Nothing will tell you more about the past of IHS than the archives of The Tattler. Nestled into the back of E wing, in a small but mighty room, are filing cabinets containing bundles and bundles of past Tattler issues. As the Tattler Archivist and history enthusiast, it is my pleasure to bring a new life to the minds and ideas of our former students for you to enjoy!
November 1972
by Liz Ashford
Is the drudgery of the school day getting you down? Are you tired of the same old thing day after day? If you’re one of the victims of chronic academic boredom, do not despair! There is an answer! This semester two new and relevant mini-courses are being offered to the students of I.H.S. They’ll fill up some of those dull study halls and provide you with a valuable and exciting learning experience.
Drugs, Sex and You
The first mini-course, to begin in November, is titled “Society/Hassles/ Solutions? Drugs, Sex and You.” Taught by Mrs. Cheryl Ostrum, drug program aide, the course is centered around providing students with an opportunity to discuss and experience ideas and topics not often dealt with in other courses.
“Although the emphasis will be on drugs and sex, the class will be flexible and follow the students’ ideas, needs and desires,” says Mrs. Ostrum. Topics such as expectations and needs, communication with oneself, one’s peers, parents and teachers, decision making and human relationships are possibilities.
The group will be small so there can be independent and individual as well as group work. Students will initiate and lead discussions as well as the instructor. Mrs. Ostrum hopes to have guests from outside organizations come in and perhaps have the class go on field trips.
Peer Group Communications
The other mini-course, also to begin in November, is called “Peer Group Communications.” The objective is to show students the importance of true communication in understanding themselves and other people. The course will be led by four counselors from Open House: Alan Kaplan, Carol Leventhal, Debby Samelson and Dave Stringham.
“We will try to find ways for people to deal with the sense of alienation and loneliness that sometimes accompanies their high school experiences,” says Alan. “By high school many people are no longer in contact with what they want, what they are, with themselves as human beings. In the course we will try to combat this.”
The idea of the course is to work through self-exploration and self-awareness (gaining an understanding of yourself) to how this affects your interactions with other people. Methods include [sic] sensitivity and awareness exercises, role plays and plain unpressured sharing of ideas and feelings.
No textbooks or required reading are needed for this course. The students can gain all the necessary knowledge by looking at themselves and the things happening around them every day. “Talking, listening, seeing and touching will be the most important things going on in the course this semester,” says Alan.
Students can sign up for these courses in Mr. Darryl Waterman’s; office (H-215). One quarter of a credit is given for each course, and they are pass/fail. Classes will be twice a week—scheduling will be worked out with the students—and run for eight weeks. Numbers are limited, so if you want to get into a good thing, sign up now.
May 1955
Fads and Fashions
by Erna Olafson
Spring brings hot days and cool evenings, unpredictable weather. Fashions for May are versatile: cottons with tiny bodices, great poofs of skirt, matching sweater outfits, and separates for day and evening.
Many IHS gals have achieved the crisp cotton look with outfits in the newest spring colors. Irene Rocker sports a sleeveless white dress with stripes of fireman red, a featured color this season. Periwinkle blue, a hybrid of blue and lavender, makes a gay cotton for Yvonne Nagy. This dress has a tiny bow neckline and sleeves buttoned above the elbow.
Trinky Powers has a separate outfit using this sleeve length, also in periwinkle. The blouse is a vivid tripe of blue and white and the skirt a pencil slim blue. Other outstanding colors this season include shocking pink, aqua, and shades beige and tan.
Originally a lowly member of fashion’s family, the tee-shirt has dressed up in spring’s freshest silhouettes and colors. The square Italian neckline with horizontal stripes is featured in jerseys for school. Janice Van Alstine wears one in blue and white stripe, and Suzanne Stewart is seen in a novel combination, a black and brown striped jersey with a black skirt.
Mrs. Pierce also has a black and brown outfit. She wears a brown cotton dress with a black bow at the cornel neckline in a silhouette revived by Chanel last season.
Now a classic, the boxy jacket is more popular than ever. Linen
suits in light and dark shades of blue are worn with matching blouses by Janet Jones and Kristen Noakes. A variation of the long line can be found in long waisted cottons. Nancy Skinner made herself a blue and white printed cotton with a long waist and full skirt. White rick-rack adorns neck and hemline.
Cottons for changeable weather often have accompanying sweaters. Austrian pink roses on a white background decorate a sundress that Connie Wells wears. Connie matches this with a white orlon sweater embroidered with pink roses. Anne de Forrest looks very smart in a pin striped dress of red, grey, and green, complemented by a white sweater trimmed to match.
Accessories for spring and summer include oversize button earrings, long beads, and narrower belts, in aqua, orange, and pink. Petticoats are ruffly but not as full as they have been, and hair is worn longer with soft curls.
November 1990
Editorial
Student Violence: Punishment or Prevention
Thus far the IHS policy on violence has been as strict and impersonable as it needs to be, given that there is no pattern or sense to the violence. Students in any way involved in a fight, whether as the aggressor or the defender, are immediately suspended. Thus, there is no concern for individual circumstances. The main objective of the administration is to get the violent students off campus, and to let them serve as a deterrent for other students considering violence as an option for solving their problems.
This policy is the easiest one for the administration to carry out. Students have been told to expect suspension should they be involved in a conflict, and the policy is uniform, strict, and easy to administer.
It is not, however, effective. The policy makes no provisions for investigating the tensions that cause violence or trying to prevent further outbreaks of it.
However, the fact that the policy has failed to reduce the frequency of fighting has not been overlooked by the administration. At the moment, various programs are being looked into that involve treating each dispute individually for both punishment and for resolution. One of the programs being considered would involve the Community Dispute Resolution Center, which bases its program on mediation and peaceful resolution. Discussions have already begun among community leaders, administrators, and law officials to produce ideas that may help solve this problem that affects us all. While the discussions have not yet gotten a lot of publicity, the participants stress that anyone who wants to get involved should do so, especially students.
Clearly, the problem of student violence has not been swept under the rug. Behind the scenes the growing concern about violence has been galvanized into an effort to find a viable solution. But, for any solution to work, this community effort will have to find a way not only to reduce the tension, but also to prevent it, and to do so with the support of the whole school community. From the amount of interest and effort that has already been established for finding this solution, I’d say we’re finally on the right track.
June 2019
The Kids are More Than Alright
By Chloe Moore
The past two years have seen possibly the largest mobilization of young people since the anti-war protests on college campuses in the 1960s and 70s. Students have organized around, campaigned for, and voted on a wide variety of issues, the most notable being gun reform and the climate crisis. Plenty of critics on both sides of the aisle have been dismissive of these movements, arguing that young people are naive and too inexperienced to organize effectively. However, the student-led March For Our Lives on Washington, D.C. drew over 200,000 supporters. Additionally, according to the Fridays For Future movement, which organizes school strikes in protest of inaction regarding the climate crisis, “During the week of March 15, there were at least 1.6 million strikers on all 7 continents, in more than 125 countries, and in well over 2000 places.”
With the combination of media literacy and some existential dread about both our current situation and our future, young people are able to make real change and to make it quickly. Rapid response activism networks are often led by younger people, and can involve anything from organizing rallies within two days of a college campus shooting, as the North Carolina March For Our Lives chapters did, to showing up for women’s rights. They can even involve rallying against police brutality, as students did just last week in New York City.
Apart from the significant impact that these youth movements have on the daily news cycle, they are also indicative of a general trend towards more participatory democracy in the United States. According to NPR, “More than 47 percent of the voting-eligible population cast a ballot in the midterm elections” in 2018, with 31 percent of eligible voters aged 18-29 voting. While there is room for improvement, the midterms saw the highest voter turnout in 50 years, and that was thanks in no small part to the efforts of youth organizers. More importantly, many people voted for the first time in the midterms, which suggests that they are much more likely to vote in future elections.
Working on the ground through March For Our Lives Ithaca, I have seen the way youth activist networks are able to create real connections in the community, effectively use social media, and create spaces to empower and engage other young people. Obviously, older activists may have more experience, but this generation has the most to lose to climate change and is on the business end of America’s gun violence epidemic. Not everyone involved in various movements can vote yet, but we can make sure that other people vote, and we can stay fired up and organized, and that’s where the real change happens.
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