Aragon High School - El Tesoro Yearbook (San Mateo, CA)

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lt is as senseless to revel in the nostalgia of bygone days, as it is to predict the future of a decadent and outvvorn institution. All those who would seek to remodel our dead educational system without attempting to breathe new life into its basic concepts and idealogies are doomed to failure. The role of education in America must be reexamined. The smooth running of our educational system presupposes acquiesence to the rules, regulations, and idealogies of the system. How long can students and teachers alike continue to be manufactured products, churned out by a dead institution as trained recruits, ready to take their place in the norm of society. Students have already cried out for Free Speech. Achieving that, they have cried out against a long list of ills in our society and in the world. This was all valid and all very necessary. But now we find that everyone knows what the problems are, although nobody really knows how to instigate the necessary reforms. This has produced a two fold phenomenon with great ramifications. First, students have been left with a feeling of impotence. The ramifications of this have either been to increase the intensity of their frustration--resulting in mass indiscriminate violence, or an almost manic depression--evidenced by completely dropping out. Perhaps the more sensible students have realized that the only way to overcome this feeling of impotence is to become better equipped as individuals, to develop their higher senses, to express their creative and spiritual individuality, to sharpen their intellect, and then, once prepared, work productively for those changes and reforms which are so necessary. It is my personal opinion that the first and most important reform must be in education. This is primarily where my efforts at Aragon were devoted. Unfortunately, not much was accomplished, both because of a passive student body, and a long history of rules, regulations and idealogy which went far beyond the grasp of a few inarticulate, intellectually inept students at Aragon High School. But it was a start, and it shall continue. Students are crying now not just for Free Speech, but for freedom. Academic freedom. Creative freedom. Spiritual Freedom. The freedom of joy, of life. There is now a strong social consciousness present among students in America. Hopefully, it will be strong enough to show the people of America not only where they have gone wrong, but also, to help rebuild that which is now decadent or destroyed. But students must also realize that a strong social consciousness is totally without value unless it is accompanied by an individual or inner consciousness. It is relatively easy to change the world, it is not so easy to change yourself. The most difficult work we can do is to develop our inner selves. What would it profit a man to gain the world, but to lose his own soul? Peace in the world will only come when there is peace within ourselves. This is the role of modern education. This is our challenge. --Bruce Bendure Being out of Aragon for only three months I cannot say what my one impression of high school is. That impression may begin to come only when I've had 1970 enough time and gain enough wisdom to bring together and evaluate the many memories of high school. I sadly suspect, though, that when the time does come when I will be able to say what high school meant to me, I will View it A as a nearly tragic misuse of four years. I had as much tif not morel fun than I I anybody else and I don't mean to say that I didn't learn anything, it is just a pity that so little of that fun and learning took place in the school itself. I'm tl afraid that I'll view the lack of challenge and compassion tin the curriculum, not the facultyb as perhaps the most serious shortcoming of my four years. I'll probably see high school as having done an admirable job in preparing me for college but as having done little to prepare me for living. Despite the poor impression of my high school years I am sure that I will be thankful for the opportunity to have gone to Aragon. At Aragon there were people who recognized that education must change and who were doing something to change it. When Iwas there, Aragon was some distance ahead of a system that was miles behind. Hopefully the community will allow these people to continue the change that may bring Aragon closer to a place that will make people not only better students but, possibly, better people. --Doug Kaplan One of the more important things my experience at Aragon taught me was society's law of selection: it's not survival of the fittest but rather those who fit! Four years at Aragon Sr now one year at UCSB have attested to the validity of this idea. Peace gl whatever , --Rocky Mills

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sl sHouLn AU LD ACQUAINTANCE BE FoRooT. .. one: two: four: rfb Ben Denton joseph Leddy Virginia Meding Richard Bell Norman Arslan Robert Brandeberry Harold Bowman Helen Studebaker Audrey Harrison jean Clarke Arthur Pettinicchi Harold Fearon jack Lee Kenneth Allen brrnond Heacock jack Shackleton Robert Rittenour Harry Therkelsen William Larson Earl Connolley John Mahaffy Henry Warner Charles Bennett Harry Egan not pictured: Greta Ahlvin Cherryl Anderson Helen Brown Roger Cantaloube Manuel Continho jean Glover Robert Knees Audra Longley Downing McKee Herman Nadwornick james Price Helmut Seifert Wayne Taylor The staff of the E1 Tesoro is proud to dedicate its 1971 edition to the dedicated staff who have been at Aragon Since its opening in Ianuary, 1961.