The_Rambler_1952-12-15

              STATE W l M ^ } ,
college OF.
THE
Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute—Farmingdale, N. Y.
VOL. XXm, No. 6 December 15, ia52
— S e a s o n ' s G r e e t i n gs
CHRISTMAS AT HOME
Christmas is a holy day which
brings hope and peace to the
heart of Christians in every corner
of the globe. Christ brought re-demption
to all of us and His
birthday, with all the little tra-ditions
different nations attach to
it, sends us into ecstasy and makes
it the happiest day of the year.
In the Slavic countries Christ-mas
is especially beautiful. The
country is bathed in white snow,
except for the many pine trees
which gather great clusters of
glittering ice into their arms as if
in an attempt to display their
splendor.
Bells become the symbol of the
day; sled drivers dress in Saint
Nick suits and adorn their sleds
and horses with jingle bells and
red ribbons. Children are kept
very busy creating tree decor-ations
out of every conceivable
color.
The tree is put up the day be-fore
Christmas with each child
hanging on the decorations he
made and candy he had managed
to buy from his own funds. Very
few artificial decorations are used.
Most of them consist of kinds of
candies made to symbolize sacred
stories about Christ. Saint Nick,
of course, is the hero of the day;
his boots, coat, beard and hat are
all reproduced in candy with the
most magnificent gold and sliver
wrappings. All these little won-derful
things are hung on the tree
with a great chocolate rooster on
top.
Saint Nick, is very busy, and
we do not expect him to bring
our presents into the living room,
so wo Just put our shoos on the
window sill and let Santa leave
our presents there.
Christmas begins at midnight
when church bells and carols fill
the air, telling the world of the
birth of our Savior.
Have A Good
Vacation!
See You Next
Year!
M,
R R
y
n A'
FRANKLY SPEAKING
Classroom notes and homework
are the bane destruction of most
students' existence. With the ex-ception
of a few enlightened
teachei's, most leaders of classes
in schools insist that the students
do a certain amount of home-work,
and just as firmly insist
that the same student, upon com-ing
into class, open a notebook,
grab a pencil, and start writing
at the first sign of a gem of
wisdom. The student is caught
between these two horrors!
First let's examine note-taking.
The recording of the moi-e im-portant
parts of a teacher's lec-ture
is not- in itself wrong or
harmful. If the practice were
completely explained to the stu-dents
it could be helpful. But I've
never met a student who has I'e-ceived
such an explanation. The
dean or a member of the faculty
merely explains to the freshmen,
"Take Notes".
So what happens? Take the
average lecture class. Half the
students are bent over their desks
trying to keep a stenographic re-cord
of every word and wheeze
that comes out of the teacher.
The other half lounge comfor-tably
(?) in their chairs, arms
hanging over desks, legs sprawled
in the aisle, notebooks closed and
pencils away. (The latter is es-pecially
notable among the Ag-gies
on barn duty.) Only a few
students are really learning any-thing,
and that depends on the
teacher's skill as a lecturer. The
writing half are so busy with
their notes that they miss com-pletely
the broader concepts re-lating
to modern life that the
teacher may be expounding. The
lounging half may get those con-cepts,
but since they do not i-e-cord
them for future reference,
they stand a good chance of for-getting
them as soon as the bell
rings.
Now we come to homework—a
slightly different problem. The
abuses ai-e many, the benefits
few. Since there is little co-or-dination
between what is taught
in one class and what goes on in
any other, the situation frequent-ly
arises where the student is
busy with essay reports in Gen-eral
Ed, feverish preparations for
CHRiSTMAS ON CAMPUS
Once again the joyful Christmas
season is here and a lively holi-day
atmosphere dwells through-out
the campus.
The windows of Dorm 1 have
been decorated with bright, gaily
colored Christmas lights and vivid
green pine branches. In the
lounge, the clicking of knitting
needles can be heard as the girls
feverishly put the finishing
touches on their Christmas gifts
of mittens and socks.
Of course those trees in front
of Knapp Hall look splendid in
their vivid array of colorful lights
and holiday decorations. Around
dusk the familiar Christmas car-ols
are heard echoing through the
campus bringing their message of
the Yuletide season to everyone. .
The carols continue throughout
the night as the students pick up
the familiar strains and make
known the fact that Christmas has
arrived on our campus.
science exams, five pages of math
homework, and oral or written
reports of a field trip. The result
is that theoretically one is ex-pected
to spend seven or eight
hours in an evening burning up
the grey matter.
But even when these pile-ups
don't occur, each student is ex-pected
to spend at least one hour
on each subject. Most students
carry six or seven subjects. In
certain subjects there is also a
certain amount of "supplement-ary"
work. Is it any wonder then
that young people sometimes
sound like hyprochondriacs when
it comes to talking about school
work? Of course, many students
let everything ride and spend
maybe an hour a week on the
whole shebang.
Once I got interested in a class
and swore that I would do all
my homework. As long as the
course i"an, I was the expert. But
this was all textbook stuff. Came
graduation! After six weeks it
was all Greek to me.