Walt Hopkins Creator Of Group 30 Stops By
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:30 pm
In a person's life you meet, and have the chance to run into a couple people that you can say later changed your life, and/or made such an impact as to stand out vividly decades later. Walter Hopkins was one of my teachers that had that kind of impact on me, and many of my friends.
His day job was English Teacher at Lakewood High. Where besides his usual English classes he was also one of the dreamers that put together and headed up Group 30. A wild group
of very board teens, that had great test scores but very little interest in school, at least as
it was being taught. So for 30 groups of students fro 2 years and 20 the last. Lakewood High
allowed us to run feral for 6 periods a day.
What this group accomplished is pretty wild, and what they went on to do possibly wilder,
but the short story is most cannot be talked about for legal reasons first and foremost.
Billy Davis talks with Walter Hopkins. Walt was an English teacher at Lakewood High,
back when I went there. Besides being one of the minds that thought up Group 30, and
idea 30 years ahead of its time, he was also the Founder of Connection. Both programs
were huge in my life. This was dinner with six of us at Vila Zapata at 8505 Madison Ave.
To rehash and look back at some amazing experiments.
So for a minimum of a 6 periods a day, for two years we could study, and do damn near
anything we wanted. In those two years, we created one of the first radio stations in a
public school, that also broadcast pretty far, when we would turn the wiring for the school
into an antenna. Went on survival hikes, spent weeks hiking the Appalachian Trail,
reviewing the Bible, Bike Trips, and just Trips, and so much more.
Billy, Walt, Heidi Hilty and Roger Clarke. Talking about the various details of Baker Trail
one of many trips to the Appalachian Trail, that were pretty tough and fascinating.
Jim O'Bryan, Roger Clark, Bill davis, Heidi Hilty, Walt Hopkins and Scott MacGregor.
Another thing Walt was very heavily involved in starting was a youth drop in center run,
and staffed by high schools students, in the YMCA. While this sounds like ohh nice. The
fact was when we were doing this was the later 60s and early 70s when LSD was
everywhere, STP, Mescaline, MDA and on and on and on. The concept of teens helping
teens was so far ahead of its time, it is still unheard of today. But when you see qualified
teens saving the lives of and heads of other teens, it is pretty impressive.
So as Walt and Scott head out to Avon Lake before Walt heads back to Scotland, we
share one more story, about brushing teeth...
Good food, good people, great night
.
His day job was English Teacher at Lakewood High. Where besides his usual English classes he was also one of the dreamers that put together and headed up Group 30. A wild group
of very board teens, that had great test scores but very little interest in school, at least as
it was being taught. So for 30 groups of students fro 2 years and 20 the last. Lakewood High
allowed us to run feral for 6 periods a day.
What this group accomplished is pretty wild, and what they went on to do possibly wilder,
but the short story is most cannot be talked about for legal reasons first and foremost.
Billy Davis talks with Walter Hopkins. Walt was an English teacher at Lakewood High,
back when I went there. Besides being one of the minds that thought up Group 30, and
idea 30 years ahead of its time, he was also the Founder of Connection. Both programs
were huge in my life. This was dinner with six of us at Vila Zapata at 8505 Madison Ave.
To rehash and look back at some amazing experiments.
So for a minimum of a 6 periods a day, for two years we could study, and do damn near
anything we wanted. In those two years, we created one of the first radio stations in a
public school, that also broadcast pretty far, when we would turn the wiring for the school
into an antenna. Went on survival hikes, spent weeks hiking the Appalachian Trail,
reviewing the Bible, Bike Trips, and just Trips, and so much more.
Billy, Walt, Heidi Hilty and Roger Clarke. Talking about the various details of Baker Trail
one of many trips to the Appalachian Trail, that were pretty tough and fascinating.
Jim O'Bryan, Roger Clark, Bill davis, Heidi Hilty, Walt Hopkins and Scott MacGregor.
Another thing Walt was very heavily involved in starting was a youth drop in center run,
and staffed by high schools students, in the YMCA. While this sounds like ohh nice. The
fact was when we were doing this was the later 60s and early 70s when LSD was
everywhere, STP, Mescaline, MDA and on and on and on. The concept of teens helping
teens was so far ahead of its time, it is still unheard of today. But when you see qualified
teens saving the lives of and heads of other teens, it is pretty impressive.
So as Walt and Scott head out to Avon Lake before Walt heads back to Scotland, we
share one more story, about brushing teeth...
Good food, good people, great night
.