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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 2530   View pdf image (33K)
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2530 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF MARYLAND [Dec. 15]

THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Singer.

DELEGATE SINGER: I ask you to de-
feat this structured establishment of the
educational status quo.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Wheatley.

DELEGATE WHEATLEY: At this
time, Mr. Chairman, I yield three minutes
to Delegate Dorothy Murray.

THE CHAIRMAN: How many?
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Three.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Murray.

DELEGATE D. MURRAY: Thank you,
Mr. Chairman, again my prepared speech
is probably going to go out the window
just as so many of my other plans. Please
let me tell you a little bit about the status
quo. If this is how it is, let me tell you,
Delegate Singer, how it has worked for me
and how many children for the past
twenty-five years. I think I have already
told you part of my family history. Let me
tell you why the school system has worked
for that part of my family, as well as
for me.

In our present school, we have made
many, many changes during the last, well,
six years. In our school of twenty-one
classrooms we are now providing for three
full-sized classrooms for the special learn-
ing problem children. These boys and girls
have emotional problems, not serious
enough to put them in, for want of a
medical word, an institution, but these are
being cared for by a full-time teacher. We
also have the so-called average children,
above average and below average in our
other classrooms. For all of these children
we have the help of a nurse, something
that was not heard of a few years ago,
under this same status quo.

Another of the advancements that we
have made is in the field of physical edu-
cation. We know that our children need to
be developed totally. They need to be de-
veloped physically, socially, as well as men-
tally, and our status quo is taking care
of this.

May I digress for a minute and say to
the young man, Delegate Lord, who if he
be a product of our Maryland system, you
have been learned real good, young man,
and I think this speaks very well for our
education, even though it does not speak
well for my grammar. That is something
that I have adopted from some of my
students.

Now, let me be serious again for a
moment. Delegate Blair referred to the
three R's. I am sorry, that is the teacher
instinct, Mr. Chairman. I have to stop
when we are not quiet. This might lose a
vote, I think. If the teacher stops, the
children get quiet. They listen. We know
that the three R's are not enough in our
present system, and we have enlarged on
this. We have included art, we have in-
cluded Xeroxing, and this takes us all the
way down to the next-to-the-last letter in
our alphabet. This is in the vocational field,
and I think that this gives you another
cross sectional view of what we are doing
in our present system of education in
Maryland.

THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute.

DELEGATE D. MURRAY: That will
give me time enough to wind up with a
story that I think you will enjoy.

In one of our fourth grade classes we
had a young man who could never sit in
his seat, and we have many of those young
people; but he was being taken care of by
not being tied to that seat as might have
happened a few years ago. He was given a
chance to go and paint a picture, etc., but
one day he was very interested in what
had happened. The teacher was teaching
the zones, the torrid zone, temperate and
frigid zone. She had gotten through the
first two zones with the hands waving, and
the correct answers given; and she finally
reached with very dramatic gestures to the
top of the board and said, now, who can
tell me what zone this is, and John, bless
his little heart, who had not answered a
question all year, and I believe this was
the month of April, jumped from his seat
and said, I do. It is the twilight zone.

Thank you very much.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Lord.

DELEGATE LORD: I yield three min-
utes to Delegate Gallagher.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen, in urging the
adoption of section 1 of the Minority Re-
port to replace sections 1 and 4 of the
Majority Report, it would seem advisable
to address myself initially to the question
of approach.

There is no disagreement about the fact
that Maryland is committed to provide a
more and better public education. The first
object of our concern must be the students,



 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 2530   View pdf image (33K)
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