The Dog Show
was a hit with
students and
The Latin News.
of the girls school faculty. "Mr. Cunningham
(who taught Social Studies) fulfilled all my
stereotypes of a male teacher," said Gratch.
"He was very relaxed and casual, and he
stood at the front of the classroom with his
hands in his pockets. It was an eye-opening
experience to see that you could learn in the
atmosphere he created."
Meanwhile, the boys were probably
unaccustomed to the level of formality of
some of the teachers who came over from
the girls school, said Gratch. "I think about
some of the teachers who came from the
GLS, and I cannot believe they taught
boys. Some were such disciplinarians and
classicists, I can't believe they held the boys'
attention!" Among those teachers was Latin
teacher Lucy Brokaw, who was known to be
an intimidating presence in the classroom.
Since the three upper grades were
combined in the boys school on Dearborn,
the girls also had the experience of a new
"When I started Latin I was a little kid, and boys were icky," said Doreen
(Doyle) Conrad '56, who left the school for a time to attend Roycemore. "I was 15
when I returned, and boys were really not icky anymore. So I was pretty happy about
the merger. Beside the fact that boys and girls were now together at school, bringing
both schools together exposed us (girls) to kids from different neighborhoods and
backgrounds in a way that we hadn't been before. There was Roger Cipriani ('54),
whose family was Italian, and I remember Danny Mackevich ('55), whose father was a
vendor on Maxwell Street. My impression was that the boys got over their prejudices
fairly quickly, probably because of sports. I think sports – and I'm not a sports fan –
really helped things. They had to work together and rely on each other, and I think
that destroyed a lot of prejudices."
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L AT I N M AGAZINE
