Woodward High School - Treasures Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

Page 19 text:

First, I think that the hopes or expectations of last summer were too high. Many people expected the workshop to Change Woodward completely in many areas and almost overnight. That was expecting too much of just one summer's workshop. Most of the task forces in the workshop prepared a long, detailed report on their suggestions and plans. But to get these things really going you need another group of persons or that same group working again to take these sug- gestions one-by-one, then lay out a plan for putting them into effect. Looking at some of the task force ideas first, the PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT suggestions are simply impossible due to the fact that we can't get the money to do anything. In the area of CON- TROLS we have improved tremendously with the de- parture of most of the little 7th and 8th grade kids. Concerning COMMUNICATIONS, I don't think I've ever been any place Where people worked harder at communications from counselom to teachers to the P. A. I've also never been any place where we've had less success in getting ideas across. On the subject of STUDENT POWER Mr, Shrimpton has attempted to make Student Council a meaningful organization. He's put a lot of effort into it and given Mr. Craft the afternoons unassigned from teaching to work on it. It's easy to involve a few people in STUDENT POWER, but as you tryto bringin more people it gets tougher and tougher. Summing up, the workshop has done something already. It will continue to do some- thingas long as the workshop participants remain here and remain interested. The difficultywill be in keep- ing the interest alive when we aren't able to put very many ideas into practice Whether it's because of money or space limitations or lack of facilities. If we can't put the suggestions into effect or even try them out, I hope they Won't become discouraged.

Page 18 text:

From participating in the workshop I noticed that one of the plans that was to be worked on was cornmuniw cation. Communication between students and teachers seemed almost stagnant in my junior year, but after working tthis summerl with the teachers, expressing my feelings about them and about school, I found someone who really cared about my educa- tion and the atmosphere inwhich I lived. And really, students and teachers are starting to move closer to- gether. But there has been one part of this project I really object: to and it's that teachers, maybe not purposely, haved moved from one extreme to the other. Teachers are becoming more involved with students, but when trouble rises between students, they openly take sides and use their influence to divide us. Considering STUDENT POWER in the school I feel nothing has been accomplished from the workshop. I think students are being listened to right now, but they don't have the power to decide what subjects they take in school, what should be done about our riculum. As for CONTROLSI think ifthe administra- tion would give the students more lee-way concern- ing attending classes and early excuses, the students would become more responsible. One thing the stu- dents must do is become more involved in the school before any of these plans can work. They must ac- cept and wotkwith the teachers more than they have in the past. At the workshop we had two different types of teachers. We had the young, liberal teachers who were willing to accept students having more power, and then we hadteachers that you would call conservative, really set in their ways. Quite sur- prisingly, most of the conservative teachers really listened to some of the ideaswe had for their classes. Overall, I think a lot was accomplished from the workshoP where teachers and students opened up and really expressed their feelings. Maybe in the near future, possibly in ten or twenty years we can have a Woodward Utopia.

Page 20 text:

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