Patrick O'neil by Megan Fassett
Patrick O’Neil (1967-1998)
Mr. Patrick O'Neil attended high school in Seattle, Washington at O'Dea High School. He taught at Cascade High School from 1967 to 1998. While at Cascade, he taught U.S. History, Washington State History, Challenge Northwest History (for college credit), Economics and Sociology. Mr. O'Neil came to Cascade as a student teacher and when he got his teaching certificate, he continued to teach there.
The population of CHS in 1967 was about 2,800 students. We had all of the Mukilteo District students, as well as South Everett. Marnier High was not yet built. Before Marnier was opened, we were forced to double shift classes. The first shift began at 7:00 and ended about noon, while the second shift began at 1:00 and ended about 6:00. The Science and English buildings were not built until the 1990's. All older buildings had to be remodeled to accommodate the electric supply needed for computers. The office has been changed since I left in 1998. All kinds of student schedules have been tried based on a whole bunch of “educational theories”. First was the 6 period day, then “A” schedule day followed by “B” schedule day, then came the 8 period day with mini-courses and mini-libraries, and then back to 6 period day. I think the 1990's saw the beginning of the WASL testing.
My personal favorite extra-curricular activity was the Christmas Basket Drive. I love all the good it does for the students, staff and the community. I worked hard on that activity all 31 years that I was at Cascade. A personal story which included me at Cascade is best told by Mr. Mike Therrell (The story, as told by Mr. Therrell, is included at the end).
The groupings of kids at Cascade were and are about the same as any big high school. The groups included music department, various sports teams, clubs, “preppies”, non-conformists, student government, service clubs, etc. For lots of kids, high school is not a warm, fuzzy place. It's a time of life when great changes take place in people's lives. Learning how to cope with life is much of what high school is all about. It is as much a part of high school experience as is the formal subject matter.
Fashion trends changed greatly over the 30 years. Boy's hair styles went from short to long to fairly short for some and long for others. Girl's hair was generally long with some girls having their hair in “beehives”. In the late '60's and '70's all girls wore skirts or dresses with hems 6” above the knees. Later they began wearing “pant suits”. Then people wore jeans, then jeans with holes in them, and finally fashion jeans.
The first big high school tech item I can remember was the calculator by Texas Instruments. It would add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Later came the calculator that replaced the “slide rule”. (The slide rule: in its most basic form, the slide rule uses two logarithmic scales to allow rapid multiplication and division of numbers, common operations that can be time-consuming, and error-prone when done on paper.) About half-way through my teaching career, schools began to enter the computer age.
Music changed depending on who you were. In general, popular music in the late '60's could be represented by the Beatles, Elvis, and Nat Cole King. Jimmy Hendrix
turned rock and roll into hard rock and later acid rock was popular with some students. The '70's was a period of anti-establishment attitudes. Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Smothers Brothers, Pink Floyd, Tiny Tim, The Who, and Led Zeppelin were but a few who appealed to the disillusioned.
Big actors of the years I taught include: Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks, Peter Sellers, Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, William Holden, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Glen Ford, Jack Lemmon, Julie Andrews, John Wayne, Barbara Streisand, Sally Fields to name a few.
The movies that come to mind when asked which were big include: “Rocky”, “How the West Was Won”, James Bond movies, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Patton”, and “The Longest Day”.
In athletics, Joe Nameth, Mohammad Ali, Paul Horning, O.J. Simpson, Mickey Mantle, and Sandy Colfax were big.
Major political events that occurred in the world during my years of teaching include: Vietnam War's Tet Offensive (1968), the Kent State killings, Chicago Democratic Convention (1968), enforcing the Civil Rights Act, assassination of MLK Jr., the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the resignation of Nixon over the Watergate break-in, walking on the moon (1969), the recognition of Red China, the first flight of Boeing 747, and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Mike Therrell is a history teacher at Cascade. When he first started teaching, Mr. Patrick O'Neil was also teaching there. In the words of Mr. Therrell:
After being hired at Cascade, I was running really late for my first staff meeting. I was really nervous. I walked into the room where the meeting was being held, thirty minutes late. The attention turned to me, and the room was silent. All of a sudden, Mr. O'Neil commented loudly, “Well, he's fired”.
Mr. Patrick O'Neil attended high school in Seattle, Washington at O'Dea High School. He taught at Cascade High School from 1967 to 1998. While at Cascade, he taught U.S. History, Washington State History, Challenge Northwest History (for college credit), Economics and Sociology. Mr. O'Neil came to Cascade as a student teacher and when he got his teaching certificate, he continued to teach there.
The population of CHS in 1967 was about 2,800 students. We had all of the Mukilteo District students, as well as South Everett. Marnier High was not yet built. Before Marnier was opened, we were forced to double shift classes. The first shift began at 7:00 and ended about noon, while the second shift began at 1:00 and ended about 6:00. The Science and English buildings were not built until the 1990's. All older buildings had to be remodeled to accommodate the electric supply needed for computers. The office has been changed since I left in 1998. All kinds of student schedules have been tried based on a whole bunch of “educational theories”. First was the 6 period day, then “A” schedule day followed by “B” schedule day, then came the 8 period day with mini-courses and mini-libraries, and then back to 6 period day. I think the 1990's saw the beginning of the WASL testing.
My personal favorite extra-curricular activity was the Christmas Basket Drive. I love all the good it does for the students, staff and the community. I worked hard on that activity all 31 years that I was at Cascade. A personal story which included me at Cascade is best told by Mr. Mike Therrell (The story, as told by Mr. Therrell, is included at the end).
The groupings of kids at Cascade were and are about the same as any big high school. The groups included music department, various sports teams, clubs, “preppies”, non-conformists, student government, service clubs, etc. For lots of kids, high school is not a warm, fuzzy place. It's a time of life when great changes take place in people's lives. Learning how to cope with life is much of what high school is all about. It is as much a part of high school experience as is the formal subject matter.
Fashion trends changed greatly over the 30 years. Boy's hair styles went from short to long to fairly short for some and long for others. Girl's hair was generally long with some girls having their hair in “beehives”. In the late '60's and '70's all girls wore skirts or dresses with hems 6” above the knees. Later they began wearing “pant suits”. Then people wore jeans, then jeans with holes in them, and finally fashion jeans.
The first big high school tech item I can remember was the calculator by Texas Instruments. It would add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Later came the calculator that replaced the “slide rule”. (The slide rule: in its most basic form, the slide rule uses two logarithmic scales to allow rapid multiplication and division of numbers, common operations that can be time-consuming, and error-prone when done on paper.) About half-way through my teaching career, schools began to enter the computer age.
Music changed depending on who you were. In general, popular music in the late '60's could be represented by the Beatles, Elvis, and Nat Cole King. Jimmy Hendrix
turned rock and roll into hard rock and later acid rock was popular with some students. The '70's was a period of anti-establishment attitudes. Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Smothers Brothers, Pink Floyd, Tiny Tim, The Who, and Led Zeppelin were but a few who appealed to the disillusioned.
Big actors of the years I taught include: Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks, Peter Sellers, Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, William Holden, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Glen Ford, Jack Lemmon, Julie Andrews, John Wayne, Barbara Streisand, Sally Fields to name a few.
The movies that come to mind when asked which were big include: “Rocky”, “How the West Was Won”, James Bond movies, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Patton”, and “The Longest Day”.
In athletics, Joe Nameth, Mohammad Ali, Paul Horning, O.J. Simpson, Mickey Mantle, and Sandy Colfax were big.
Major political events that occurred in the world during my years of teaching include: Vietnam War's Tet Offensive (1968), the Kent State killings, Chicago Democratic Convention (1968), enforcing the Civil Rights Act, assassination of MLK Jr., the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the resignation of Nixon over the Watergate break-in, walking on the moon (1969), the recognition of Red China, the first flight of Boeing 747, and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Mike Therrell is a history teacher at Cascade. When he first started teaching, Mr. Patrick O'Neil was also teaching there. In the words of Mr. Therrell:
After being hired at Cascade, I was running really late for my first staff meeting. I was really nervous. I walked into the room where the meeting was being held, thirty minutes late. The attention turned to me, and the room was silent. All of a sudden, Mr. O'Neil commented loudly, “Well, he's fired”.