Edsel Ford High School - Flight Yearbook (Dearborn, MI)

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A FLIGHT INTO THE PAST-

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The Ford foundation study at the University of Chicago set the stage for a very comprehensive curricula at Edsel Ford High School. The most unique feature at Edsel Ford throughout its twenty-five years is its English humanities program. In the humanities there is emphasis on English, art and music as forms of communication. The course is required by all students for all six semesters of study. Every week, one day is spent in the art humanities, one in the study of music, and the remainder of the time is spent on English skills. Time spent every other day with the student’s respective counselor in a class called human relations is another unique program built into the Edsel Ford curricula through the Chicago study. The class meets on an alternate day schedule with physical education classes and also is a six semester requirement. The course content includes orientation of school, career planning, psychology of learning (which includes study and learning techniques )f reading improve- ment, psychology of personality development and behavior; also, vocational, educational, financial planning, and family life in our society are additional areas of study. One of the major goals of this course has always been to enable counselors to become better acquainted with the students. In the field of social studies, the emphasis has been on a broad field of concepts. Basic concepts and understandings in all areas of social living are studied , these include history, political science, economics, sociology and anthropology. Although many changes have been made within the course offerings themselves, the changes have been improvements of the approach of broad studies. There were three basic concepts that the teachers, coming out of the University of Chicago study, felt the students should learn in the science program: (1) an understanding of the world of nature, (2) an understanding of the methods of science, and (3) an understanding of the impact of science on our daily lives. To meet these requirements, all students were and still are required to take three semesters of natural science. The science is also based on a broad field basis: courses draw upon biology, geology, chemistry and physics. In 1955 when Edsel’s curricula was being examined by the North Central Association, a member of that committee summed up Edsel Ford, “It is truly a new school, and not merel nold chgonn ajiew he]