Education: For the Air Age

At Chattanooga’s municipal airport one day last week, a group of excited Tennessee schoolmarms & masters (age range: from 20s to 70s) took to the air, 29 of them for the first time. After zooming around for 20 minutes they were shown why a plane flies, how an airport tower operates, how weather and communication services are conducted. The occasion was the first of a series of “institutes” to prepare teachers for a state-wide program of aviation instruction in all public schools, from first grade through college.

Tennessee is one of 15 states which have decided to prepare their youngsters for the air age (model planes are already being built as part of the Army-Navy program).

Moppets will begin by learning to spell aeronautical words, working simple aviation problems in arithmetic, studying aviation maps and distances in geography class, etc. The social and economic implications of the air age will be examined in history and economics courses. Instruction in actual flying will begin as early as high school, and aircraft engineering will be taught as the program expands. The state will pay half the cost of four hours of flight instruction (at $8 an hour) for any aviation student who wants it. To speed the program, the University of Tennessee and several state colleges will give special courses for teachers this summer.

Air education for youngsters should be no problem to sell. One second-grade teacher tried an experiment, found her pupils eager to learn all there was to know. With no prompting, the seven-year-olds harried her with questions. What are the different parts of an airplane? How can a pilot see at night? What does the propeller do? How do radio and weather men help the pilot? Who invented the first airplane? The teacher collected all the aviation books in the neighborhood and worked out the answers with the help of her class. A scrapbook was made up to show the whole history of aviation. Soon the children could identify planes and parts at a glance, had learned how to keep weather charts, and were able to conduct experiments in air pressure.

In addition to the 15 state programs, comprehensive peacetime aviation courses are now offered by at least 240 U.S. colleges and universities, are being planned by at least 80 more. Equally responsible for this national boom is the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which has helped to set up courses through which, some 300,000 students have already received a year’s training. The Army Air Forces is cooperating by sending eight demonstration teams and vans full of training equip ment on a three-month tour of schools in 103 U.S. cities. The A.A.F. has already started giving millions of dollars of such equipment to schools willing to pay the cost of transportation.