Civic Experiment

It was as if the twelve-year-olds had never really seen their home town before. For weeks, they had peered and poked about Houston like so many junior sociologists in bobby-sox and sneakers. The things they reported were enough to shock some Houstonians. But Social Studies Teacher Marian Hiller of the Stonewall Jackson Junior High School was delighted.

She had sent her seventh-graders out on their sociological expeditions as part of an experiment designed to make Houston's civics classes more interesting and instructive. The kids began by drawing maps of their neighborhoods, comparing the number of churches to the number of bars, counting parks and playgrounds. They investigated everything from slums to sewers, from garbage cans to gutters.

The slums were a shattering experience. "I thought they were all in the East," wrote one horrified schoolboy. "I found one house," little Helen Baird reported, "with sewage right in front and children playing in it."

Janet Flockhart had explored the woods near her home trying to track down a putrid smell that had long bothered her family. She eventually found the source--a decaying, fly-covered pile of garbage on the banks of Sims Bayou. Now, she said, she knew why fish had never been able to live in the bayou.

Unlike some of their elders, the young investigators were not content to make their reports and forget about them. Billy Buttelmann had found that there was no playground for blocks around for the younger kids in his neighborhood. Billy and a friend decided to build a clubhouse in a big, unused backyard. Soon the kids were playing there instead of in the streets.

By last week, as Mrs. Killer's experiment ended, Billy's playground was not the only improvement Houston would note. One little boy had begun to worry about his neighbor's disorderly yard. "I had a talk with him about how the neighborhood looks," he told the class proudly. "I didn't mention him directly. I just hinted around. But he's kept his yard clean ever since."

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