Grand Junction High School - Tiger Yearbook (Grand Junction, CO)

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WARD DERRYBBRRY. “Wardie. Class President. Virtue—Leader of men—and women. Demerit- Married. Favorite pastime Leins President. MILDRED NELSON. “Mip.” Class Secretary. Virtue She's Basket-Ball captain. Demerit—Reckless. Favorite pastime Cutting classes. Some Work for Parent-Teachers’ Association of H. S. By MRS. R. L. MAG1LL, President of the Parent-Teachers’ Association. The great war has revealed many deficiencies in the U. S., but none more appalling than those along educational lines. In a country where stable government depends upon an intelligent citizenship, the education of the masses becomes a necessity, for it is the bulwark of the nation. How strong that bulwark is may be judged when we know that there are states in the Union with 25 per cent or more of the adult population illiterate. The Parent-Teachers’ Association of the G. J. H. S. does not undertake to make itself responsible for the ignorance of the whole nation, but it should concern itself with the preventable ignorance of this community, and most cases of ignorance are preventable. It cannot attempt to say when a person is educated, but it can presume to say that he is certainly not wholly educated when he can only read and write and figure a little. The H. S. education was planned to raise the intellectual normal and make our youth self-reliant, dependable, thinking men and women, capable of citizenship in a great republic. How far we are reaching that ideal in this community may be judged by the fact that 50 per cent of our pupils are lost to the H. S. in transit from the seventh to the twelfth grades. The H. S. was not intended to meet the needs of the favored few, but for all the youth of our land. Something must be vitallv wrong somewhere when only half of our boys and girls are receiving the benefits of a full H. S. education. Either our curriculum does not fit the needs of the masses, or else public opinion is seriously lacking as to the real need of such education. And. in either case, it presents a problem worthy the greatest mentality of our community to solve. Perhaps our H. S. curriculum might be revised with some profit. We certainly do need to vitalize the work in the lives of our youth. Who would presume to say that work done for the world along classical lines is any more important or valuable than that done along other useful lines? We all know that public opinion does need a powerful stimulant to arouse it to the necessity and desirability of higher education. If our Parent-Teachers’ Association could study some of the causes that are now standing in the way of many boys and girls receiving a H. S. education and remove those causes, it would be accomplishing a great work for this community. The Parent-Teachers’ Association has a greater mission than merely that parents and teachers should become better acquainted and understand each others’ tribulations. Neither teachers nor parents need the sympathy of each other, but they do need intelligent study together of these problems that must be met if our H. S. becomes the power it can become. Grand Junction cannot afford to spend the thousands of dollars it does spend on equipment and teaching force when it could be getting greater results than a 50 per cent graduating class shows. It is up to the Parent-Teachers’ Association to help make our H. 8. a greater power in our community than it now is. Just how is the problem. GENEVIEVE HOUSE. “Jennie. Virtue—Affected. Demerit—Innocent physiognomy. Favorite pastime—Vamping Arthur. Education a Complex Process By R. E. TOPE. Superintendent of City Schools. Education is a natural process. The charm of child life is in its naturalness. Life is strained and uneasy when it becomes in any sense artificial. For a long time, the schools have been great offenders in restraing children by artificial surroundings and formal practices in the school room. To put education close to life is the one phrase that expresses the basic principle of the new education. When the school first receives the child, conditions should be as nearly as possible like the best type of home. From this on. an attempt must be made to respect the stages of development of the child as he passes through school, and allow him to unfold in Nature’s way. To the last three years, or the Senior High School, is left the intensive work of public school education. At the close of the course the pupil should be

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To the members of the Class of 1919 who are responsible for the publication of the Orange and Black this issue is most respectfully dedicated by the pupils of the Senior and Junior High Schools who enthusiastically and unanimously supported the paper. By the Members of the Staff.

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 FRIEDA HOPPE. “Fritzie Rov.” Virtue—Wanting a solitaire. Demerit—Jealousy. Favorite pastime—Oh! Johnnie! GEORGE (’OOMRS. “Sister.” Virtue—He loves Golda. Demerit Laughs at his own jokes. Favorite pastime—Blowing in (’hem. prepared fundamentally for his future active life. He should be prepared to enter some good college or university, some business or commercial activity, some industrial or mechanical trade, some agricultural pursuit, or some other line of work to which he can devote his life and energy. With this kind of an organization; with plenty of publicity given to the functions ai d aims of school work: with hearty co-operation between the home and the school, looking to this ideal as the end of the whole school program: we can hardly see how any individual can drift through the school course without sooner or later waking up to a realization that he must train and study for a purpose. School work today is very complex. There is a five-fold program: physical, mental, social, moral, and vocational. It is impossible to build a good citizen and an industrious and painstaking worker unless we have a substantial physical basis or foundation on which to erect our rational superstructure. A high standard of intelligence cannot be realized unless the nervous system of man is logically and scientifically developed. Man needs a mind, an organized mass of gray matter, which should have deep convolutions that are brought about only by training and experience. Then the products of our schools must be trained socially and morally to take a place in the life of the state and the community where they are to live and do their work. Finally, they must be given a chance to select some vocation, and an opportunity to study the principles and underlying elements of tins vocation. in the physical and mental part of the program, the school will do very well, because definite standards are established and minimum essentials are fixed. The goal is in sight, and it is not impossible for the normal student to reach it. There are well established standards of muscular strength, of accuracy and speed, of endurance, of carriage and poise, and of general health, which every individual should train to meet. In the mental development, we have well planned and scientifically developed standards for measuring the efficiency of the school. By tests in spelling, silent reading tests in speed and comprehension, arithmetic tests in the fundamental operations and reasoning, writing tests, correct English and English composition tests, geography tests, history tests, and standardized tests in other subjects, we can examine the students of any grade and find out how they compare with thousands of other pupils in the same grade all over the country. Such standards are so definitely determined that we can tell just about what progress the school should make in grade after grade as they go through the school work. The pupils of a certain age and grade are capable of so much speed and accuracy, so much knowledge, so much rational thought, so much of an understanding and use of the fundamentals and essentials of an education. The school is aide to meet the requirements of society so far as the physical and mental requirements are concerned. The big problem before the school is the development of the social and moral powers in human live§. In this work the school can do little more than lay down a few general principles to guide the individual. Society has no specific standards by which it governs and controls conduct and attitudes, and in moral law, there is no such thing as “eternal right.” In our social life, we have a double social standard when we consider the sexes, neither of which is very definite. There are so many modifications that seem to affect any definite rule that we attempt to lay down in social and moral affairs, that the school finds it next to impossible to teach or to obtain fixed customs or habits on the part of the student body. Law and our system of punishment in civic affairs is unscientific. It is perhaps four centuries behind the progress man has made along other lines. We know psychologically that an individual cannot be punished unless he is amenable to punishment. He cannot be reformed unless he is reformable; yet these principles are not taken into consideration when punishment is considered. Now the school is making progress in the social and moral part of its program, just as it has made progress in the physical and mental. It is true that it is securing a higher type of conduct out of its student body than society is able to get out of the adult members of the large social unit which does not come under the control of the school. But we are nevertheless face to face with the fact LEILA SWIRE. “Child.” Virtue—Oh! pshaw! Demerit—Piety. Favorite pastime—Playing duets.