Word: mann
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...greatest social hazard for a Horace Mann student is being different. Clothes are particularly conformist and fadish. To school the girls wear skirts and blouses or sweaters, and whatever type of shoes is the rage that year. Boys wear sport shirts or sweaters and "drapes"--slightly tapered, flannel slacks. Suit jackets and ties are never seen during school hours...
Paul N. Carlson, Horace Mann principal, sees advantages in a system which discourages bright students from becoming bookworms. He notes, "I have felt many times that many of our academically-oriented students did spend too much time in the speech arts, band, or vocal music. On the other hand, some of our most advanced students would not have fared well in college if they had not been brought out of the academic shell through the extra-curricular influence of various faculty members...
...Academic shell," however, is hardly appropriate when applied even to the most intellectually-minded Horace Mann student. It is very difficult even to form an academic shell when one's academic courses are unstimulating. The fact remains that the really interested student is forced to look to the Debate Club, the public library, or the civic symphony orchestra for extensive cultural development...
Nevertheless, the principal is probably correct when he says that "Horace Mann at least ranks above the typical mid-western high school." It is one of the two best high schools in Gary, and above average for Indiana. But this merely indicates that inadequacy is wide-spread. It does not prove that the school provides an academic experience comparable to the country's top private or public high schools. Nor does it even prove that Gary does the most it can with the resources available to a medium-sized industrial city...
Additional courses, though, will not alter the quality of the subjects already taught. Public high school courses are geared to the average student. At many schools, the gifted learner is placed in accelerated classes. Horace Mann has this accelerated program in algebra and plane geometry--an arrangement which might profitably be extended to other subjects...