place in any Case Larkin writes. Most Rural communities simply accepted the Early pregnancies that marked so Many Larkin is chief historian at old Sturbridge Village i Sturbridge a re creation of an 18th-Century Village. He is also the author of the reshaping of everyday life in the United states 1790-1840," to be published this fall by Harper & Row. When Early american communities did censure pre marital pregnancy it often was More a matter of economics than morals. The Rule As enunciated by As Lincoln Justice of the peace in Brimfield mass., was born a Bastard and chargeable to the accordingly if a woman was still unmarried when she gave birth officials might interrogate her during labor about the father s identity not As much to condemn him As to get him to support his child. Sexual mores began to change in the 1820s, Larkin says As the turbulent War years receded and society became More settled and strict. Community records in this period show that the pro portion of women who conceived a child before marriage steadily declined. By 1840, the premarital pregnancy rate in new England towns dropped from nearly one pregnant Bride in three to one in five or six. In some places prenup tial pregnancy dropped to 5 percent. For Many americans this marked the acceptance of new limits on sexual behaviour imposed not by their parents or other authorities but by themselves Larkin writes. " they were marrying later than their parents often living through Long engagements while the Hus band to be strove 19 establish his place in the chose not to risk a pregnancy that would precipitate them into an Early such Points Larkin said Are hard to make at family place like old Sturbridge Village. That s Why i wrote the Book he said. Somethings Are hard to show in a
