Englewood High School - Purple and White Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 12 text:

urdiafid Wan an He's a self-trained builder who, largely with his own two hands, built a sizable two-story, brick home. He's the husband of an independent minded woman, a successful principal of an effectively managed Chicago Public Ele- mentary school. He's the father of a boy and a girl in their early teens determined that they should have the best in the way of general upbringing, education, and everything else. Vlfell aware of how rough life can be, he is inclined to over- protect these youngsters from the surging winds of ad- versity. At the same time, he realizes how dangerous over- protection can be as a preparation for the remorseless reali- ties of human existence. This semi-dilemma is a key to his whole character, per- sonality, and general life style. Of course many, if not most of us, are confronted with the same sort of perplexity. This is only too true. But it is especially conspicuous in his Case. Moreover, the same double image, so to speak, both helps and hinders him in giving direction to the department of which he is chairman as well as in all his relations with his students and his faculty colleagues, who collaborate with him in making the departm.ent, which they together serve, so decidedly alert, efficient, and steadily on the march. No doubt virtually all readers who have perused this for the present dedicatory piece of the 1967 Purple and White have made the correct deduction that it is about our Mr. Roberts and our Business Education Department. Wfell, anyway, Mr. Roberts entered the field of educa- tion only after a successful career in the business world. Prior to 1954, when he became a teacher, he had owned and managed profitably a chain of self-service laundrymats. For his Bachelor's degree, received at Morehouse Col- lege in Atlanta, Mr. Roberts majored in Business Admin-is- tration and minored in Education. So, in 1954, when an opportunity to dispose of the laundry business, which he and his wife owned jointly, came knocking at the Roberts' door, his friends urged him to seize the opportunity at once to get out of the laundry field about which he was not particularly enthusiastic in the first place. Noting, more- over, that the teacher shortage, especially in Chicago, was becoming acute and noting further that he seemed to have a natural bent for teaching as in part, he himself indicated he realized back at Morehouse by selecting Education for his minor, they persuaded Mr. Roberts that he forthwith switch to high school teaching as his vocation. After weighing the matter pro and con in discussions with his wife and pondering it carefully on his own, he made a clean cut decision. He decided to take some additional courses in Education. These, together with his Master's degree in Business Administration he took at the University of Chicago, his years of practical ex- perience in the business world coupled with his long cherished natural inclination toward teaching added up to the requisites of a proficient high school instructor in the field of Business Education. Anyway, this soon became his field of operation. For a short while he served as a substitute teacher in Chicago High Schools. Then he took a teacher certifi- cation examination in the Business Field offered by the Chicago Board of Education. He passed it and not long thereafter he attanied the status of a certified teacher. He was then assigned to the Englewood High School. Here he has been a regular member of the faculty for ten years. About half of this decade he has headed the Business Education Department.

Page 11 text:

,szfmf :lik JJM Wally galfefi

Page 13 text:

uyroua 0l06ll fl'I'LZl'lt The field of Business Education and the responsibility for holding that department steadily on its track moving ful-l steam ahead keeps him in his element with a mighty gratifying sense of fulfillment. For two or three years he has been teaching Data Processing and Computer Operation evenings at Loop Junior College. He has been offered a full time position at this college, but he prefers to remain at Englewood with his companionable colleagues and the boys and girls who so greatly need his guidance together with his warm interest in their development and well being. He follows the careers of outstanding students in the B. E. Department after they graduate from high school with well nigh the solicitous attitude of a father. Good fortune to a colleague on the Englewood faculty makes him beamingly happy. He is quick to recognize excellence on the part of either a student or a teacher and to make his responsive enthusiasm known. Good-natured with a frequent smile on his strong fac.e, and on occasion giving vent to belly-shaking laughter, he, nevertheless, holds out for top performance on the part of his students. He does that, however, not with a sour face, but with an appropriate bit of joshing and with an affable demeanor. Other teachers in the Business Education Department naturally vary in temperament, manner, method of procedure and what have you. A sticker for promptness, responsibility, and top quality work, Mrs. Browning, whose classes, among other things, turn out great quantities of mimeographing for various school departments is especially careful in regard to making overoptimistic promises as to completion dates for this work. Frequently she is able to deliver sooner than the day set for delivery. Mrs. Hoggatt, tops in precision, accuracy, neatness, and responsibility, demands at least a close approximation of these qualities from her students. And she succeeds in getting them to rise to her expectations to a considerable degree. When she makes a promise you can count on it absolutely. Mr. R. A. Johnson enjoys being gracious but he does not lower his standards or requirements for the sake of merely pleasing somebody. He likes to engage in banter with colleagues in the men teachers' lounge or in the faculty lunchroom. But he hews to the line in classroom and division procedure. Businesslike, precise, and well organized in his manage- ment of the bookroom which he directs, Mr. Lowhar, gets results from his bookroom helpers as well as his students by a distinctive fusion of dry wit and tersely worded instructions. He moves ahead rapidly by circumventing needless steps and by streamlining in toto the whole range of bookroom and classroom procedures. Mr. Murphy .keeps steadily on the move, but manages to hear distinctly everything that is said to him. He is as obliging as he could possibly be in meeting requests for supplies and in helping find items lost by the students or teachers. His approach to students is natural and direct. And on occasion, as on busses loaded with students bound for football games, he can manage to keep boys and girls pleasantly amused with a steady stream of good-natured joshing. An artist at keeping a straight face and affecting an almost so-lemn air of propriety while playing a harmless, practical joke, Miss M. jenkins, nevertheless, insists that her students fulfill their assignments, and she definitely is not one to tolerate foolishness on their part. Mrs. Hooks is a relative newcomer at Englewood High School. But from her very first day here, her students realized that she means business. And that is not just because she is a member of our Business Education Depart- ment. A comparative 'newcomer to Englewood is Mrs. E. Edwards, teacher of Calculating Machines and Clerical Bookkeeping. Her quiet directness and affirmative atti- tude are much admired. This, then, is our Business Education Department, which, under the flexible direction of Mr. Roberts, is going places and accomplishing much. .ui mms' ssirsmi:mmsaes:s:sms1ssxwnnnl w mw11mwmQ.s lmws1sm :w..imumxmsx. Q msxmwmwwwwxmm