From the Publisher

By Elizabeth P. Valk

By late Friday, things usually begin to take shape and quiet down here at TIME. Except for breaking news, most of the stories for the current issue have already been chosen, written and edited, and some editors are even working on plans for the following week. But for a remarkable group of educators, the week's work on TIME has barely begun. On Friday afternoon, a team of high school English and social-studies teachers meets to look over the emerging crop of stories in preparation for a frenzied weekend of work. By Sunday night they have produced a polished four-page teacher's guide to the magazine. And on Monday morning the guide goes out to 5,000 secondary schools around the country -- along with about 150,000 copies of TIME.

The teacher's guide, which has suggested discussion topics and quizzes on the week's news, is only one part of the TIME Education Program, which is produced and marketed by Guidance Associates, Inc., in Mount Kisco, N.Y. (1-800-882-0852). There are also periodic writing and current-affairs contests, scholarship programs and a yearly contest in which students try to guess who TIME's Man or Woman of the Year is going to be. This week, in addition to the teacher's guide and the magazines, schools with satellite dishes will be able to tune in to Guidance Associates' School and College Satellite Network and watch TIME editors and one of the writers of the weekly guide discuss how to make the recent events in the Soviet Union relevant to their students. "We've been thinking of doing something like this for some time," says the program's editorial director, Wilma Mann, "and the Russian Revolution cover story in TIME seemed like the perfect opportunity." Another new project is TIME for College. Last week a separate teacher's guide went out for the first time to several hundred colleges. The purpose of this program is to help teachers develop the writing ability of their students. Says Alexander Sareyan, our associate director of consumer marketing: "TIME is an excellent tool for teaching writing and communications." These efforts are a way for us to share the excitement and skills of our profession, so there's a satisfaction there for us as well.