Seward Park High School - Almanac Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 10 text:

PRINCIPAL ' S MESSAGE Dear Graduates: In later years, as you look through the pages of your yearbook, (and most people at various times do), it is to be hoped that you will recollect your high school years as productive ones in that they helped to prepare you for what was to come, that they provided a firm foundation upon which you built more advanced skills and knowledge, and that they led you on to the path of developing fully your personal talents and interests. Even more, it is to be hoped that you will remember your high school years with real affection as having been a source of joyful experiences and a place where you met and made good friends. Per- haps, with the perception of maturity, you may even think that Seward has been a vital link in your success and has played a part in your growth into men and women of warmth, of sympathy, and of understanding. If that should be, then we, your teachers, will feel that our work has been well done. Sincerely, DEAR GRADUATES Principal I find if a matter to ponder, as I am sure many of edu- cators do also, that we are passing through a time in which people everywhere are demanding that the schools demon- strate and defend their accomplishments, while at the same time they continue to place an almost naive faith in the value of schooling. What schooling really means they often fail to reckon or to recognize. What strenuous application, what extended disciplined effort are required of a student if he Is to gain mastery of any subject! To evoke and sustain such effort, to awaken the student ' s imagination so that he reaches out by himself, is the difficult work the schools engage in. With many boys and girls we succeed, and the fact that we sustain the present rich program of electives, and that over sixty per cent of our students go on to higher education is cause for satisfaction. We note that more than 28 members of our present faculty are graduates of Seward, and this represents but a fraction of those who choose teaching as their career. The choice of such a life work gives us assurance that our schools still attract en- thusiastic and able young people to their staffs. But there is a constant bafflement which comes in know- ing that there are hundreds we do not reach — that hun- dreds are discouraged and defeated. How can we make school significant or relevant to them? It is in every case the problem of touching, of conveying meaning and pur- pose to a person whose needs we have succeeded in un- standing, and to whom we have made our message clear. Through programs in every department which we constantly work to expand, through guidance services we try to in- tensify, through endless searching in one individual case after another, we try to find for each a way. Patience and an awareness which is senitive to need and responsive to solutions are the qualities we invoke in ourselves and instill in our students to enable us to carry on the task of mak- ing each young person able to realize and to participate in the abundance of the world ' s opportunity. In this quest Dr. Benari to whom you dedicate this book was engaged all his life — employing the disciplined skills and intelligence of the trained sociologist, and the wisdom and compassion of the prophets and philosophers he revered. Ckorr-s O-txt ,f AW

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DEDICATION The recent passing of Dr. Benari has taken from Seward Park a competent and energetic adminis- trator. Yet, this man who has been an integral part of the academic life, and a man of great scholastic prowess, is not really gone. His wealth of knowl- edge achieved during years of dedication and eager study is contained in the many volumes he has produced. He survives in the memory of the students of Seward Park who remember him as a singular administrator, a person who resolutely fought in their interest. Such a man shall never be consigned to oblivion. Edward Tom

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CHAIN OF COMMAND Dr. Benjamin Benari Adminisiraiive Assistant Mr. Joseph Siegel Chairman Accounting Dept Mr. Leo Schiffer Mr. Edward Marcantonio Chairman Boys Health Chairman Mathematics Depf. „ Miss Teresa Gloster Administrative Assistant Mrs. Ruth Pollack Chairmon Secrefor al Studies Dept.