Niles Township High School East - Reflections Yearbook (Skokie, IL)

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TWENTY-FIVE PER CENT TAKE ADVANCED MATHEMATICS Although only thirteen per cent of upperclass secondary school students in the United States take mathematics, twenty-five per cent of the upperclassmen at Niles are enrolled in four advanced mathematics courses: Advanced Algebra, Solid Geometry, Trigonometry, and Mathematical Analysis. Such courses enable gifted and interested students to work up to their capacity, laying a firm foundation for advanced study in the universities. In addition, Niles has extended the idea of the Science Seminar to the field of mathematics by inviting sophomores in their second year of the accelerated mathematics program to meet weekly to discuss those mathematical concepts which cannot be taught in the classroom. It is believed that the additional informal discussion groups will help prepare the accelerated student for advanced placement upon entering college. Larry Messe, Charles Kadish, and Karen Sandstrom study the passing of planes through cones at various angles producing circles, hyperbolae, and ellipses at a meet¬ ing of the Math Seminar which is under the direction of Mr. Robert Pruitt.

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Jim Iverson explains spherical applications of solid geom¬ etry to A1 Freedman, Bill Swinyard, Mike LeVine, and John Hederick. Larry Messe performs the computation and Rhoda Newman lays out a reference dia¬ gram as Harold Ruttenberg dictates a prob¬ lem in the trigonometry class. 22

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COLLEGE PREP CURRICULUM STRESSES THE HUMANITIES Seventy per cent of the students who graduated from Niles last year entered college in the fall. College planning begins in the freshman year with students deciding on a curriculum best suited to their goals and the college of their choice. The college preparatory curriculum requires three two-year sequences (mathematics, science, and a foreign language), one three-year sequence (social studies), and one four-year sequence (English). However, many students go further than the required number of years in the above sequences. For example, eighty-two per cent of the senior class are enrolled in a fourth year of English; thirty-three per cent are enrolled in chemistry. In the junior class, twenty-four per cent of the students are enrolled in physics, and thirty per cent are enrolled in advanced algebra. Thirty-three per cent of the students in both classes are taking a foreign language.