WHO CARES? Apathy - A Result Of Little Change

By SAM OLIVER



When considering the over-all situation at Grady today, the immediate response is apathical. In past years, this apathy has only been regarded as "senior apathy" because it was mainly found in each year's senior class. This might have been the case in the past, but I feel that this total apathy found on campus life today is the result of the entire student body, not just one particular class. While my purpose here is not to attack apathy as a whole, I want to show that apathy is the result of situations that affect a person's life and that apathy is not the problem we should try to solve, but its the situations that to correct.

TIME DELETES INTEREST

First of all, apathy in itself is not really that bad, It is basically the result of an individual tired of the elements which surround him This is part of the reason for "senior apathy" because by the time a person reaches the twelfth grade, fie has grown so sick and tired of various aspects of Grady that he no longer cares. The individual, himself, is aware of the problem, but he is unable to do anything about it.

LACK OF CHANGE

Unlike previous years at Grady, I have never seen such widespread apathy among the students, teachers, and everyone else at the school. It's not that they don't care anymore, it's that they can no longer care about something of which there is apparently no hope for success. The result is apathy, but the cause is a lack of change. Therefore, we should try to correct the cause and then there wouldn't be any apathy as a result.

Everything about the school has suffered in one way or another because of it. Look the School's Curriculum and any extra-curricular activity. No wonder we don't have any successful dances anymore, winning athletic teams, and any other extra-curricular activity that can measure any success. No wonder we have people skipping classes as well as school, failing their courses, and doing little, if any, while they're in them. Both have suffered because they have not changed since they were both incorporated.

VARIATION A MUST

No longer should we accept things because they are, tradition, and they have been handed down to us over the years. Part of our problem is that we too often accept what other people tell us before we examine for ourselves. Too often, we tend to follow a particular set or rules for anything, and we don't ever question as to why. The end result is that we believe that apathy is responsible for all we try to do that fails.

YEARBOOK AFFECTED

Look at the situation of the yearbook. Apathy by the students was again blamed for the lack of sales because we forgot to examine what was really causing the poor response to the sales campaign. For years and years, the ORATOR staff has used the same warfare tactics to get the necessary subscriptions to successfully produce a yearbook, Unfortunately, the student body has become sick and tired of the annual threats, bribes, and other manuevers to sell the yearbook that they really no longer care. Apathy was blamed for the lack of sales, while the real reason for the diminishing sales was lost. If the yearbook staff would have changed its policy regarding their sales campaign, perhaps the student body would have realized how serious the situation was and bought their yearbook. Maybe this wouldn't have made any difference, but at least they would have found a better way to promote their book in some other fashion.

My point is that whenever something fails, its failure is always associated with apathy. Until we learn to question why it failed and then do something about it, the situation at Grady High School can only get worse.