Front Street Weekly; No. 208; 1982-12-02

As academic achievement scores have fallen, educators have reevaluated their methods for teaching basic skills. Ready? There are two radically different methods used to teach kids how to read. In the state of Oregon, every child is entitled to an education, regardless of a handicap. We'll talk to legal and educational experts about helping children at a time when money for special programs is disappearing. Mainstreaming, it seems to me, has been around as long as public law 94-142 has been around. It's been a part of the program here all three years that I've been here. 20 years ago, the remote area of Christmas Valley was advertised as the Palm Springs of Oregon. Unfortunately, the plans for this resort community have become a high desert mirage. Now, the town may become the site of a sophisticated military radar complex. I think most of us are kind of proud to be involved in it. And there's also an economic factor that it has to help our community. We're very interested in that.

Two newly divorced people talk about the singles scene. I went into this place with a friend and I did not want to be there. I was not in the mood. I had a hard day at work. But he convinced me I should not go home. I should go out, and we'd go out to the bars, so we did. And I was sitting there and he was out dancing, having a good time. There was this girl down at the end of the bar, having just as a miserable time as I was. So I thought, well, what the heck. I didn't want to dance, I didn't want to do anything. I walked up to her and I says, you're having as a miserable time as I am. I says, you know, can I sit down? She said, Sure. So the two of us just miseried together. We'll take a look at television's prophets, Oregon's weathermen. Well, it's really a tough question when you ask about accuracy in forecasting. Because you have to define what accurate is. For example, if I say the high temperature tomorrow is going to be 75, and in fact it's 76, is that right or wrong? Good evening. Welcome to Front Street Weekly. Declining academic achievement in this country has focused attention on elementary school

reading programs and the way children are being taught the English language. Tonight, we'll explore various elements that affect early learning. We'll also look at two radically different approaches to teaching schoolchildren how to read. As elementary school children returned to classes this year, they found themselves in the middle of an ongoing controversy. The issue has nothing to do with busing or prayer in the schools, but it is centered on scholastic achievement and the way basic skills are being taught in the classroom. The problem is that the country hasn't genuinely made achievement and excellence in school a priority. That we're quite content to have kids who are coming out of schools learning much, much less than what's possible. Alarmed by a decade of falling achievement test scores, many school administrators, teachers and parents have begun to take a hard look at educational priorities. Some school districts have re-evaluated the "do your own thing" attitude of the 1970's,

and are now promoting a renewed emphasis on the basic skills - reading, writing and arithmetic. Because reading is so critical to learning in general, much of the attention of the educational community has been focused on the first 'R'. In Eugene, administrators at the 4J School District decided to do a total evaluation of their reading program. We had found ourselves in a place where, on a system wide basis, our reading scores were really not where they should be. We're a town with a high socio-economic area where we've got a lot of people with college education, our educational level is high. You would expect to see children in this town doing very well academically. That wasn't necessarily true. There is general agreement that children can improve their reading skills, both in the area of phonics, decoding of words by sounding out letters, and comprehension, understanding what the words mean. But there is no consensus among educators about the best way to teach these skills or about the materials to be used in the classrooms.

We couldn't find a single textbook, for example, on last adoption that really met all the phonics skills and the later comprehension skills that needed to be developed. So we had to adopt more than one and say this one's really good at the primary level. This one is much better at the upper level. [child reading] Traditionally, school reading programs have relied heavily upon basal textbooks to teach basic reading skills. Over the years as textbook publishing has become very lucrative and highly competitive, the Dick and Jane readers that most of us remember have been replaced by basals that contain a wide variety of characters, stories and illustrations. But critics like author Bruno Bettelheim claim that textbook publishers are making stories less challenging and offering fewer vocabulary words. Teachers who use the new books in their classrooms, however, like some of the changes. The textbook companies have - have put a great deal of money into making sure that, for example, there's no sexism

in books, there's no racism in books, that the pictures are fantastic. But even with the best textbooks, many children are failing to learn how to read and some educators are blaming other parts of the system. There are many problems with the traditional scheme. And these include not only textbooks, but the structure of school systems, the structure of colleges, of education, and to a large extent the way teachers are reinforced through teacher unions or through district policies that are the sum total of the current traditional system. It is not designed to teach kids. Ziggy Engelmann, professor of special education at the University of Oregon, has long been critical of traditional approaches to teaching reading. Experimenting with new instructional methods, his success in teaching disadvantaged children how to read has gained him a national reputation and a growing number of followers in the educational community.

The thing that's wrong with American education is that there is no focus on kid performance, that instead there is justification for doing things the way they're done. So a teacher does something and a percentage of the kids don't learn. Who's blamed? The kids, always. Engelmann and several colleagues have formed the Engelmann-Becker Corporation to develop educational materials, which are marketed under the name Distar, and to train teachers in their direct instruction methods. The Distar program provides teachers with a very detailed script for teaching word decoding skills based on Englemann's philosophy that every child can be taught. In our programs, they're taught. There is not just merely exposure. So those programs, are they appropriate for all kids? Yes. And, like, we can demonstrate that.. that it will increase the kid's rate of acquisition of reading skills, make them better readers, and do so at a faster rate. Let's go back to this word and see if you can read it in a fast way. Make sure you're sitting up nice and tall so I can hear you reading.

Ready? [children read aloud] What word? [children reading] Good sounding out. Here's a fast one. Sound it out. Ready? [children read aloud] What word? [children reading] Cow. Now let's read this one. Jane Côté is using the Distar program to teach this first-grade class the relationship between letters and sounds. Ready? Using direct instruction techniques, she cues responses, corrects mistakes and rewards appropriate answers with praise. Good, you didn't get tricked on any of your sounds. Let's sound out a real hard word. Sound it out. I prefer the Distar program over other methods of teaching because it is sequential and the students are taught exactly what they need to know to figure out what the words are. Nothing is left to chance. Nice reading, Jeremy.

Although there is much data to support the effectiveness of Distar, many teachers disagree with the total focus on phonics and are uncomfortable with the regimentation in the classroom. Who is in control? In Distar the teacher is in control. In my language experience approach, the child is in control and the teacher is a facilitator, an encourager and knowing what - what kinds of materials that will be interested... interesting, making decisions about instruction based on the strengths of the particular child and what the child needs to know next. What kind of [inaudible] Dr. Chris Pappas, also an educator at the University of Oregon, approaches the teaching of reading from a totally different perspective. Her language experience philosophy is based on the idea that children will be motivated to read if the material is meaningful. She says that students come to school wanting to read and rather than focus the process on repetitive drills, the teacher should encourage the child to engage in the activity of reading.

The only way children can learn to read is by reading. They learn to talk by talking. They learn to walk by walking. They're going to learn to read by reading. And they'll learn to write by writing. And I mean real live writing activities, reading activities, that have functional use in their own lives. What else can rabbit do, Kelly? Run fast. You want to put fast right here then? You want to spell fast for me?. F-a-s-t. Good girl, run fast. In Peggy Winbigler's language experience class, children list descriptive words about familiar subjects and use these words to make up written stories which they then learn to read. If you want a child to read, you have to give him a reason to read. He should read, not just to say words or read sentences for the teacher, he should read because he wants to find out things. He should read because he wants to use words in other ways.

So language experience is really being motivated to write your own ideas, which you read and share with other folks. The rabbit can change colors in the winter. The language experience approach is based on the belief that children will learn to read by being motivated to use new words in creating their own stories. But this method puts a lot of responsibility on young students, and in some cases, they find it difficult to respond. The traditional educational philosophy is that we expose - some kids learn it, some kids don't. If the kids don't, it's their fault because of inadequacies in terms of the way they're wired or their home environment or something over which we have no control, that the basic message and the basic philosophy in which we really believe, is that if we know how to teach it, the kids know how to learn it. Engelmann's Distar program emphasizes direct instruction techniques and puts the primary responsibility for learning on the teacher. But by following a predetermined sequence, this approach sometimes fails to accommodate

what the child already knows about language. With respect to Distar, the assumption is that there is a blank slate, and that the teacher has all the knowledge, and we are somehow giving that child those bits of knowledge. Children come to school with lots of different backgrounds, and so teachers need to be careful observers about what they already know. And you are making, then, decisions of instruction based on what children already know. I really don't believe that any one program is good for all children. That's why we have several to choose from. And we try to, we try to make sure that the child has the reading program that's best for them. I think education in general has moved towards the more individualized approach because we've learned how to organize better, we've learned the better instructional techniques,

we learned better diagnostic techniques. Once we do that, then we look for a variety of teaching styles in a variety of materials that are going to meet the various needs of the kids. While it seems that no single approach to reading works in all situations, one thing on which all sides agree is that children are greatly influenced by their parents' reading habits. Children who see their parents enjoying reading, and whose parents enjoy reading to them, will be motivated to read no matter what methods they're exposed to at school. I make sure that the kids know I love to read, and I think the fact that they are reading, that they have books around them all the time, is the thing that will stimulate them and motivate them to read. Not just me teaching them to read. I think it goes far beyond that. The key is that improving educational excellence involves many different actors, we might say. It involves the publishers, the colleges of education, the teachers, the parents, all of these people, through their

attitudes, through their skills and what they support, are going to have a big effect on how well students are going to do in school. But whether educators choose Distar or a language experience approach, in the 1980s high technology will also greatly affect children's performance in school and the way they relate to reading. Some children are becoming readers by watching television. Others are spending time with video instead of reading. And others are learning whole new languages. While computers may replace books as sources of information, reading will still be a necessary skill in the electronic age. And no matter how much we come to depend on machines, nothing can replace the experience of reading a good book. You are with me, and here I am with you. Oh, what a happy birthday, dear dragon. That's all. While national S.A.T. scores have declined steadily since the late '60s, there are

indications that this trend is being reversed. In Eugene's public schools, reading scores have gone up in recent years, and officials there say that several problems have been identified and corrected. Despite the controversy over teaching approaches, there are some hopeful signs that our children can improve their reading skills, one of the most vital indicators of scholastic achievement. [music plays] In recent years, children with learning disabilities and serious handicaps have been receiving special education designed to help them improve their basic skills. Also, emphasis has been placed on making learning-disabled children feel part of the ordinary school environment. This, as a result of a federal law requiring the least restrictive education for all students, regardless of handicaps: Federal law 94-142. While the law represents hope for thousands of families and their children in the Northwest, it is not without controversy.

Ben Pedro reports. For many children, going to public school and studying the basics is taken for granted. But for children with disabilities, a regular classroom experience is new and exciting because in the past they have been shut out, excluded from the environment their peers enjoyed. Public law 94-142 was designed specifically to protect these handicapped children. The law requires a "free and appropriate public education for all handicapped children in the least restrictive environment." Mainstreaming evolved directly from that law. Now, both mentally and physically handicapped are being integrated into the public school system. Laurelhurst Elementary is one of the many schools in the Portland area involved in the program. This makes great sense. There are any number of areas of the school program that

a child should be a part of socially with age mates and so forth. But when they need specific kinds of help, they do need it. I don't see that mainstreaming would ever come to the point where there would be so many girls, boys and girls, with problems that are so difficult that it would cause undue problems. Kinds of special education classes vary from school to school. These handicapped children spend most of their time participating in regular activities. Every child, whether mentally or physically disabled, deserves an opportunity to achieve. Mainstreaming provides such an opportunity. The child is the one we're looking at, to help him as our is our first goal. With us in the studio tonight is Marilyn Helser, who is the assistant superintendent for special programs in the Portland Public Schools. And Betsy McKay, who is chairwoman for a special education advisory committee and herself the parent of a Down syndrome child, Andrew, age 11.

Now, the effect of public law 94-142 is that local school districts must spend more money proportionately to educate these handicapped children, and unless they comply with the legal and educational requirements, which are costly and time consuming, they face increasing threat of lawsuits. Now that many school districts are short of funds for all activities, Marilyn, I guess I would address you with this question: How are you going to decide to spend limited funds and what will school districts do? We'll have to go through and look at what our goals are and how.. what the minimal level of service is as required through the legislation, and what we feel our community needs and then have to make some decisions there. I would speculate, and again, it's speculation because we're not even sure what kinds of funds we'll have available, that if we had to reduce services, that we would most likely reduce services to the mildly handicapped first and keep as many services for the severely handicapped intact as possible. But again, we're not even sure at this point what our funding base will be for the next

biennium, particularly. Betsy, if there are cutbacks, and I know you're involved in planning and you're also the parent of a child that has a developmental disability, what would happen if your child was placed back into a normal classroom? Well, my child has never been in a normal classroom in public school, and I'm, I'm not sure - I really don't know what would happen. He, I don't think he would learn very much. I don't know that he would do too badly socially, but I'm not sure, I don't think he would, what would be the point of having him there? So you think this would be a drawback? Well, yes. In his case, he is in what is called the self-contained classroom right now, which, if I understand you correctly, he is considered moderately retarded. There are degrees, mild, moderate, severe, profound. And what Marilyn's talking about are the the mildly retarded children are ones who are already in something like an ERC, they're in a regular classroom some of the time, anyway.

Mildly handicapped. Right, mildly. They could include those kids, students with learning disabilities or any kind of handicapping condition, but who maybe need a minimal level of support service. But you're saying you would cut that minimal level, probably? That would be the first place where you would cut. Probably, yes. And what would take up the slack for those children who are mildly handicapped? More of those kids would probably have to be supported in the general-ed classroom. But what does this do, then Marilyn, to the general-ed classroom, to the rest of the children who are not handicapped? Well, it affects all of them. It affects, it would affect teacher time. It also, I think, has an effect on the teacher's sense of personal competence when you place children in that environment that maybe they were not trained to deal with. If we don't have sufficient support staff to provide help to that teacher, as well as to those children then it affects that whole environment. Because if the child goes back in and fails immediately, if he can't keep up and he can't do the work, part of the good, the thing that special-ed does

is really increase a child's self-esteem, his feeling that he can accomplish things. That's - I feel that that is a real benefit. And to get blasted back into a class where he is suddenly unable to cope.. As a mother, what impact would that have on your child and your family? Well, it would be devastating. Devastating is what sense? It's bad enough to have your child fail- your normal child fail- to have a child who has failed and failed and failed and finally found a spot where he is actually making progress, where suddenly he is going forward and to be put back right where he was when he was failing. Of course, it's devastating. Now, Betsy I've heard comments that children often stereotype the developmentally disabled. They make fun of them. They ridicule them. Have you found that in your experience to be true? In my particular school, I really haven't. There are always.. ..which is self-contained. No. Well, he's in a public school. He goes to Glencoe Elementary School. He's in a self-contained class in a regular public school. He goes to music with the third grade class. He goes to P.E. was the third grade class.

They all eat lunch together with whoever they want to eat lunch with in the cafeteria. The children in.. every child, there are two special-ed classes at the school. Every child, I think, is treated as a child. And I truly feel that in that particular circumstance, there's not a lot of fun made. I think the other children are very proud of having other kids and working with them. You know, I'm curious on this subject of the handicapped child, Marilyn you say that this is going to be taken up by the legislature in terms of budget cuts. Do you think that there is a sympathy on the part of our lawmakers towards the handicapped child, or perhaps is there a greater interest in providing funds for the talented and gifted child? Well, I think there's a sympathy at the legislative level for handicapped to a point.. More so than perhaps..? I don't think I can say relative. I'm not sure how it compares to talented and gifted. I think that there are some legislators that I've heard speak in sessions who are very frustrated with the requirements of 94-142 and the decisions that it's required our legislators to make, so that they've had to make some difficult

choices about the allocation of funds based on some federal guidelines. So, there's some frustration there. But I also think that there is some sympathy for those programs. It's just that, where do you put that money when it's limited? What numbers of children are we talking about in terms of actual handicapped children, say, within the Portland public school district? About 4500, if we count the children who are in the regional programs for physically handicapped, deaf and visually impaired, as well as the kids in the regular school programs or the support programs like Betsy's. Betsy, what changes should be made in public law 94-142 or any other component of the educational structure we have now? Well, no, I feel strongly as a parent, as a member of the Special Education Advisory Committee and as a member of the Association for Retarded Citizens, that absolutely no changes should be made in the law or in the regulations implementing the law. Any changes will be bad for the children involved right now.

Why, Betsy? Because of the change. There are many proposed deregulations to the law right at this moment. We're talking about a federal law. This - the federal law is public law 94-142. It is implemented by regulations from the Department of Education. The department is proposing some changes in wording. All of the changes involve reduction of services to the children, reduction of rights of the parents. I can't say strongly enough that all of us involved, all of the people that I am involved with, support no changes in the law. We feel it will be detrimental to our children. Any change right now. Is the law unweidly, Marilyn, do you think it's unwieldy as far as our administrators are concerned? In some cases. I think you'd find that most educators don't want to reduce or lose services to children, but there are some pieces that would make it easier to manage administratively, so that ultimately there could be more time spent with children. We have some specialists who are spending a great deal of time on the paper end of it to provide the due process protections, both for districts and for families that actually take time away from

services to children. And there are some adjustments that we would like to see made that would bring some relief to that. So it could be tightened up then, but as far as repealing this.. ..the paperwork we don't mind. It's the services that we do. The basic premise should stay, but there's some other management pieces that are unwieldy. You think that'll happen? We'll have to wait and see what the next batch will look like. I don't know. Are you optimistic about the future of special education, Betsy? And, as it concerns your child? Well, I have been very happy with what has happened with his progress in special education in the seven or eight years that he has been involved with it. I would hope that things would continue to get better. Public law 94-142 was only finally completely implemented in 1978, I believe. And that's a very short time. While Congress debates whether or not to build a new version of the MX missile system in

Wyoming, we here in Oregon could be asked to host another major military installation. Christmas Valley, about 100 miles southeast of Bend may become the site of a giant military radar complex. Local residents are getting caught up in the spirit of cooperation with the military and land development. Reporter Jeff Young went to Christmas Valley to see how the people there feel about defense, business, and the wide open spaces. East of the mountains in central Oregon lies a vast and arid expanse, more like Arizona or New Mexico. Sagebrush and sand. Home for jackrabbits, coyotes and a few hundred hearty souls who like fresh air and wide open spaces. If you wanted to locate something that would take up lots of room but wouldn't be in people's way, eastern Oregon's high desert would seem a likely area. Christmas Valley, about 100 miles southeast of Bend, is that kind of place. During the past couple years, the valley's remoteness and topography have attracted

the interest of the Air Force. Defense analysts say it's just the sort of place to locate one of the largest radar installations in the world. What the Air Force has in mind is a radar transmitter a mile long and 30 to 50 feet high. It's part of a system called the Over the Horizon Backscatter radar. The system consists of three parts: transmitter, receiver and operation center. The Air Force is also looking at two other locations in Washington and Idaho. But if Oregon is selected, the giant transmitter will be in Christmas Valley and the operations center will be at Kingslee Air Force Base in Klamath Falls. The transmitter would be larger, but roughly similar to this one in Maine. Here's how it works. Radar waves are beamed skyward by the transmitter. They bounce back off the ionosphere and are picked up by the receiver. The Defense Department calls this system the over the horizon or backscatter. Conventional radar is line of sight, like an F.M.

radio signal. And it's easily deflected by mountains or other obstructions. And because it's line of sight, range is limited by the curvature of the Earth's surface. Planes can fly low enough to slip under conventional radar nets. But since the over the horizon system covers ground level to the ionosphere, there's no place high or low for planes to hide. And installation in eastern Oregon could detect planes or missiles 500 to 1800 miles out to sea. The backscatter system is already in place on the East Coast and the Pentagon says another one is needed. The system here, they say, is vital to the defense of the western United States. The Air Force recently set a team of radar experts and public relations men to study Christmas Valley. One of the prerequisites for siting the installation is the support and cooperation of local residents. The military apparently found what it was looking for. Most simplistic way that the Air Force explained it to us was this is the only thing they can determine that will close the holes in the radar.

This is the only thing that will give us complete protection. Mentioned potential targets. It just seems to me that, you know, the case of a preemptive strike and what they want to shoot the radar sites that their planes could get through. That was brought up the Air Force personnel when he was here and their feelings was we would definitely not become a target. Does it give you a sense of being part of something larger, being part of national defense? What is that feeling? I think most of us are kind of proud to be involved in it. And there's also an economic factor that it has to help our community. I'm very interested in that. How will that help the community? We'll probably pick up ten to 15 families that will live here permanently, and that probably adds three or four local people in the local businesses. It just mushrooms when you get a little growth started. [Oregon residents talking] [Oregon residents talking]

People in Christmas Valley like the idea of being part of national defense. The feeling of doing their part. But as we heard at the Trail Cafe, there's also an economic motive. Christmas Valley is a place that has a small population and is downright neighborly. It also has some reasons to encourage growth. There's three or four hundred people in the town, maybe eight hundred in the surrounding area. I couldn't really determine for sure how many people are scattered around the county, nor does anyone really seem to care. Those who settle there tend to be older folks, retirees or the semi retired business people. One of the drawbacks of life in the valley are social and medical services they left behind in the city. That's what scares the elderly people out now, it's 90 miles to Bend hospital. If we had our own doctor's office stuff like here, I could see more and more people coming in here to retire. Unlike most places that grow too fast, Christmas Valley wonders why it hasn't grown faster. The town was always supposed to be bigger.

When the area began developing 20 years ago, growth was planned if not promised. It was part of a vision. Christmas Valley began as a model development, the dream of California based developer Penn Phillips. Phillips bought more than 70,000 acres of high desert and mapped out 2700 plots of varying sizes. Salesmen told customers, out of state people generally, that Christmas Valley would become the Palm Springs of Oregon. Prospective buyers were offered land at unbelievably low prices. Magazine and television ads promised resort style living at $15 dollars down, $15 a month. Many bought the lands at sight unseen. The brochures gave them reason to believe that this corner of the desert was ready to bloom. To his credit, Penn Phillips set up the structure necessary for future development. Before the land began selling, his construction crews had built an airfield, a lodge, manmade lake, golf course, and church.

The plots of land were equipped with water mains and facilities for power. All the place needed was people. Longtime resident Betty Morehouse tells how life in Christmas Valley was promoted. We had vacation plans and for a very low cost for an entire family, maybe four to six people. They could come and spend five to seven days. They had planned trail rides, hay rides with wagons and horses, weenie roasts, golf, of course, when the golf course was completed and the people that bought the property were encouraged to take advantage of this plan so that they could appreciate what they would have to look forward to. And they did move here. When you moved out, there were very few people here and you seemed to enjoy the freedom that you had and not having too many neighbors. And yet your job was to bring in folks to make this place larger. That is very true. I sometimes would think, why am I doing this?

I may be destroying the very thing that I moved here for. But I suppose the people learned to adjust. And I realized people had to move in here and it has not been that bad. I am glad that I helped promote it. It's a matter of pride at the time, too. Those who bought the land planned to settle in 10 to 30 years when they retired. When the development crews packed up and left, Christmas Valley was only slightly larger than before. It was a town of absentee deed holders. When land buyers finally came to inspect their property, they had mixed reactions. Just depending on whether you're a desert rat, or if you like this type country or whether you don't. Is that often different than they thought it'd be? Half and half. Some were impressed with it being quiet and nobody bothers you much out here, and then other people are really mad about that they thought they got cheated.

For the next few years, most development was agricultural. The vision of life on a golf course gave way to farms and circle irrigation. Somewhere under the sandy desert floor lies a vast underground water supply. When this aquifer is tapped and water pumped at the surface, the desert becomes fertile. Christmas Valley is one of those desert areas that if you add water, you can grow just about anything. And if you don't add water, you have literally kitty litter. Matter of fact, there's a small plant just outside of town where they have thousands of acres of diatomaceous earth. It's so dry that it can absorb about a hundred times its own weight in whatever goes in a cat box or on your garage floor. The Oil Dri plant is the area's largest single employer. 50 or so people scoop the bone dry material out of the desert, process it, dump it in bags, and send thousands of pounds of kitty litter out the stores across the country.

If you don't work for the plant or farm or have a skill that makes you independent, you're probably out of luck in Christmas Valley. A small population far from the state's urban centers has another disadvantage. Christmas Valley doesn't have a large political base. And perhaps because of that, businesses and government agencies are more likely to locate things there that wouldn't be tolerated in or around cities. In 1969, the company hoped to locate a radioactive waste disposal site a few miles away. Although area residents were not officially informed by the company, word travels fast in the desert. Fearing potential seepage of radioactive waste into the underground water system, residents were quick to respond. We moved to have it stopped. After various letters to state people, state agencies, and releases, letters to the editor, articles. We did get an Oregon State Senate committee to come to the site and look at it,

and as soon as they saw it for themselves, then they went back and passed the necessary legislation, put an end to it. While battling the radioactive waste company, residents also discovered over ten thousand barrels of toxic waste that had been dumped nearby. No one had bothered to inform them that 2, 4-D and other hazardous wastes had been seeping out of rusty barrels for years and years. Perhaps due to its size, residents are more concerned about the quality of life here and noticed changes faster than city folk. I personally feel that I have a closer rein in what happens to this community. I have a closer rein in what values my kids get, and I just think this is a great place to raise a family. In the meantime, Christmas Valley is waiting to become just a little larger, a little more prosperous, and a little more attractive to people who might want to settle there. Although radar base might not be the perfect answer,

they say it's the best idea anyone's come up with lately. People out here want to improve their quality of life just like anyone else. They readily accept the tradeoffs of sharing their valley with the strategic air command. But they did give us a clear signal. I don't want a Metropolis. If this were to become a Metropolis, I'd have to move about another 80 miles out and start another small town, maybe. I won't live in a Metropolis again. [music] Christmas Valley is undeveloped now, but it definitely has potential for growth. If everyone who owned land in the area eventually moved there, it would be almost as crowded as a city such as Bend. That kind of growth is certainly possible. Residents, those who would like to be, say if the town had a doctor and other services, it would be the perfect place to live. Not too many communities can say that.

Ironically, while Christmas Valley is still in its political infancy, it may be vulnerable to those who would use it as a dumping ground for chemical waste and satellite prisons, which have been proposed for the area. That would spoil the relatively untouched quality that makes Christmas Valley so special. [music] More than half of the couples who get married eventually file for divorce. The legal process of divorce is, for most people, a costly and painful experience. But after the financial battles are over and a divorce is final, the worst part of losing a partner begins. It's a time when people on their own face guilt and emotional isolation. The hope is that things will be better the second time around. There may be a few brief scenes coming up that might be objectionable to some viewers. Many people who are newly divorced end up sitting in a bar trying to figure out what went

wrong. It isn't easy. They're trying to cope with grief. They're wondering if they'll ever be self-sufficient again. Often they worry about the way they look, thinking that in order to get into the singles scene, they have to project a sexy available image. So believing in TV hype and advertising, they often go through a period of physical self assessment and decide to cultivate a new look. They often join the fitness crowd at a health club or make the rounds in clothing stores, buying the latest fashion. Next, the single has to face the frightening prospect of going out. Some never do. Everyone who does feels insecure, afraid that somehow they won't measure up. Many people haven't dated since before the sexual revolution and

women's lib. Now they are face to face with their own sexuality. Even a good night's kiss can be traumatic. Like a scene from a Woody Allen movie. [scene from Woody Allen's Annie Hall] That's terrific. You know something, I never even took a lesson either. Hey, listen, listen. Gimme a kiss. Really? Yeah, why not? Because we're just gonna go home later, right, and then there's gonna be all that tension, you know, we never kissed before and I'll never know when to make the right moves or anything. So we'll kiss now. We'll get it over with, then we'll go eat. Okay. Oh. And we'll digest our food better. Okay. OK, so now we can digest our food. The personal appearance and a new sexual freedom aren't the only stumbling blocks informing a new relationship. There's the problem of how to meet someone, and there isn't a right way. For some, there is help from close friends who get them involved in activities. Others decide to join single clubs. Single clubs cater to all ages and offer emotional support. At club meetings, people can share their feelings and discover they are not alone. Sometimes talking is enough, just letting it all out.

This guy is a phony and why is he putting on this, you know, why doesn't he knock it off and be himself. And so it, you know, it has the opposite effect than what the person wants. It helps to hear from experts that everything will be all right eventually, and to learn how to interact with other singles. First of all, we'll be dividing you into three separate families. The game attempts to simulate the human movement from staying home - see the red sign back there? To dating, which is over here, to authentic intimacy, which is behind Judy on the poster. Roleplaying games encourage people to come out of their shells. For some people, it's a challenge. For many, an ordeal. But trying something new can be a good experience. Many new singles don't like to do things in groups. They prefer to read self-help books at home. Sometimes divorce counselors who give advice on a one to one basis can make the period of adjustment to single life less painful.

Because frequently people who are in a great deal of pain or who have experienced failure are not able to see what all of their options are. [woman talking] For the more adventuresome, meeting someone can be arranged through dating services, some featuring computers and video libraries of available clients. And in a home life, she can, each year she actually plants her own vegetable garden. There's a lot of different interests. She was raised. There are ads in the personal columns of several papers. And of course, certain restaurants also draw a singles crowd. [disco music] At some bars, customers are guaranteed attention from the opposite sex, while

the male strip show is going on at The Great Gatsby's, many women are able to live out a fantasy without taking risks. For many, the wild side of the singles scene is too threatening. The reaction of each person to divorce and the problem of re socialization is different. Val Fiske is someone who came out of an unhappy marriage with insecure feelings. Being single again isn't all that she expected. She shared with us her thoughts about why her marriage failed and what she is looking for now. Val, how in love were you when you got married? I really don't think I was in love at all. Well, did you have any sparkling feelings or feel really infatuated? Maybe at certain times, but not really. In fact, the day I got married, I was crying my head off because I was so depressed about whether or not I wanted to get married. Why did you go ahead with your marriage? I think basically I felt that if I didn't grab the first thing that came along that nothing would ever come along again. And I couldn't believe anybody could ever love me like my husband loved me.

And I also felt real, oh not real good about myself. And I was very unhappy at that point in my life and I felt like being married would make everything better and make Val happy. Do you feel you were loved in your first marriage? Extremely loved? Yeah, I do. But yet you weren't able to have the same love feelings for your husband. Right, I wasn't able to return that kind of love because I could not walk up and hug this person and say, gosh, I love you. And I wanted that from the very deepest part of my heart, but I couldn't do it. Divorces normally have an impact on one's self-image and how they feel about themselves. What happened to you? Well, I probably went the opposite for most people. I Instead of trying to go out and prove myself and join health clubs and diet, I did the opposite and gained quite a bit of weight and isolated myself and made myself, just made myself feel as bad as I could because I was just felt so guilty and like such a bad, bad person.

I hated myself for what I'd done to this other person. And I never want to go through that kind of guilt again, the rest of my life, because it was so devastating to me. I just withdrew. All my friends will drag me out and I would be with my friends. But it's like I could not even relate to my friends because I just felt so alone, so confused. How did you feel when your friends dragged you out of the house and pulled you to a bar? You know, I'm glad they forced me out of the house because I wouldn't have gone if they didn't. I felt real isolated, I felt that like there was a big wall around me and no one could get near me. I didn't want anybody near me. I realized that I, I think at certain points in my life, I want to be loved and I want affection so bad I'm willing to do anything for it. Meaning, you know, to go to bed with a man on the first date or the first, you know, say rendezvous or whatever, but well, and that always turns out to be bad. I mean, those experiences are the most unfulfilling, empty- after that's over I feel so empty and lonely, I could just die.

You know and I think right now I'm looking more for the friendship and the companionship more than the sexual part of it. So the food and the nightlife, the spontaneity may not be as meaningful as it's meant to be or discussed by others. I think it's built up. I think, you know, it's fun to be independent, you know, and it's a great feeling like, wow, I can do this and I can be my own person and I can fend for myself. But there are lots of lonely moments and lots of emptiness. Did you write this thing just from because of the stickers? Jerry Burbach, a father of two children has been divorced for several years. He's now planning to marry again. He began his new relationship because of a mutual interest in skiing. It turned into a loving and caring partnership, something he had always hoped for. Jerry says things were really rough following his divorce, especially the day his wife moved out. That Friday I came home and I walked into this house and it was just dead silent. And here I was in this house and no kids running around, no wife at home. And that was the hardest thing that I could [inaudible]

Just stands out immediately. Fortunately, when you're going through a divorce, the best thing you can have that really helped me was good close friends. I failed, you know, one of the most important things in life to me was being married. And I had failed at my marriage. And it got to be I was embarrassed to tell people, well, you know, are you married now? I'm divorced. It really became hard for me to say that because it showed that I had failed at something. And all of a sudden I stood out and I was a freak, but I was someone that couldn't handle something. Jerry, were you in love in your first marriage? Yes, I was really very much in love with, in my first marriage. I think the thing to look at now is being 41 years old and being 16 at the time that I met my wife in school, I look at love different now than I did then. Yeah, I was in love with Linda a lot. What did love mean to you at 16? Someone to be with that I really cared about, that it was more maybe a physical attraction, someone I enjoyed being with, going out with. And I didn't really get into the deep emotional feeling of what love is.

And I think with maturity that comes, and that's one of the disadvantages of getting married right out of high school. I'd been married for 15 years and I was out of circulation and the bar scene was something I hadn't done for 15 years in. And to try to put yourself in it is really a shock. I mean, there's a whole different culture out there now than when I was young. So that was really frightening for you. It was, it was frightening for me. After 15 years of living in a home, having children, you had to go back out there and search. Do you remember some of your first impressions of what the search was going to be like, what you had to do after 15 years of hibernation? I went into this place with a friend and I did not want to be there. I was not in the mood, I had a hard day at work, but he convinced me I should not go home, I should go out and we'd go out to the bars, so we did. And I was sitting there and he was out dancing, having a good time. There was this girl down at the end of the bar, having just a miserable time as I was. So I thought, well, what the heck? I didn't want to dance, I didn't want to do anything. I walked up to her and I says, you're having as miserable time as I am. I said, you know, can I sit down? She said, Sure. So the two of us, just misery together. It gets boring.

It really does. And like I say, the ladies that I met in these places are not really someone I was interested in looking for a long term relationship. And at the time, I really wasn't anyhow. But I just, it just wasn't for me. Now that you're settling down in a new relationship, what advice would you give to someone who's just going through a divorce and is back searching again? Be with people you want to be with. Like with me, it wasn't the bar scene. I didn't want to be there. So I could not be in my element. I could not be at ease. And if you're getting, you know, if they are going to go out and they want to date and you want to meet people, do it in the environment that you're really comfortable in. Because otherwise, I don't think it. It just doesn't work. It isn't lasting. Adjusting to being single is a difficult process. People going through a transition should keep in mind what Val and Jerry have said. Value friends and keep trying to get back in the swing of things. Be aware of who you are and what you want to be. Then maybe things will be better than it was the first time around. Kevin, we've just seen some options for the newly divorced.

How does a person know what path to follow when he or she is recently divorced? They need to find a direction that will allow them to feel more healthy and to develop their self-esteem so they'll feel comfortable with this emancipation. What are some of the negatives that come up with these options? People often become depressed. They lose their self-confidence and they feel extremely guilty and lost. But then in that case, Kevin, does divorce always have to be negative? Absolutely not. Many people who become divorced find ways to discover themselves and to move forward in life. Do you think that we're gonna see more and more divorce in society? I think over the next 10 years, you're probably going to see an upswing in divorces. Unless you live in the catacombs, there's no way to get away from it. If you ski or play tennis, if you're a construction engineer or a student, if you need to know when the baseball game is being played, you need to know about the weather.

Oregonians don't have much life threatening weather like hurricanes or tornadoes, but we do spend a great deal of time each night watching the weather on television. That interest has prompted the Portland television stations to spend several thousands of dollars each year to make their weathermen appear credible, understandable, and likable. A lot of rain and some gusty winds this morning. The winds have died down. A weatherman at a commercial station spends one hour for every minute he's on the air just to prepare the forecast. To make a more accurate prediction, he has to watch the reports and make observations all day long. But even so, weather is fickle. No matter how sophisticated the equipment, no prediction can ever be exact. Well, it's really a tough question when you ask about accuracy in forecasting, because

you have to define what accurate is. For example, if I say the high temperature tomorrow is going to be 75. And in fact, it's 76, is that right or wrong? Oregon's variety of terrain and weather patterns make it very complicated to tell what is going to happen. And it's even more difficult to foresee when a new weather system will arrive. When I was in the Air Force, I forecast weather for the Midwest, for example, and the weather came in across Kansas and up through Nebraska. And you could just see it coming. Here It's coming. All weatherman can do is make educated guesses. Accuracy isn't the only criteria that affects the public confidence. People often like a forecaster because of factors other than his ability to predict when it's going to rain. My favorite weatherman? Well, I think Jim Little. Jim, what's his name on Channel 8? Jim Little? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Why do you listen to him? Because I watch the news at that time. Dr. John, I guess.

Why? Oh, he has nice delivery. I like the voice, it sounds, you know, good to me. Jim Bosley on Channel 2. Why? I just like his personality, he's funny. Of all the other reporters, the weatherman is the only one who has to deal with the future. And though some weathermen say they're right almost nine times out of ten, it only takes one mistake to make them seem more fallible. The ultimate irony is if a forecaster reaches that measure of credibility he is trying to attain, he then becomes the target of blame when people are unhappy about the actual weather. Sure. I found that a long time ago that we don't use bad weather and rain, for example, in the same sentence. We don't talk about rainy, cloudy weather as being bad weather at all because many people that live in this part of the country look forward to that kind of weather. Oddly enough, the harder it is to predict weather, the more Portland meteorologists like it. They say it is more challenging and gratifying to get the right

answer when the odds are against you. Gotta be a little bit of a masochist, I guess, to be in this business, because, you know, the state of the art is such that you can't get it right all the time. These men are not infallible. In Oregon, predicting the weather is more than an inexact science. It's an inexact art. That's all the time we have tonight. Thanks for watching. Until next time. Good night.