REDSTDNE

Worki11g as part of
Arrny's Ordnance team,
Thiokol"s Bedstone Didsion condiicts research
iuto propellant formulati011 and solid pro-

pellant motor development. E:rperiences-gained in the labs. through develop

ing prototype engines, and at firing bays c-ontinuous sfrue 1949-liave resulted
i11 many significant breakthro11ghs . . . providing a steady increase in size,
tltrnst and perfonnance of solid rocket rnotors.

LDNGHDRN

Motors for the Lacrosse and for the de

velopmental Sergeant and Pershing missiles,
and for other major systems-all boasting

RELJABILITYin depth, fiom research

In close cooperation with the Army and prirne rontrartors ... Thiokol designs,
develops and prodrnes propulsion systems in wide variety to meet the rnost
stringent military requirements. The associations are distinguished by a series
of major breakthroughs in propulsion engineering - beginning with srnall
rocket motors for tactical field use and carrying through to massive vowcr
plants for anti-missile and satellite application. All haYe rhecked out in static
firings and flight tests with virtually 100% reliability. All have contrihuted
mightily to advancing the total state of the art. Additional capabilities for
Army's advanced thinking are provided by other Thiokol Divisions. Utah, for

Remaking Education

remar/.;ably high rel,iabili ty scores-move into smooth mass production at

Longhorn. lncorporat-ing most ad11anced methods of manufacture and quality
control, LoniJhorn'::; total prodwti1Je capncity has y et to be chnlleng(1cl. Other
Thiokol Divisions provide additional scientific and production capabilities.

through productlon

continued

algebra on machines last year were retested in February,

they answered correctly 90 per cent of the questions they
had answered the preceding June. What's crucial in the use
of teaching machines, of curse, is not the machi:ne itself but
the way the material is organized for presentation. At the
Collegiate School in New York, for example, teachers are
using the machine "programs" without the machines.
The most important technological device of all is the printing press. "I think the biggest revolution in education will
come from better use of books," says Dean Chase of Chicago,
"not from television and teaching machines. We've never
really taken advantage of the printing press." A growing
number of educators share Chase's conviction that U.S.
schools have not given students enough responsibility for
their own education; the emphasis, Chase holds, should be on
learning rather than teaching, with the latter used less to
impart knowledge directly than to stimulate and direct
learning. In the model school, as Chase sees it, the library
would be the focal point, and students would devote a substantial part of t he day to independent study.
There is a good deal of faddism, to be sure, behind t he
current experimentation with new techniques of teaching and
school organization, and a certain amount of disillusionment
among school-board members and parents may result when
panaceas turn out to be only partial eures. The faddism,
however,does not result from mere restlessness. Almost anyt hing going on in t he schools today either proceeds from or
contributes to a reemphasis on the intellectual aims of education. And in their search for new ways t o transmit knowledge,
the schools are once again learning that there must be something to transmit. The principal payoff of the team-teaching
experiment in Lexingt on, for example, has been to demon. strate t he need for a thorough overhaul of t he elementary curriculum. When t he teaching teams met to discuss what they
were teaching and why- the first time this had ever been
done- they discovered that the curriculum was a mishmash
of unrelated and frequentlyirrelevant detail. Andin Washington County, Maryland, preparation of math and science programs for use over
closed-circuit TV network revealed
t hat t he old curriculum had been inordinately repetitious. As
a result, School Superintendent William Brish eliminated the
old eighth-grade math course, thereby starting the highschool sequence a year earlier, and he dropped the ninthgrade "general science" course, moving biology up a year
and adding advanced courses in physics and chemistry.

The uphill pursuit

large engine production-RMD, for sophisticated liquid systems - and Elkton, for diversified special motors.
Through fluid programming of assignments, and strategic
enlargement of faeilities for research, development and production, Thiokol
maintains a live
capahility to meet
any future pro'
CORPORATION, Bristol, Pennsylvanla
pulsion
challenge. THIOKOL CHEMICAL
Rocket Operations Center: Ogden, Utah

1THIOKOL 1

Alt hough evidence appears on every side of a great tide of

change t hat can carry t he schools to a new standard of excellence, there is no assurance that this movement will succeed. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, school
boards, and taxpayers will have t o make millions of right
decisions on the road t o excellence, which is always uphill.
There will be resistance from parents who prefer t he easy
way and from educators reluctant to try any new way. It's
never easy for any group to abandon ideas and practices of
long standing, and educators are perhaps more hidebound
t han most where t heir own work is concerned. But t his nat ion will be unable t o hold its own in t he hard and exciting
years ahead unless t he great change now beginning in public
education comes to fruition. Community leaders t hroughout
the U.S. have no graver responsibility and no more inspiring opportunity than to lend a hand in the remaking of
American education.
END

FORTUN E Ap,il 1961

201