Bunting Asks Change In Educational Ideas

American education must become more flexible if men and women are to meet the demands of a future they cannot predict with any certainly in this rapidly changing world, Radcliffe president Mary I. Bunting declared last night.

She urged teachers to experiment with ways of stimulating their students' abilities to find satisfaction in "positive experiences, such as following their curiosity, appreciating beauty, and helping other people."

"In the past," she explained, "man has been preoccupied with limiting negative experiences, such as hunger, cold, and fear, because they were very imminent. In the affluent society, we can take care of the negative things amazingly well, and still have time left over to realize our capacity for positive achievements."

Because "the cultural pressure to be somebody" centers primarily on men, women are more free to experiment with new patterns of education, Mrs. Bunting pointed out. Nevertheless, "to a very large extent in this country at this time, we value people in terms of their jobs," and this evaluation applies to women as well as men.

"The traditional job of homemaking takes up a portion but nowhere near the entire span of a woman's life today," she said. "One approach to this problem is to build up the role of the homemaker, to declare that 'Nothing is more important than motherhood.'"

But, she commented, "we have not discouraged girls to think ahead in terms of education. There is a real need to build in them the curiosity, motivation, and enthusiasm for learning and service to carry them through the period when they must concentrate on their home responsibilities."

In the American school system, she observed, girls are frequently "shunted into practical instead of basic education." Because knowledge is expanding rapidly on all frontiers, such practical education is inapplicable by the time a woman has raised her children and is ready to use it.

Yet, "general education is not enough for women," she stressed. "The relationship of the individual to the vast world of knowledge makes concentration requirements necessary. The satisfaction of working hard at something you are interested in must be learned on the way up."

"Our society is just beginning to investigate ways of re-structuring its educational processes," President Bunting said. She noted that "we know very little about the right ages to teach various things."

Speaking to an audience of 200 in Room 18, 2 Divinity Ave., Mrs. Bunting encouraged teachers to "free students from the lockstep of current educational patterns.