Los Banos Rotary Club History
Dan Dawson Is Rotary Speaker

Dan Dawson, of the Merced County Superintendent of Schools office, Merced, addressed members of the Rotary Club Tuesday noon on the subject of "Facing the Crisis of Education."

Emphasizing the importance of higher education as a means of increased earning power and security for American workers, Dawson pointed out that education today is faced with a crisis at the primary level—the scarcity, of trained educators. This scarcity, Dawson declared, is created by the fact that there is little or no incentive for a person to train himself for educational work. The pay is less than in most other fields of endeavor, teachers are often isolated unto themselves and penalized by a "double standard" that sets them up on a restrictive pedestal of community example, and suitable housing for school teachers is practically non-existent. As a consequence, Dawson said, "teaching is not a very good racket today."

As an example of the lack of interest in teaching, Dawson said that this year only seven will graduate from Fresno State College and receive teaching credentials. The city of Fresno alone could use more than 50 such teachers, and all other communities in the state are in like position. There are seven students in the state who will graduate this year with specialized training in kindergarten work—and there are a hundred communities clamoring for their services.

Men particularly, Dawson emphasized, are reluctant to choose teaching as a profession today, because of the fact that their earning power, in almost any other field of endeavor, is far beyond that which may be realized from teaching.

Speaking of the situation in this country, Dawson said that less than a dozen men are now employed in the Merced county elementary schools. He also said that because of this present shortage of trained teachers, it has been necessary to employ many teachers with minimum teaching credentials. This county, he said, has great need for more specialized teachers, for better equipment and visual-aid facilities, and for improved school nursing facilities. In this respect he complimented Los Banos as being the one community in the county where the general health of the school child has long been guarded by the services of a school nurse.

May 15, 1948

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