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

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ENGLISH BREAKS Tl-IE BARRIER The Universal Language of Friendship Drive-ins, Mom, apple pie - it's the American way of life. But for many of Aragon's foreign students, these American customs may seem as strange as eating in some hot dog joint named Weinersnitzel. Fortunate- ly for them Aragon offered a fast- paced English as a Second Language course, commonly known as ESL. The program was started four years ago to help Aragon's foreign students learn to read, write, and speak Eng- lish quickly and effectively. ESL is headed by Marian Park who beside teaching in the program also befriend- ed many of the students taking the course. This instructional course in basic Marian Park Marcia Poms 091 Q4 ,afar ans if Qovo'K fg'oGs:w Madeleine Wegner Susan Whitehurst ESL Students come in all sizes and colors, but they're all Aragon Dons! Great teacher-student interaction is the key to the success of the ESL program. issfiast English helped adjust foreign students to a relatively strange and new lan- guage. Although the course was de- signed primarily to teach students with only a limited grasp of English, the program was so effective that many of the students progressed to higher phased classes after only one or two years. Because of the success of the program, ESL acquired new teachers, Mr. Oling and Mrs. Wag- ner. With the growing amount of stu- dents, the additonal teachers were in- valuable in teaching reading, writing, and oratorical skills. The ESL pro- gram also offered Social Science courses for students who had trouble with the English in the regular classes. Although only a few of the teachers knew a foreign language, everyone seemed to understand the universal language of friendship and coopera- tion. Nearly one hundred students pol- ished their English in the program during the year. Besides studying a different language, they made new friends and learned many American values and traditions. Students of all nationalities com- bined to form a large and important part of Aragon's student body. Under the careful guidance of talented teachers, these students learned how to be all that they could be. - '

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ARAGONIANS LEAR TO DRIVE Learning The Tricks Of The time is 10:10, and the class is well into their daily lecture of Traffic Safety. From the quietness of the classroom, a boy interupts, Wait, I still don't understand what the red sign means. The teacher responds, What red sign? You know, that squarish one with the white words in it. Oh, the one on the end of a pole? Yeah, that one! That means you put pressure on the brake petal which makes the car cease to move. Oh, I see. The teacher com- ments, and after a while, the same hand is raised. Wait, excuse me again, what do those glowing things mean? Mr. Mason enjoys teaching his students the rules of the road. The Trade What glowing things? You know, those glowing things green, yellow, and red cir- cles, above the streets. Oh, you mean stop lights? Yeah, stop lightslf' Oh, those direct traffic going through an intersection. The green means put pressure on the gas petal to make the car go. The yel- low means caution and you should look both ways and proceed care- fully, and the red is the same pro- cedure as the stop sign.', Wait, then why are they called stop lights, when there is a green light that lets the car go through? Because the red light orders the person to stop. No wonder there are so many accidents, this is confusing! So was Safety Education taught with the teacher's detailed an- swers to any questions the stu- dents may have had on how to drive more safely. The Safety Edu- cation class was offered to any stu- dent, in order to fulfill their re- quirements needed to maintain a license or for personal benefit. With this in mind, it wasn't difficult to see how the Safety Education classes filled up so quickly, conse- quently students took it upon themselves to enroll early. With the knowledge on how to fix a flat tire, engine breakdown, or burned out lights, or broken air condition- ers, traffic safety could only in- crease and constitute better dri- vers as well. The students listen intently, ready to write. Safety Ed f 137

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lf W A 4: -r Mm A Booming Business Department THE BASIC TYPE With career plans in mind, the Aragon Business Department helped students polish up their vo- cational skills to prepare them for life after high school. With typing classes running six periods a day, students with goals of becoming accountants, secretaries, or com- puter programmers were quickly set on the right track. The teachers maintained friend- ever necessary and gained valu- able knowledge from faculty ex- periences. The department con- centrated their efforts in a number of areas, including the growing field of computers. The students and faculty worked together to help improve the atmosphere of the department and give the stu- dents a better perspective of what to expect from the future. Ww- ly relationships with students and it showed as students eagerly sought teachers for assistance. I appreciate it when students come to me for help, remarked faculty member LLOYD MAST. We try to emphasize the fact that we are here for the kids if they have prob- lems concerning their workf, Students used this bonus when- Ormond Heacock Marilyn Lee Lloyd Mast Phil Palen The Business Department offers courses in skills valuable to any student as well as the job-seeker. One excellent example is typing. The Computers in Business course is par- ticularly useful in today's increasingly computerized world. BUSINESS f139