Clairton High School - Clairtonian Yearbook (Clairton, PA)

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commercials get job experience in office practice For many years Clairton business establish- ments have hired CHS commercial students di- rectly upon graduation, knowing they will pro- duce work of dependable quality. The fact that almost one-third of the present graduating class are commercials makes evident the importance of the department in the curricu- lum. The fact that four of the top ten graduates are commercials emphasizes the responsibility it has to prepare students to the limits of their exceptional ability. With local ottices, banks, and stores invest- ing heavily in the most modern equipment, it is necessary for CHS's commercial training to keep pace, since so many students do begin work with- out further study. The senior secretarial practice class, toward which all underclass study of typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping points, gives students the fun- damentals they need for operating all types of business machines, for following other standard office procedures, and for observing ottice eti- quette. Extra time spent in the office and on projects requested by other school departments gives them valuable experience ot every variety. Besides, their business knowledge is broad- ened by courses in salesmanship, commercial law, business math, and economics. Commercial department faculty include: seated, Miss Frances Ortner, Miss Martha Marovich, Miss Alberta Trimble, standing, Miss Rose Schepis, Mr. John Young, Mrs. Lucille Mills. Pictures at the top show a secretarial practice class work- ing on a budget, Edward Caton exercising his line on sales- manship class customers, below, seniors take dictation while sophomores work out their bookkeeping cycles. -4

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we --f water ' sciences teach practical facts to dispel fears A curriculum aimed at graduating citizens capable of building a secure way of life for the twentieth century's second half must be designed to teach facts. Practical, usable, down-to-earth facts leave no ground in which can flourish secur- ity-wrecking fears based on ignorance and superl stition. Clairton's population, we all know, is a very mixed one, not too many generations removed from influences of old-world black magic and native superstitions which government rulers en- couraged purposely to confuse their subiects. So the problem of inherited fears for us could be doubly difficult. Through its science courses CHS attempts first of all to make us appreciate the importance of attacking all problems through the scientific method, and then to supply us with a collection of household facts that will make us demand for ourselves, our homes, and our city the best use of all that science knows for improving living standards. We discuss with authority anything from what constitutes adequate garbage disposal for the taxes we pay to what atomic energy may mean either to national defense or to our per- sonal comfort. ln the top photo are science instructors Mr. James Martell, Mr, Edgar Bleiler, Mr. Harold Wilkinson. Mr. Kay Chrestensen is nct in the picture. Down the page, pictures show senior science students interpreting a weather chart while physics students atiempt a problem in light speed. B'ology students examine an amoeba slide, and chemistry experts inspect the atom in model form.

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,awp I 'Q mathematics is basic to man occupations So much of our lives is based on the con- cepts of how many and how much that we take for granted we must learn to count. tt is also safe to assume that we will not return in the next fifty years to exchanging our best cow for a neighbor's three fattest pigs. So we have to understand basic facts about money, its uses, and its values. Beyond this elementary knowledge, the sur- vey of student occupational interests made for March 29 Career Night showed definite need for emphasis on mathematics courses. For we stu- dents are planning futures which involve the use of numbers on all levels. Many of us plan to work with the new, com- plex business machines. Among us there are prospective bookkeepers and accountants, pay- roll and disbursing agents, traffic experts, bank- ing, insurance, real estate consultants, salesmen and sales clerks, engineers of all types, techni- cians and statisticians, pharmacists, nurses, doc- tors, contractors, architects, draftsmen, surveyors, chemists and bacteriologists, home budget mak- ers and users of recipes. All of us expect to be family income spenders and investors. Not many of us can hope to get by without mastering the basic principles CHS mathematics teaches us. Math teachers pictures above are Mr. Charles Patton, Miss Jane Walker, Mrs, Agnes Hebner, and Mr. John Soich. In Mrs. Hr-:bner's Algebra l class, all grades, including ninth, are represented. Mr. Soich's trig wizards know all about tangents and secants. Miss Walker teaches general math stu- dents to calculate interest on bank accounts and loans, while Mr. Patton's geometry class practice bisecting a few angles.