John Wesley North High School - Aurora Yearbook (Riverside, CA)

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Imperfect? Present? Present Perfect? Paul Bradford looks tense as he fights to stay awake dur- ing his grammar lesson. Trying to figure out how to debug his program, Anthony Knight stares moodily at the computer screen. Programs were an important part of Mr. Ni- cholls ' PASCAL class. 206 academics

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- Motivation Inspires Motivation: the act or process of furnishing with an incentive to take action. Three sources of moti- vation drove the students to enroll in the math science program: require- ments, interest, or challenge pro- vided the impetus for students to carry on. It was the driving force in boosting the academic quality of the math and science programs. North students displayed a real interest m challenging these two difficult subjects. In 1984, North ex- panded its academic cur- riculum. AP physics and calculus classes were ad- ded to comply with stu- dents ' demands. Derivatives, differentials, and inte- gration were just a few of the con- cepts covered in Mr. Adams ' calcu- lus class. I want to major in electro- engineering and calculus is one of the classes you ' re required to take, said Becky Blann. The AP physics class spent its time studying kinemat- ics, forms of energy, simple ma- chines, and waves. We didn ' t have I MATH I SCIENCE I a calculus class before because there wasn ' t much of a demand for it. This year there were so many stu- dents interested in taking calculus that we decided to offer it here, rath- er than sending them all to UCR, said Mr. Adams. For students who didn ' t take AP classes, motivation was still a factor in deciding what classes to take. Some even forfeited vacations, caught up in the desire for self-improvement. I took biology in the sum- mer because I didn ' t get a chance to take it as a class at North, said Da- vid Hasegawa. Why would students slave through at least three years of math and two of sci- ence? One reason was that taking math and science was part of the new college requirements. Another reason was, as Jeff Stay stated, I enjoy a challenge and physics is a challenging class. All in all, no mat- ter what the incentive, self-motiva- tion drove students to excel aca- demically. ••• Paying close attention, John VanDenburgh lis- tens attentively to his AP physics lecture. Students depended on the daily lectures to do well on tests. Taking out a piece of paper, Margaret Farmer prepares for an intensive note-taking session m AP physics. Meanwhile, Bob Blackman looks over a re- turned assignment. science-life, physical 205

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Languages Reach New Dimension - Sprechen die Deutsch? Parlez-vous francais? Habla usted espanol? Lo- quiminine Latinam? Do you know any of these languages? For students inter- ested in learning a new tongue, North had a wide variety to choose from. Not only did it ofier the traditional spoken languages such as French, German, Spanish, and Latin, but the modern computer languages such as BASIC and PASCAL. Students took languages for many reasons, but most agreed that language is the key that opens the door to better career opportunities. As a future international affairs major. my career almost entirely depends on language, stated Grace Ruben. Many students took foreign language not only to meet graduation requirements but to broaden their knowledge about cultures other than their own. I ' m tak- mg Spanish because it ' s important in communication with the large popula- tion in this area, commented Nicky Singer. Those that have an interest m commu- nication and a passion for machines found BASIC and PASCAL to be the languages for them. BASIC, just as its name signifies, is a remedial computer language and is not used as much as PASCAL. PASCAL was offered as a class for the first time in 1984. It gives you a great opportunity to learn more about computers and expand your knowledge, stated John CuUum. Re- gardless of which language they pur- sued, spoken or written, students shared similar goals to broaden their horizons culturally and further their ca- reer opportunities. .V Murmuring in her concentration, Julie Stewart finishes her Latin exercises. Exercises played an es- sential role in learning Latin. Awaiting her signal to begin, Pam Stocks stands patiently in front of the class to deliver her Spanish oral report. Such reports were common assignments in foreign language classes to encourage speaking skills. languages-foreign, computer 207