HALLWAYS
“Play Day” when we all jumped as high and ran as fast as we could in search of blue ribbons. Mrs. Daret’s enthusiasm and steady approach allowed us
to be exposed to a variety of sports; it was an “education,” not just a play period to let off steam. I cannot say how many times I have thought back on the one or two years I played on our little high school volleyball team, taking buses to other high schools around the city. Having grown up in the insular environment of a private school, I expanded my horizons by seeing other students, other gyms, and other sports programs. Even with St. Helen’s Hall’s meager abilities to field teams, with its small enrollment and limited finances, it nonetheless introduced me to the world of team sports and the importance of physical education. The idea of having “coaches” (or even “assistant coaches”) for every sport was non-existent—until perhaps my junior or senior year it seems to me we just had the ONE teacher and she gave us everything she had. For the lifetime of sports fun I have subsequently enjoyed, and for the appreciation of the values of staying fit she imparted, Mrs. Daret deserves a great deal of praise. She inspired me.
—Kathy Janssen ’71 Carolyn Harrington
Music Appreciation The Music
Appreciation course involved sitting in the amphitheater- shaped room, which had no windows, and listening to music played on a record player at the
center of the room. Mrs. Harrington would tell us which composer we were listening to and we would dutifully take notes and “appreciate” the music. She would play a bit, then lift the needle and discuss it, then replace the needle and move on, or get out a new record. I have no recollection of how we were tested in this subject, but the important part to me now is that it offered great exposure to the world of music. Mrs. Harrington’s single most important contribution to the world of music, for me, was that she managed to convince me that I could distinguish one composer’s style from another. Over a lifetime of listening to classical music on my car radio, when I come into a piece midway and haven’t heard the name of the composer, I have tried to guess who composed the music before reaching the end of the piece. It’s a game I play, and I always think of Mrs. Harrington in the process.
—Kathy Janssen ’71 Carl Reynolds
Art Appreciation The Art Appreciation course
involved sitting in the same windowless room, but this time we looked at slides, slides, and more slides. I was somewhat prepared for this course because the teacher was my father. I was teased a bit about this, particularly if I ever slipped back into the familiar and said “Daddy” while around him, but the course material was hard and we really were tested on the basics of art and architecture. We studied the classical structures of buildings in ancient Greece, and the basic form of church cathedrals. We looked at paintings and styles of art. It was a dry subject to many folks, I’m sure, and there were days when even the dutiful daughter found it tedious, but the lasting imprint was the appreciation of the world of religious architecture, in particular, and the long-reaching impact on art and architecture of the Greeks and
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