European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 02, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday october 2, 1985 the stars and stripes Page 17 Opportunity school providing what people need  associated press t he message outside the Emily Griffith Opportunity school in Denver. Colo., is  Block Long building beckons with Opportunity in capital letters above thedoor. For seven decades Griffith s dream of a school Lor All who wish to learn has been reality offering vocational courses of every sort English Lor the foreign born avocations by the dozen. Griffith the schoolteacher would haul a pot of soup to the school each evening so that new immigrants could eat before class. She welcomed them from a desk just inside the front door. Today the of school As it s sometimes known still runs 14 hours a Day live Days a week. 11 months a year. But there Are no More classes in telegraphy millinery and horseshoeing and the immigrants Are More Likely to be asian than european. Yet. After 1.4 million students the Mission is the same. We just do what people want us to  administrator Ladell Thomas said during a Farewell tour shortly before his recent retirement. Students can come in Here today any Day and Start class tomorrow. If we Don t have what they need we try to get it. We re a Little More bound by bureaucracy than Griffith was but we re still trying to do the same thing give people the Opportunity to learn what they need to  what Griffith dreamed of was simple. Having seen the parents of her students struggling to Cope in a new world she decided that education could not be just Lor the Young and that it could not be governed too closely by the usual schoolroom clock. She wangled a reprieve or a condemned elementary school building near the heart of Denver then proceeded to wangle whatever and whomever she needed for those who showed up to take advantage of the school s name. The Opportunity school s emphasis on providing what people need makes Lor some interesting classmates. After Denver District judge James Flanagan retired from the Bench Jan. 8, he says he fulfilled a lifelong dream by enrolling just a Day later in the Opportunity school s general Auto mechanics class. When brother Sebastian Tobin decided to take a shoemaking class after spending a few years making sandals for his religious o Der at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in new York he chose the Opportunity school Lor his education. Alonna Widdoss working toward a doctorate in  came to the Opportunity school to learn welding so she could make emergency repairs on medical machines such As Iron lungs at the University of Colorado health sciences Center. The school oilers the Only Currier courses West of the Erma Bombeck women r leg liter for the fall term at the Emily Griffith Opportunity school in Denver Colo Mississippi. About 135.000 students a year enrol at Opportunity school Thomas says. Many of them come Here Lor one specific thing and alter three weeks or so. They leave  t others enrol in apprentice programs that require daytime work and two nights of classes each week for several years. The open entry open Exil system of allowing a student to enrol whenever they re ready and the individualized instruction Given each student has attracted the attention of educators irom round the world. Recently Thomas escorted a group of South american educators on a tour of the school while his aide. Ralph Latimer. Led an entourage of australians. Thomas is fond of saying the number of instructors who did not graduate from teachers colleges make the individualized instruction possible. The majority come right out of the trades or profession they re teaching Thomas says. I guess they Don t know any better so they learn that they can give individualized  a former High school principal who once taught math chemistry and physics himself. Thomas admits Twenty years ago. I would t have said it would work. I was a typical academic  there Are Juit under 80 full time teachers. Another 400 to 500 who teach part time have Lull time jobs in their chosen Field. Tuition is free Lor Denver residents because the Opportunity school is part of the Denver Public school system. Those who live outside Denver pay a maximum of $670 a year. About half the $9 million annual budget comes from the school District the rest from state and Federal Grants Thomas said. The Halls of the Opportunity school Shine with the Pride of a place that even the janitors care about. Visitors remark on the helpful attitude and smiles of those they see everywhere of the willingness to Stop and answer All the questions anyone has. It s a far different place irom the High school where Thomas once was principal. The people. No. 1, Are Here because they want to  he says. We re meeting a need that they  even if Denver area residents never sign up for a class they can come in and get a 35-cent haircut have their cars or clocks repaired just for tie Cost of materials eat a Cut Rale breakfast or lunch in the school restaurant. Did you Ever see husbands in a supermarket they stand around on one leg like snapping whooping  in grocery stores. You  Tell the men who have been dragged to the supermarket. They look like hostages As they shuttle along without expression giving mechanical an Swers and gazing longingly toward the parking lot. Occasionally they shake their watch and put it to their ear to make sure it s still running. The Only thing worse than going shopping with a Man who hates it is the one who wants to help. There s something intimidating about having them tag along. For one thing they Don t really understand the ritual of the shopping experience. What is meant to be a spontaneous impulsive unstructured Madcap Celebration is turned into an academic exercise in marketing. When i used to go shopping with my husband i d be hallway Down the second aisle before i d notice he was living the wheel of the shopping cart. No one fixes a wheel on the shopping cart. It s the Way they come out of the factory. That s the Challenge of it. Next in Fie saw a Pyramid of cans ready to topple he d rebuild it facing All the labels in one direction. But the worst part was that he read labels. Sometimes you can know More about a product than you can handle. Ii some one is using pig lips. I Don t have to know about it. Usually he had a pocket calculator where he would figure out i could save .01 per ounce by buying the family size Box of zits Crispien rather than the variety pack where one Box would be used for irregularities anyway. He once spent the greater part of the morning in search of a cake of yeast that had live More Days on the expiration Date than the one i had chosen. In Between his comparison shopping he would arrange the cart putting All the taxable in one Corner the Dairy products in another and surrounding the eggs by a Wall of toilet tissue. Some men Are Groat at grocery shopping. Most Are not. They re too practical. Too conservative. Give a Man a list and Tell him. Ii you see anything interesting buy  and in he saw Julia child in the Center aisle hustling no Cal croissants he d say i was t sure if you wanted them or  they be done a lot of studies on men in supermarkets. Men rarely shop in Tennis clothes or stand around and gossip or spend More Money than they have. They never squeeze anything in produce buy Trees underwear or record cassettes. They tend to pick a store where they can find a parking place. Rarely do they stand around Lor an hour or so Reading greeting cards. Until men understand the concept of supermarkets. I Don t think they la Ever enjoy shopping. Ii spending $16 a minute in t Lun. Then i Don t know what entertain ment is. 1c lol Angelel times Syndicate