Newspapers / Grimsley High School Student … / Feb. 8, 1974, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page Two HIGH LIFE Feb. 8, 1974 Do You Have Success Syndrome? (One of the funniest and most popular of the American innocents abroad is the newspaper humorist. Art Buchwold, who as been called the most comic American observer of the European scene since Mark Twain. His columns for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate appear in some 450 newspapers from Enid, Oklahoma to Israel. Since January, 1949, when Buchwold began turn ing out his columns for the Euro pean (Paris) edition of the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, Buch- wald has been entertaining readers with his spirited and sometimes irre verent comments on the celebrities and tourists Who came and went on the European scene. Mr. Buchtvald presently has 16 books to his credit, including 14 collections of his col umns and miscellaneous writings, two guides to Paris;, and one novel entitled A Gift from th^ Boys.) I know no one will believe me, but you're just going to have to take my word for it. I met a college student the other day who said that all he wanted out of life was success and financial security. He asked me not to use his name because he didn't want to embar rass his parents, so I shall call him Hiram "Hiram," I asked him, "Why did you decide to take this revo lutionary attitude toward society?" "1 don't exactly know when it happened. I was like most of the rest of the students. I wanted to tear down the school, the society, the establishment. I was just another conformist, and I never questioned why I was doing all the things that were expected of me." "Then one day I thought to myself, 'There's got to be more' to life than getting hit over the head by the cops.' I looked arpUnd me and sow. nothing but sheep. Every student was doing his thing because someone else had done his thing, and no one was doing or saying anything new." "So you decided to drop out of the student movement and become a millionaire?" "Not at first. But I met this girl. She was really way out. She wore a cashmere sweater, a plaid skirt I couldn't believe anyone would dress like that. But I got to talking to her, and she started making sense. "She said it wasn't enough to lock yourself in a building or go on a hunger strike in your dorm. If you really wanted to change the world, you had to make' a lot of money, and then people wouldn't tell you what to do." "That's radical thinking," I said. "Then she gave me a book by Prof. Horatio Alger, and I guess no book I ever read has had more of an effect on me" "Wasn't Pof. Alger the one who came out first with the success syndrome theory?" "That's he. His story floored me. I mean a whole new world opened for me, and I knew no matter what the consequences were and no mat ter what other people thought, I was going to work hard and be come rich and successful. Life fin ally took on some meaning for me, and for the first time 1 felt like a free man." "What did you do then?" "I discovered through this girl that there were other students on campus who felt the way I did— not many, but there were enough. So we formed a group called the 'Students for a Successful Society.' At first we had to go underground, because the administration wouldn't acknowledge us as a legitimate campus organization. But as more and more students heard about us, the SSS kept growing. We've been able to radicalize at least 200 stu dents who would rather be rich than do their thing." "What are some of your activi ties to get more supporters?" "We sell the WALL STREET JOURNAL on campus. We've open ed a coffeehouse where you can read back copies of FORTUNE. We have a stock market ticker tape in the back room, and on weekends we have readings from the National Assn, of Manufacturers Bulletins." "Hiram, 1 know this all sounds great. But is it possible that this success syndrome movement is just a passing fad?" "No, it isn't. I know everyone calls us kooks and weirdos, but no one is going to push us around. We've already had inquiries from other campuses that want to set up similar chapters, and I wouldn't be surprised in the next few years to see what is now a minority move ment become the strongest force in the country. After all, nothing succeeds like success." Art Buchwold Learning To Learn Is What We Don’t Learn In School "Why should we study this stuff? It's not doing me any good." The teacher, bored at the pros pect of answering this question once again, summons up on of his patented answers. "You need this to get into college" or "You can't graduate and find a good job with out this course." Of course neither answer even pretends to define the true value of education to the stu dent. But some teachers counter with the old maxim that reading Shakespeare, proving theorems, memorizing formulas, and preform ing other seemingly irrevelent men tal exercises "sharpen the mind." This assertion is simply not true! In his book of essays entitled The Aims of Education, Alfred North Whitehead attacks this idea, as well as numerous other fallacies associated with our educational system. First of all, Whitehead (who was a professor of philosophy at Harvard) points out that a develop ing mind is not a passive, inani mate tool to be sharpened like an ax;"You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it." Stu dents are human beings, and as such they must utilize their facul ties every day. Therefore, to truly benefit from an education, they must understand the connections which exist between "remote" knowledge and everyday activities. At this point, everyone is prob ably saying, "I don't want some old teacher telling me what lessons of life I should learn from Romeo ond Juliet." This is just the point. When a writer produces a novel, when a scientist develops a new theory) or when a philosopher dis covers some great truth, their ideas are olive and an integral part of their very lives. It is through the artist or scientist himself that in animate knowledge has significance to life in general. All true know ledge has unity and relevance because it is conceived by Man. When a teacher fails to impart this vital connection, the results are "inert" ideas which have no mean ing to the student. But when a student begins to feel this connec tion, he can discover for hinself what meaning the knowledge has to him as a unique individual. So we are told that this univer sal unity of knowledge exists and that it has significance to modern man; what then is the solution; Whitehead claims that we must "eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects that kills the validity of our curriculum." He also sug gests that teachers keep in mind that "there is only one subject- matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations." In essence, the teacher's role is to give direction, meaning, and unity to the student's studies and thoughts. Also, they should realize the importance of teaching "gen eral culture"—that vast body of in formation and understanding which makes someone not a successful technician or Q successful business man, but a successful human be ing. As Whitehead said, "there is nothing more boring than a merely well-informed man." A teacher does not just hold a job, he plays a key role in the lives of many developing human beings. The mind of a young person is very delicate and very impression able; what a teacher does in class, or just as importantly, what he does not do, can have far-reaching effects on individuals and on so ciety as a whole. Another great scholar and teacher, Loren Eisley, had this in mind when he wrote that "the educator may be the withholder as well as the giver of life." In this essay I have tried to give an idea of what students should ultimately be striving for and what teachers should be attempting to relate to them. It is appropriate that I should end with another quotation from Alfred North White- hear: "What education has to im part is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, for the structure of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar ref erence to the life of the being pos sessing it." By Newell Highsmith Unfvn In The Sun -- The New S€hedule Causes Problems The reader could well have pre dicted that an editofidf oh’ the new school hours would appear in HIGH LIFE. Well, despite a reluc tance to rehash an issue already widely discussed, here it is. Never let it be said that HIGH LIFE dodges an issue (usually, we run from it). The school board has, as you probably know, moved the starting times for all schools up one hour. The reason given is that this will keep elernentary school children from having to wait in the dark for their school buses. Let's bring up one very interesting ponit. With Daylight Savings Timie, daylight comes only fifteen to twenty min utes after the time that elementary children would normally have been picked up. We'll get back to this, point later. Right now, let's look at the problems the new schedule is caus ing for high school students. Ap proximately one-third of the stu dents at Grimsiey hold jobs, many of which begin immediately after school. Some of these students will lose their jobs, and many more will receive less pay because they Will have to work fewer hours. Another problem caused by the ; new hours is in holding meetings after school. If lucky, a person at tending an hour long meeting aftet school will get home at 6:00 p.m. Athletes will have an especiallv difficult time. After dressing out, practicing for two hours, dressing, and going home, many of them will not end their day before 8:00 p.m And, needless to say, having school buses in rush hour traffic is a dangerous practice. Now, back to the second para graph. As 1 said, daylight comes about fifteen to twenty minutes after the time elementary schoo children would have been picked up. There are two solutions, equally simple. One, have high school stu dents picked up before elementary children. Two, run the schedules for schools fifteen minutes late so that school would start at 8:4f a.m. Either way, the elementary bus loads can be picked up in day light and high school students wil not have to put up with loss of pay of study time, and dangerous rusf hour traffic. "He who is unable to live in society, or has no need to because he is sufficient unto himself, rriust either be a wild beast or a god." , —Aristotle Well, which bne are you? HIGH LIFE was interested enough to poll every one at Grimsiey (we even got around to those frogs you di- sected in Biology). Here's what we found: WILD BEAST: 93% PEOPLE: 387% GODS: .02% Since the only Gods left at Grims iey are the Fallen Angels of the HIGH LIFE Staff, and since the Wild Beasts all subscribed last se mester, ate the first issue, and died of ink poisoning, you People are left, you. People, you. So, People, you need to know what's going on. You need to keep informed. You need your very own copy of the Senior Edition. You need something to occupy your time in school. You need something to wrap that big catch in on your next fishing trip YOU NEED HIGH LIFE! And you can have it for the measley sum of $1.00. Students of Grimsiey, SUBSCRIBE!
Grimsley High School Student Newspaper
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Feb. 8, 1974, edition 1
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