DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710300674

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 
                                            LENGTH:   36 lines

EYES & EARS

NORFOLK

FLY ON THE WALL: There's just something about a college. Where else could you pass a table of four women talking earnestly, like the other day at Old Dominion,and hear:

``There's normal flies, there's fruit flies. . . .''

- Matthew Bowers

CHESAPEAKE

THEN AND NOW: While many of us like to think that we had it much tougher than children today - with having to trek uphill in the snow both ways to school - kids today might actually have it tougher when it comes to what they're going to have to know at early ages.

As an example, Larry Short, Chesapeake's director of elementary instruction, offered a math test question second-graders will be expected to answer. The question - ``Which is the rectangular prism?'' - was followed by four three-dimensional choices.

``When I was in second grade I would have been asked, `Circle the rectangle,' '' said Short during the School Board's recent retreat.

But, some things never change. As Short was going over a reading program the district uses, he mentioned that kids like to read the same books over and over - which is a good thing since the average child needs to see a word about 50 times before it becomes part of their automatic reading vocabulary.

``That's true. I`ve got a book in my attic from when my son was 3 years old,'' said Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols. ``We read that book every night. I still have that book. Run, Howie, Run.''

- Nancy Young

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