"The New Immigrants." "The Presidency in Perspective."

"China in the '80s." Though these course titles do not appear on any formal high school or college curriculum this fall, more than 3,000 teachers across the country will be presenting them nonetheless. They are among the 50 teaching units made available by the TIME Education Program. Under the program, when students subscribe to the magazine at a reduced rate, their teachers receive a wide selection of teaching aids that can include TIME story reprints, maps and charts, and a cassette or filmstrip.

The program, available for more than three decades, this year has more than 100,000 students enrolled. Recently, the range of materials it distributes to make TIME a more effective teaching tool has been greatly expanded. Says Program Manager Nanci Silverman: "We want to make it easy for teachers to use the magazine as a textbook, or in any other way they wish." Media Management Services Inc., a management consulting firm in Yardley, Pa., surveyed thousands of teachers for their reactions to the program and suggestions for materials. As a result, new research, writing and vocabulary skill-building units have been added, and TIME "capsules" of stories from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s have been introduced.

The teachers in the program adapt the materials and the magazine to their own needs in surprisingly varied ways. American Studies Teacher William Di George of Ewing Township High School, N.J., mounts some 90 TIME covers on his classroom bulletin boards to impart a personal view of current history; for quizzes, he masks the identifications and asks his students to name the subjects and discuss their roles in events. East Hampton, N.Y., Social Studies Teacher Jim Barry has devised a current-events contest in which teams compete for points by answering questions from a given week's issue. Evelyn Robinson, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University's education department, finds that TIME not only develops vocabulary and critical reading skills, but fills gaps in her students' education by exposing them to subject matter they would encounter nowhere else. Professor Arthur Beringause of Bronx Community College has had similar results: "My freshman and remedial composition students, mostly from deprived backgrounds, know the magazine is aimed at educated, sophisticated people. When they find they can handle the material and learn from it, they feel reassured about themselves." No education program could ask for more. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.