McDonogh School - Dragon Yearbook (Owings Mills, MD)

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ln the fields of literature and composition it has heen the goal of the English Depart- ment to provide material which fills the needs of the individual students. XVith this purpose in mind. the English Department has partici- pated in the Advance Placement Program this year for the first time. The study of literature, hoth classical and modern, is designed to arouse interest on the part of the pupil in material for pleasure read- ing and for serious study. In the classroom and especially through independent reading, significant works in the fields of the novel and the drama are introduced. At the same time, along with the develop- ment of interest, an attempt is made to im- prove the student's level and rate of reading. In all classes the importance of reading with understanding is recognized. The student must have a knowledge of individual words which permits the easy comprehension of the main idea in a paragraph. He should see its relationship to previous information. inter- pret what he reads, and draw conclusions on the hasis of those interpretations. CHARLES C. KINARD Head of Depurtmenl Concerning composition, the English De- partment demands correct spelling and word usageg a special effort is made to enlarge the students vocabulary. The department then endeavors to comhine these individual skills ldy developing the pupils ahility to write five- hundred-word compositions hased on topical outlines. In addition. the importance of communi- cating ideas through oral recitation is empha- sized. This study tends to complete the course hy comhining literary topics with the organi- zation involved in composition. Hugh Burgess, Thomas Swift. Charles Kinard. Kenneth Campbell. Douglas I. Smink.

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1 2 LoUIs H PALMER Head of Upper School Despnte pubhc concern for present methods of educatron, espectally rn the fields whlch has always emphaslzed the humanrtres and the scrences equally has not partrcularly trned thls year to make any kmd of academnc course stand out If anythmg the trend has been toward the human1t1es, as evldenced by the changes the Soclal Studres and Foretgn Language De partments plan to make next year Expansnon ID course sedectxons rn these departments IS bemg made to glve those wrth speclal rnter ests addrtxonal opportunmes to lncrease thenr knowledge 1n these fields Promlncnt IS thc mnovatlon thls past year of thc Advance Placement Progrlm Three sections nn the semor class ln Enghsh phySlCS and advanced mathematlcs were accelerated to do extra work As a result all the students not just those rn the advanced secttons have recenved better nnstructlon For the sectrons of physncs and Enghsh thc acceleratnon was such that the students were able to take the Advance Placement Examr natnons an opportumty to sk1p a year of Eng lnsh or physlcs rn college The mathematncs secnon was able to complete about half the college freshman work Students wnth aptttudes or lnterests rn clmed tow ard L1 partlcular held were allowed to emphaslze those subjects to a ltmrtccl Wlth the mcreased number of candrdates for colleges and un1vers1t1es these tnstltu tnons have begun to requrre applrcatlons and records sent rn earlner The result at Mc Donogh has been that the yunxor year has become more nmportant than rn the past All of these changes nn McDonogh s aca demnc system the accelerated program the new courses and a l1m1ted degree of specrall zatron have resulted nn a wrder selectnon of courses to surt students wnth a varrety of rn terests and abrlmes l A V ra , ' 1 . , A C 1 ' 4 Y A 4 ' .- Q . , . . Q . w I V A l ' , - v . 1 I y y of science and mathematics, McDonogh, degree. 1 1 v , s. I ' I U -1 7 , . 27

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ALviN S. CHILCOAT Head of Deparlmenl mllthellllltili With the emphasis that has been placed on the exact sciences recently in the United States, McDonogh's Mathematics Depart- ment has acted accordingly by introducing several changes into the program of previous years. Designed to meet the challenges brought about by Sputniks and the recent world-wide focus on science, the mathematics department has set new standards for meeting these increasing demands: allowing more capable students to work up to their full potential. An accelerated program was introduced in different degrees to the department. With it came the necessary change of arranging classes into sections of students with similar ability. This has made it possible for more work to be done in the classrooms for the advanced sections, and it follows that these students have been exposed to more material than usual. Sophomore geometry expanded its program as well, leaving the confines of basic, text- book plane geometry and exploring the realm of solid geometry usually left to later years. The idea behind this change is the solid geometry will be changed wholly from part of the seniors, course to part of the sopho- mores'. In this way the senior class will have more time to spend learning trigonometry and some advanced work. It is the hope of the mathematics in- structors that this accelerated program will, in the future, make it possible for some stu- dents to complete five years of work in four and be able to skip freshman mathematics in college. XY'illiam Lingenfelter. Alvin S. Chilcoat. Howard C. Eyth, Raymond B. Oliver.