Boston Area Teachers To Study at Ed School

A plan to apply educational research at Harvard to the problems of Boston-area schools--and to turn teachers themselves into researchers--will be tested beginning this summer by the School of Education, Boston and four suburbs.

The program will bring 25 teachers to the Ed School in July to be trained as "teacher-liasons." Their job will be to talk to fellow teachers during the school year, tell them about current research, and encourage them to use the facilities of local universities.

In addition, the Ed School will select 15 teachers to do long-term research projects under the supervision of its Faculty.

And there is a possibility that a plan to send teams of graduate students and teachers directly to the schools to do research may also be tacked on to the project.

The entire package will be financed by the Harvard Center for Research and Development on Educational Differences, set up in 1964 by the Ed School and the U.S. Office of Education.

"We hope the project will increase the concern of a large number of teachers with their school systems and get them active," John D. Herzog, executive director of the Center, said yesterday.

Elementary and Secondary-school teachers from Boston, Brookline, Concord, Lexington, Newton, and possibly Cambridge will be among the 25 trained as "teacher-liasons" in the project. They will get a six-week course from Ed School Faculty members including a study of a research project, a discussion of the school's role in the community, and a seminar on educational innovation.

During the 1966-67 school year, they will be released from a large part, perhaps half, of their teaching duties to study their own schools and suggest ways that current research can be used to solve school problems. Ed School Faculty members will continue to meet with them as a group at least once a month.

Interdisciplinary Teams

The Center staff is now considering setting up inter-disciplinary teams of graduate students, teachers and administrators to attack some of the problems.

These teams would work on specific projects, such as setting up a school program for gifted children. If their recommendations were adopted, they would take responsibility for reviewing the program periodically.

None of the projects will be funded for more than a year. Both the Center and the co-operating school systems will examine them before they are extended.