George C Marshall High School - Columbian Yearbook (Falls Church, VA)

Page 169 text:

Mass production of grade-grubbers is another by-product of the academic institution. More directly related to academia, grade-grubbing has become a refined art at Marshall. There are some people who grub their grades for a reason, who see beyond the arbitrary scribble jotted at the top of a term paper, and consider its effect on their future. For many of Marshall's 2200 students these lightly-treated letter grades play an important role in determining college choices. But even if you can stop worrying a-bout making a grade, can you make the grade? Can you handle getting up from one desk to go sit in another desk all day? Can you make each class more than an institutional monotone? It was especially evident in 1974-75 that if the class was to be a good class, the students were going to have to make it so; teachers were no longer willing to spoonfeed interest to an apathetic audience. For many reasons, many classes were just an I'm here; you're here; what next? situation. And for many, that is the way it stayed. It was as if someone had scrawled right below HOME OF THE STATESMEN Can you make the grade? Cooperating through nonverbal communication Carl Waldec and Sharon Garrison work together in Humanities. 165

Page 168 text:

Tony Divalentine measures voltage with a VOM in Electronics. Struck with the difference of French V from Level IV, Ian Cath and Karen Bellor are dazed by a student's lecture. Roger Deam uses precision to letter an archetec-tural blueprint. I til

Page 170 text:

 Through nonverbal communication. Dusty Kuzma teaches Scott Henshaw how to do a push-up. £ a c o ■ MB o Role playing, building model airplanes, leading the blind” on trust walks, visiting Inner City High Schools, touring St. Elizabeth's Hospital and spending the day at Gallaudet College for the Deaf were all exercises for Humanities students. Officially a class in communications, it was a half-credit, one semester course that included experimental approaches to human communications at various levels. These levels included personal, social, and mass communication. Aptly termed a communication laboratory , learning was based on experience and supplemented by discussions in the class. Students were presented with the basic philosophies and background of an exercise. They then formed groups to work on these and other activities. One such activity was a student exchange with Woodrow Wilson High School, a predominantly black school in Washington, D.C. Each student from Marshall was assigned a buddy who served as a guide to the school. Many buddies took the Marshall students to their classes and around the campus. In exchange for their hospitality, the Wilson students were invited to spend a day at Marshall. Humanities students enjoyed new freedom not available in every class. To many, this course was the high point of their day because it had evolved into a deeper, more personal class than most. One student described the class as a laboratory science without science, English without formality, art without a tangible medium.