North Farmington students immerse

themselves in this turbulent era.

T

o people driving down West 13
Mile Road in Farmington Hills,
everything looks pretty normal
at North Farmington High School, a typi-
cal, modern suburban school. But things
are a bit different inside.
The 45-year-old school, with 100 teach-
ers and 1,380 students (almost half are
Jewish), has been turned into a veritable
time warp back to the 1960s, an era of
radical changes, counter-culture move-

, The cast of Hair lets its hair down

in a musical number.

ments, civil rights struggles, assassina-
tions, urban riots and the most controver-
sial war in American history.
Last September, Principal Rick Jones
launched an interdisciplinary study of
the 1960s with•focus on the Vietnam War.
Several Jewish students and teachers
have been playing key roles in the project,
which will last through the end of the
semester in June.
"It was an important time in American
history, and I thought our students should
dig deeper into that period and learn more
about it; it was the age of their grandpar-

ents," Jones explained. "And they love it; it's .is being published, with articles written
a topic for continual discussion?'
in the present tense as if the war was still
The students have -been dressing in
going on. Hair, the hit Broadway musical
clothes of the 1960s, eating Vietnamese
about peaceniks and flower children, is
food in Food and Nutrition class, simulat-
being stage
ing the old-time coffeehouses with music
and poetry, studying artists and authors of Generating Buzz
the '60s, and specifically analyzing the war. "I think this study is the biggest thing the
A 50-foot replica of the Vietnam War
school has ever done said Eric Berlin, 18,
Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., was
a senior from Farmington Hills. "Almost
erected inside the school, listing names
everyone is involved and there's excite-
of the Michigan military personnel killed
ment throughout the school."
in the war. A commemorative edition of
He's working on th•special edition of
the school newspaper, the Northern Star,
the newspaper, which will carry a timeline
of 1960s events plus separate
items on the biggest stories.
Another staff writer, Lizzy
Lovinger, 17, a Farmington Hills
senior, emphasized the Six-Day
War in the Middle East in 1967
"through the memories of my
mother, Karen, who was studying
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
at the time.
"From my father, Alan, I
learned of the fierce counter-
culture movements in the U.S.,
and got firsthand accounts of the
destruction of the Detroit riots
in '67. We've been discussing the
'60s thoroughly in history class,
and reading books of that era."
Hair reinforces the feel of the
1960s. The show was staged by
teachers Sue and Dean Cobb, who
have gained a reputation over the
years for putting on "Broadway-
quality" productions.
"There are 62 students in
the cast, most of them wearing
body suits with kaftan cloths to
simulate the nudity that Hair was
famous for:' explained Dean Cobb.
"We eliminated some of the ques-
tionable material, such as a song
about sodomy and much of the
obscene language. Otherwise, the
show went on intact?'
Barbara Dubb of West
Bloomfield, who has been teach-
ing public speaking for 20 years at
NFHS, gave students the option of

