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

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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

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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, Those Worldly People! F CREIGN CUNVERSATIUN With one of the most advanced foreign language departments in the district, containing fourth and fifth level classes in Spanish and French, students were filled with information which gave them the feeling of actually living in the country they studied. Two goals structured the de- partment's program, preparing the students for college language courses and more important, to in- terest the students in cultures that contained things other than hot dogs, baseball, and apple pie! With two new teachers whom Mrs. Cot- ter described as, lively and ener- getic, the whole faculty gained more enthusiasm than ever and succeeded in achieving the goals. Indeed, many looked forward to gourmet cuisine in fourth and fifth 140 Foreign Language year courses. Furthermore, taking foreign lan- guages encouraged international understanding, and this feeling spread outside the classroom as two foreign language teachers, along with students created the In- ternational Club. With such energy put into international communica- tion, Aragonians were sure to be- come the diplomats of the future! Yet another Aragon student risks his dig- nity in an attempt to impress Ms. Cotter. Judy Cotter Martha Rubinson Ronald Ucovich Susan Whitehurst Jean Whitman Connie Minsky Mrs. Rubinson, a new addition to The Aragon Foreign Language department, proved to be invaluable in continuing not only our French but also our Latin pro- gram, the only Latin course available in the district.