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Agora Days '12: A return to its roots
Image by Gloria HaAgora 2012 is coming soon!Published: Friday, November 11, 2011 - 4:38pm
Agora Days, a Uni tradition since 1977, is undergoing a few changes this year to get closer to the real purpose of the week.
In the X week edition of the 1980 Gargoyle, reporter Chuck Sentman stated that the idea of Agora Days was to allow students to teach and take "courses that interest them outside the realm of normal high school."
The courses could be fun, but were intended to be educational.
"You may expect to have homework in any of your courses," wrote Toshi Nishida in the Feb. 1977 edition.
Overseeing the changes is physical education teacher Rebecca Murphy, who is in charge of Agora Days this year. French and Computer Literacy teacher John Garvey headed Agora Days in previous years.
"John Garvey has been in charge of Agora Days for eight years or so and, as a full time teacher, he wanted to take a break," said Murphy. "Sally [Athletic Director Sally Walker] nominated me to head Agora Days. [Uni Director] Jeff Walkington and I had a meeting on it, and he thought it was a good idea."
Murphy has decided to make several changes to Agora Days to steer it back toward its original purpose.
"When Agora Days first started, the original intent was to be able to learn about different things that one wouldn't learn in school, as well as having the opportunity to teach," Murphy said. "However, [it] seems now that the students are using Agora Days just to goof off and they think that this is a time to relax and take a break from school."
Murphy is also creating a student-faculty committee to review the proposed classes.
"Even though I'm trying to make classes more educational, Agora Days is still for the students and by the students," said Murphy. "Having a student-faculty committee allows students to give some input."
The student-faculty committee consists of four people: Garvey, Murphy, another faculty representative, and a student. The latter half of the committee will remain anonymous so that students do not feel their proposals got rejected for personal reasons, as well as so that the committee is not pressured to accept a class.
Everyone, including students, parents, and teachers, is encouraged to teach a class. To submit a proposal, go to the Uni website homepage and click on Agora. Fill out the form and submit. Polished and carefully planned proposals that are submitted by Nov. 11 will be given priority. The earlier proposals are submitted, the better. Ideally, all proposals should be submitted by Thanksgiving break.
Comments
issue
I take issue with the second-to-last paragraph. I'll quote what specifically: "The student-faculty committee consists of four people: Garvey, Murphy, another faculty representative, and a student. The latter half of the committee will remain anonymous so that students do not feel their proposals got rejected for personal reasons."
Really? Only one student? One student, to represent the entire student body? Please. What's the problem with having more students? I'm sure many people would love to give their input with respect to the classes for Agora Days. And no matter how carefully-chosen the student, there are nevertheless bound to be various biases and personal reasons for making decisions. Yes, even if the student is anonymous, there are STILL going to be personal factors coming into play. And what kind of input is going to be had from only one student?
I reiterate: one student, no matter the student, cannot represent 300 students.
I agree with this
I agree with this completely. The Student Council is made up of multiple students from each grade, because any one student in the school has personal opinions that are not shared by everyone else, and this could affect the classes that are accepted. If I proposed a class about football, and the one student had, let's say, hated playing football in elementary school, would that affect whether the class was accepted? Of course. Would it affect whether the whole of the student body was in favor of the class? No. As Neko said above, one student's opinions can never realistically represent those of 300.
I agree as well. Who thought
I agree as well. Who thought one student, who remains anonymous and cannot solicit feedback from others, was a good idea?
I don't believe there was a student.
One is better than none
Neko,
While your response is justified, I think you overlook the fact that one student is better than none at all. Who says a single student can't do a good job of representing the majority of students or at least advocating for classes they think other students would enjoy?
I am more interested in how the student was chosen. Were they nominated or randomly chosen or handpicked?
But in the end, I think the return to Agora Days as it should be will be a good thing. Just don't confuse that with Agora Days as it was, at least in the early days. Research in the Gargoyle archives showed that while the ideal educational week was talked about, they also rejected some classes like "stair walking" and a class that involved killing a wooly mastodon in the first three years of Agora Days. So not everyone was living up to the ideal then either!
I disagree. Would you ask
I disagree. Would you ask one African American to represent his or her race as a whole? It is frankly an insult to the students to reduce their opinions to a single, biased voice.
They could have, and probably did, choose someone who they knew would agree with them.
Isn't that a rather cynical
Isn't that a rather cynical way to look at this?
Still, I agree that one student is not enough to represent all of the students at Uni, but maybe it is a bit better than including no students at all.
on the topic of cynicism...
No, I wouldn't say it is a cynical way to look at it. I think Luke's analogy is perfectly legitimate. And as for your point about one student being better than no students, I actually disagree. I know, it doesn't seem logical, does it? But look at it this way: if they picked a student who would be likely to agree with them on everything, then they can say, "Oh, well, our student-faculty committee, which also represented students, agreed unanimously on this." That way, they can claim that we the students agreed with them, when in fact their hand-picked student didn't represent the feelings of the student body at all. Maybe THIS is cynical of me, but you can hardly blame me for trying to look at every possibility here.
Curious
I'm curious how many students are on the Agora Days committees at other schools around the state.
What's that? There IS no Agora days, nor any other tradition where normal classes are suspended for a week and students, community members, and faculty teach alternative classes, most of which are not particularly academic, at other schools around the state? No. None that I have ever heard of. Whenever my friends who teach at other high schools hear about Agora days they say "You do what? That would never happen at my school."
I can't tell you the number of times I've been sitting in a meeting of Uni faculty and complaints about how Agora went in a given year came up, complaints about how fluffy and lame many of the classes were, and about students who were in a non-fluffy class whined because they were expected to discuss Family Guy for ten minutes, rather than just watching the show for the entire period. In these conversations, there is always a moment where some faculty member says "We don't have to have Agora days."
And we don't. I think students should be glad when they hear of efforts to make Agora more substantial and more actually educational, because if Agora gets too weak, too fluffy, too much a waste of the time that we teachers give up to make it happen, it may not happen any more. This would make me very sad, because I've sponsored a lot of great classes and have been present when students don't whine about having to think a bit during Agora days. And I really enjoy teaching Agora classes. And I want Agora to continue.
I agree!
This is a great comment Ms. Majerus! I personally would like to thank everyone involved in making Agora Days happen, because it is such a fun time of year! Uni is extremely lucky to be able to have opportunities like these, and I think that often goes unappreciated. It is true, and I too have heard from teachers that they sometimes regret having Agora days because it takes away from their lesson time.
I think that Uni students should be grateful for what we have. We never know when it may disappear! I think this year is the perfect time for the Uni community (especially students) to step up and care about Agora Days. It is time for us to truly teach something to our fellow Uni students that they may not know. Uni students have many different gifts, and this is a perfect time to highlight those gifts and be able to share them with your peers. As Ms. Majerus said is watching Family Guy really a talent for Uni students? No it is not.
Now is the time for us STUDENTS to come together and prove that we take this seriously, and it is not simply seen as a week off from school and learning. I think the first step to this is submitting classes! However the second, and in my opinion most important, step is thanking those that make it possible. Thank the teachers that sponsor classes, thank administration for continuing to allow this, and most importantly thank Merf and Mr. Garvey for all that they do so we can still have this week of unique fun. Speaking with Merf this is a much more daunting process than I ever realized, so THANK YOU is really the only thing we should be allowed to say!
To sum this up I guess I would just say, be grateful for what you have.
--Wyatt
P.S. Frankly if everyone (students) are going to complain about everything, maybe we don't deserve to have it?