Belleville Township High School East - Yearbook (Belleville, IL)

Page 29 text:

OPEN C DPU5 •. .many faculty members indicated on the faculty survey form that they felt that high school students still need much guidance and supervision in their daily lives, which is sort of a mother instinct to protect the poor student from the big bad world.... we do feel that many high school students have the responsibility to control their actions, and those that don’t need to learn how quickly, else their college years are going to give an extremely hard time.. . .. . A third argument raised in opposition to open campus is the possibility that special extracurricular activities such as music, art, etc., would suffer if open campus were instituted. The obvious answer here is that those people truly interested in the programs will stay and that those who may leave could not have been very interested in the program anyway, and as such would not have been able to contribute in the first place. A fourth argument made by opponents of open campus deals with the factor of time, and does have a legitimate basis. One hour does not provide an overwhelming amount of time for construc¬ tive action considering the distance of East from say, the Belleville Public Library, or the homes of students living in Fairview Heights. However, one must realize that this limited time does have the added advantage of a different and perhaps better location. For example, a half hour spent in the public library cac very easily be every bit as fruitful as an entire hour in the school library. A half hour at home can be every bit as good (if not better) as an hour watching films in P node. And so forth. ... The final argument raised against open campus is the most important, in pur opinion. Open campus, it has said, is an educationally undesirable, or educationally unsound policy. This is so supposedly because students, given the choice be¬ tween leaving and staying to take advantage of the educational facilities available (which is after all what the school is here for) will choose the former and leave. This may be true. How¬ ever, at the present time the students are not faced with the first alternative, and yet the majority still do not choose the second. If the new educational methods and facilities being planned right now are interesting enough, more students may take advantage of them, but if not, nothing will change. All - of which brings us back to the interest argument we used in analyzing the special music and art programs. It applies here, also. The students that are interested will remain. The students that aren ' t don ' t take advantage now and won ' t in the future. Which is as it should be. Students cannot be railroaded into learning. Encouraged, yes. Forced, no. .. .One of the arguments often offered in support of open cam¬ pus is that there is no place at East to study. Quite bluntly, this is untrue. If a student desires a place to study, he can find it. We have not yet run out of space. However, as we pointed out earlier, there may be places off campus of greater benefit to the students, even though the alloted timespace is much smaller. There may be a small advantage there. Secondly, there is an argument already partially discussed earlier, that being that students need to learn how to handle responsibility before they get the freedoms inherent in college. High school would seem to be place for for this learning pro¬ cess. It is obvioulsy the place most similar to the college format, and lessons learned in high school are most easily transferrable. How much responsibility would be learned from open campus is, of course, impossible to quantify, but it is an amount to be considered. A third advantage of open campus is one not immediately apparent. As was pointed out to us by the senior assistant principle at West, with the adoption of open campus, smoking no longer becomes a significant problem. Obviously, a stu¬ dent is not going to risk getting caught in the nodes when all he has to do is cross the street and smoke legally. As such, there will be no more hassle over smoking, and no more sus¬ pensions. Although this is only indirectly related to education, it is still an advantage. . . .. .In the course of our study, we have constantly met one dominant attitude on the part of open campus opponents. It runs something like this: Prove to me that open campus is educationally advantageous, and I ' ll accept it. In itself a valid argument. However, we feel that there is another side to this argument, a side equally as valid. This side views closed campus as a restriction on the natural movement of students. As such, closed campus (rather than open) is the exception to the norm, the change from the status quo. And as such, it should be justified. We do not feel that it is.. . (This investigation was conducted by a committee headed by Kevin Sandefur. The administration has not yet answered the recommendations that resulted. )

Page 28 text:

THE S0-BETII7EEN5 The members of the student council at East should, and many times do, act as the middle men between the student body and the administration. Besides their obvious duties of sponsoring dances and organizing loyalty week and A.F.S. week, council members also work to keep communication channels open and act as ombudsmen to correct what students feel to be in¬ justices and instigate possible improvements. Council investigation which has resulted in positive action includes a meeting with the assistant principals concerning school bus pro¬ blems and the formation of a committee which obtained the passage of a pass-fail system for students taking a fifth subject to be tested next fall. The ' 71 — 1 72 S. C. was instrumental in the establishment of the student lounge and in placing the juke box in the snack bar (they are engaged in a clean-up campaign of both). S. C. was also instrumental in installing a bicycle rack for cyclers by the bridge. Our student council has gone beyond school boundaries this year in their efforts. They are now representing East on a Chamber of Commerce committee to make Belleville a better place for everyone to live. S. C. has also sought to improve their meth¬ ods of procedure by having inter-school exchanges with Alton, Collinsville, Centennial and Carbondale. Like any other organ¬ ization of its size and wide range of duties, student council has its problems. Tom Helfrich, president of S. C.: The biggest problem with student council is that most of the kids are elected because they ' re popular and or good-looking; most people become popular by doing alot of talking. As a result, it is often hard to get anything done with everyone talking at the same time. I think this is beginning to change, however. I would advise anyone who plans to run for student council in the future to prepare himself for a lot of hard work. Sue Taphom, senior class treasurer: When I was elected, I really thought that it (S.C.) would be duddy with a big group of socialises but I found that what I prejudged S.C. to be was wrong. I only wish more non-council students would come to the meetings and make suggestions. Kip Edwards, senior representative: We ' d be a lot more effi¬ cient if we didn ' t work as a group but instead as small committees. .. .but I feel that we have gained a great deal of respect from Mr. McCoy this year. Not only does he listen to our ideas but he also brings up his own. Tom Helfrich, again: I think much of what S.C. has accom¬ plished this year has been a direct result of a great amount of cooperation on Mr. McCoy ' s part and, of course, all of Mrs. Marsho ' s help. Mrs. Linda Marsho, faculty sponsor of S. C. concluded: They ' re great! The officers are exceptional and they ' ve done more than I ever thought was possible in one year. Everyone is appreciative and very stisfying to work with — I love ' em. Perhaps the most ambitious undertaking of the student council this year was their investigation of the idea of open campus. Following are excerpts from the final report submitted to Mr. McCoy. The phrase open campus possesses an interesting quality. When first heard, it conjures up grandiose visions of a loose, freewheeling concept of school where students are allowed to come and do as they wish, when they wish, and without the necessary bearing of responsibility that accompanies such ac¬ tions. Obvioulsy, when hearing such things, the student is overjoyed at the prospect, while the school administrator is likely to lie awake at night, shuddering at the very thought. A further examination of this open campus reveals that none of this is necessarily true, and that the joys and fears of student and administrator are probably unfounded.... Let ' s look directly at some of the arguments first advanced by opponents of open campus. Some administrators and faculty members seem to have a natural mistrust of students. They see them as potential trouble-makers and feel that most students, if granted open campus privileges, will use them, merely to get in trouble off-campus. We of the committee take a rather dim view of that opinion. First of all, we see nothing to indi¬ cate that the majority of students are anything like this at all. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The majority of students are a responsible, fairly well-mannered group of people, and it is the minority which causes the problems such as litter, minor crimes (vandalism, shoplifting) or even major ones. And as such, we cannot condone a restriction place upon the majority in an attempt to restrict the minority... • ... it is definitely unfair to prejudge the student body as po¬ tentially guilty. Confining students from 8:30 to 3:30 to avoid trouble is roughly analagous to imprisoning every U.S. citizen for ten years because they are potentially capable of murder. Houj high ' s ihe Shudenls ?! fhis place is full of GARBAGE

Page 30 text:

LIFE iS BUT a ' 1 loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there, pick ' d from the fields, have accumulated, (Wild flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and partly cover them, beyond these I pass). Walt Whitman; LEAVES OF GRASS