Selling Beer at the Derby

In the spring of 1975, my mother-in-law suggested that I take a job at the Derby, selling beer.  Apparently, a number of people where she worked had done so the year before and had made a bunch of money.  It seems that they sold 12 oz. beer for 65 cents and often got the rest of the dollar in tips. Being a man who has had over 50 jobs from the age of 14 until now, I decided that it would be pretty cool and maybe an adventure.  It wasn't cool but it was certainly an adventure. 

I was told to get in line for the infield with my work pass and that I had to be there by 7:00  AM.  Good, I thought, I am an early riser anyway and this way I would beat the crowd.  That was my first mistake.  I did not consider that this was the 100th anniversary of of the first running and they expected 100,000 people in the infield alone and the line was already six wide and 200 feet long when I arrived. Princess Margaret, of Great Britain, was going to be in attendance and there were all kinds of security including a number of blokes with british accents.  I was not carrying anything such as a bag and showed them my pass for the job of brew pourer and yet they searched me for booze and patted me down and asked me if I were bringing in any.  I laughed and reminded them that I was there to serve alcohol.  They didn't laugh.  Once in I finally found the tent where I was supposed to report, the man in charge said proudly that they had increased the size of the cups to 16 ounces and were now charging 95 cents per beer.  He said it was a service to the customer that they would not have to stand in long lines as often and the the increase in price was fair to all.  

I'll admit that 5.9 cents per ounce is not much worse than 5.4 cents per ounce but to me it looked like I would have less volume of customers and that the tips were going to be a whooping 5 cents per beer and I was sure that some would not even do that, especially the relative young ones.  I decided, at that point that I would require ID's from everyone who looked and acted like they were under 40, and I did.  That made the lines longer to no ones pleasure, except a little bit, mine.

This turned out to be the job from Hell.  Not only was I stuck all day in a beer booth pouring draft beer, but I had no way to get to the bathrooms.  My hand were sticky to the point of sticking together and the Sun was hot and uncomfortable. As predicted, there were more than 100,000 people in the infield with an average age of about 30, meaning that I ID'd a lot.  The bathrooms had line like the great wall of China and the women were using both men and women's facilities because the wait was hours for the women.  practically every inch of the ground was covered with human flesh, often doing what human flesh should have been doing in the privacy of ones bedroom.  I never ventured out of the booth after about 1PM and did not go to the bathroom until the races ended at about seven, I never saw a horse but I wagered early on the winning ticket which paid about 2-1.  I still have the ticket somewhere.   I was miserable all day long and had I been older and more secure, I would have quit and waded through the human refuge and gone home. But I had made a commitment, so, there I was. 

Other inconveniences include:

A weight lifter ordered a beer I reached for his dollar and he jerked it back and walked off through the crowd with the beer.  I'm not stupid and after that I took and tilled the money, first.  His fellow weight lifters were not so happy about that. Then they began hanging around the stand and after someone payed and got their beer, they would snatch it away and drink it.  One man complained to the security people, but when they saw the weight lifters, they dismissed it with "boys will be boys" and walked away.  That was an invitation for mischief and things got no better.  

A young man climbed the 40 foot flagpole and mooned the Princess and was handcuffed to my beer stand  until the could get a car ready to take him away. He could barely stand up, so I don't how he got up and down that flagpole. The biggest insult of all, one of my students, a tall blonde, scandinavian beauty named Lisa, sincerely thought that I would sell her a beer, knowing that she was 16 years old. I told her to try somewhere else At the end of the day, the final insult was a demand that I hand over all my tip money and they would send it back if the amount of beer I sold at my stand was correct for the money that I collected.  I then said that ,with what little tips I had, I was going to keep it and if things didn't turn out right to let me know I would sent them the money. YEAH, RIGHT. Believe it or not I got my pay in the mail.

I decided I just wanted to only teach.

The Senior-Faculty Softball Game

For a very long time, Seneca had a senior-faculty softball game, open to males and females near the end of each year.  Eventually, that duty fell to me to run it.  It was an opportunity to send them off with the memories of a good time and comradery with their former teachers.  It sounds all touchy-feely but it was always very serious on both sides.  I was always a bit taken aback by how much the teachers really wanted to win.  As it turned out, until the day that I transferred to Manual, the teachers never lost while I was organizing it.

Knowing that the students were younger, faster and with better reflexes, this seems, at least superficially, to be a strange thing.  But after analysis, maybe not.  Although the teachers are slower and maybe without all the athletic skills of their past, they are still stronger and many are coaches in some capacity.  We could for the most part hit the ball farther.  The other issues that favored the teachers is that we understood our handicaps and played smarter for that reason.  We always threw to the cutoff player, we did not play to be heroes but to win.  Three, we always played on the softball field with it's shorter fences.  and, four, Not all teacher wanted to play.  Those who did were usually former athletes and many of them softball and baseball player, some, including me, still playing in softball leagues around the city.

The seniors, on the other hand had 30-40 people sign up laboring under the illusion that they were ten feet tall and bulletproof.  They thought they could beat the world all in one softball game.  Consequently, the teachers were always had 15-16 competent players and the teams was passably good at all times.  We also had many large, strong men who could easily hit the ball over the fences, only two hundred feet away.  I placed them in the batting order every two or three hitters.  That way, we never had to run full out very often. There were a number of boys on the senior team that could do the same, but most were baseball player who had not played softball much.  There is a big difference in hitting a baseball and a softball pitched underhanded and with an arch of up to 12 feet.

There were a number of funny things happen in these games. but the two that comes to mind was a collision at home plate  and one that made a big splash.  We had a catcher who was a frequent substitute and thus considered by all to be a faculty member.  A dynamically sensuous and beautiful girl with adult female proportions was  on base and in an attempt to score she ran over the catcher and land on top of him.  After that he seemed to be in a daze the rest of the game and was not quite as good as he was before.

One year, we were playing on the "back" softball field that sat next to a branch of Beargrass Creek.  There was a young man at Seneca, who was considered a suave young man, always beautifully dressed with the best clothes he could buy.  His hair was always perfect and his manners always the best.  He was watching the game from behind the backstop when a ball was Fouled over the backstop heading for the creek.  The young man of note ran backwards and jumped to catch the ball.  The creek level was about 7-8 feet below the playing surface  From the third base position all I saw was him disappear over the edge and then a huge splash of water appeared.  He climbed out unhurt but very embarrassed and not looking quite so neat.

Even though the seniors never won, they were always good sports and each year the next class came in with the hope of defeating the always successful faculty.  I had a great job.

STICKS AND CLUBS

Teenagers can be very clever and quick witted.  I was walking through the cafeteria at Seneca after school one day and the field hockey team was meeting.  Being known a a big tease, I had to make a comment.  I asked them why no one had ever come up with a better name for the piece of equipment called a stick.  A girl looked up with a slight grin, knowing I was the golf coach, and asked, "And what is it they call that thing you hit golf balls with?"  The answer, as you know, is a club.  Great comback, I laughed out loud.

I had picked quite a few pounds over the years and a bit of a pot belly and jokingly said in class one day, I know there's a six pack under there somewhere.  A student retorted with, "Why do you need a six pack, you a have a perfectly good keg."

A fellow teacher was writing names of study hall student who would like to use the library and not wanting to admit that he could not remember a girls last names asked her to spell it.  With a straight face she, said "J-O-N-E-S.  the jig was up.

What a fun job.

Bubbleheads

There was a time in my career, before I transferred from Seneca to Manual, that I affectionately and, to a degree teasingly derisively, called my Advanced Program student bubbleheads.  If I remember correctly, there was no protest.  So I decided to do the same thing the next day with the same result.  As it turned out, they liked the tag and wore it like a badge of honor. That habit continued until 1987 when I transfered and died there. 

I asked a girl why no one reacted to the term and she said it was because it was me.  No one ever thought that it was said with anything but endearment.  Hmmm.  I probable teased the AP kids more than others.  They seemed to be more secure than others and were not threatened very much by my banter, which is exactly how I liked it.  

I will say one thing for bubbleheads, however.  They cheated more than any other group of students I ever taught.  I'm not exactly sure why but it may have something to do with the high expectations of parents, teachers and administrators.  Even friends got caught up in it.  Many of these kids were fighting and scrapping for scholarship money to college, they took every step they could, took every test possible such as PSAT,  AP tests, signing up for Governor's scholar positions, etc. that have possible scholarship money attached.  

My son Jeff got two full scholarships to U of Louisville because he was a Governor's scholar and a PSAT semi-finalist.  Fortunately GPA didn't count for this. Jeff was always around 3.0 just enough to stay in the AP program.  One of the smartest kids I have known. Both of my sons went to college on scholarships.  Both were on their respective high schools quick recall teams along with other highly motivated, and fiercely competitive kids.  My son, Brian, was the captain of his team at Male and a member of a very good Murray State University team.

All this competitiveness brought with it the desire to succeed at all cost and I think it included cheating.  Being caught, however had some serious consequences.  In my class, cheaters received a zero on the test and an "F" in conduct for the grading period, their parents got a phone call.  The students worried very little about the conduct grade because it did not affect their GPA.  Some parents made it important, however, and thus there was some stigma attached.

Even a cheating incident brought me to respect a kid very much.  One of my present Fb friends eventually told me a story that I did not remember at all.  He missed a day and consequently missed a quiz, which he could make up.  I told him that I would give it to him the next day.  He got with his cheating group and they furnished him with the correct multiple choice answers, sans the questions.  The young man took the quiz the next day and got a ten percent.  He realized then that I had changed the quiz.  I confronted him and said that I knew he had cheated and offered to give him another make-up the next day.  He held to his guns that he had not cheated because he did not want to lose my respect for him.  So I said OK and he got the bad grade.  He told me that it totally change his feelings on cheating and he never cheated again and actually lost a couple of friends because he would not abet in cheating.  You just never know what effect you have on people.  I wonder, sometimes, how many children I affected negatively.  I hope, not many.

Many of you who are Fb friends with me know that I have very strong political opinions and don't mind telling what they are.  I tried very hard to not let them be known in the classroom.  I felt that it would adulterate the issues we studied and possibly discourage some student from being open and honest.

One of my Fb friends, a former student definitely disagreed with me on many things but we were civil in our talks.  He wrote that he never knew what my political leanings were while he was in my class and he said it was a tribute to me.  Occasionally I had an opinion on other things.

In the process of discussing technology, really not my strong point and computers, also not my strong point, and this was in the early days were Bill Gates required sellers to load only Microsoft program on the machines.  I had read, and my son, a Computer systems engineer, told me that there were better products out there and Gates was stifling progress.  This met with a lot of resistance by all the PC users (most of them were) and it became a little heated and I became frustrated and said very loudly, "DAMN."  This caused an immediate and awkward silence and surprised and disappointed looks.  I was presenting the History Student of the Year award that same day at the Senior Ring Ceremony and when I was introduced I got a big applause that went on for some time.  I remarked that after second period class this morning, I'm surprised that some of you didn't walk out when I was introduced.  That got even a bigger applause.  Such forgiving souls.

MARY AND THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG

Wow, it has been a while.  It is not my policy to use people's last name in a blog, especially one which might make one feel uncomfortable and certainly with people I really like.  I have a funny, but, alas, a bit embarrassing story of a student report in which the last name is important to the humor.  So I messaged this woman and asked her if she would mind if I publish this story and she graciously consented.  Mary Heitz is a super  fine, lady and she was a fantastic student with great intelligence and caring.  I adored her in the class room.

As you may know, I did not like to teach the acts of war but preferred to deal with causes and effects and historical importance, but a lot of student like studying the Civil War and to make that OK for both sides I assigned battle reports for student to present to the class and I tried to tie the whole thing together in some coherent form.

I had the student chose three battles that they would be interested in and I would assign the battles first come, first serve.  I shuffled the papers and gave the student the battle first listed unless that battle had already been taken.  I then assigned the next one on the list.  As it turned out, by sheer coincidence (something it took me awhile to have Mary believe) Mary got assigned the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.  unfortunately, there was a hill above the city named Marye's Heights, which ,at first glance, looks to be pronounced the same as Mary's name.  It is actually pronounced Marie's heights, but no one knew that at the time, including me.

In the course of reporting, Mary said something to the effect, The Confederate Army was on top of Marye's Heights and the Union Army assaulted Marye's Heights a number of( maybe 10, I don't remember) times.  I immediately picked up on the similarities in the names but hoped that no one else would.  Of course, some one did very quickly and began to laugh.  After all, it was a funny coincidence.  Mary, trying to concentrate on her presentation, did not realize the situation and heard the laughter and repeated the name of the hill a few time to try to figure out what was so funny.

Unfortunately I found myself in a position that dictated that a teacher should not laugh but I couldn't help it. The more Mary repeated the name, the funnier it got to me and the students in the class.  I was once in the church choir and the guy next to me said something funny and I started laughing and couldn't stop in front of the entire congregation and eventually ended up crawling out of the choir.  This was the same for me.

I laughed so hard that my sides began to ache, I got tears in my eyes, all the while feeling much remorse for my action and incredible sympathy for Mary.  It is an incident I deeply regret and Mary was a trooper.

It actually get worse, here.  After Mary graduated and I was pretty sure that none of my student knew her I began telling the story to my student and other teachers and the day came when I really was sorry for that, also. A few years down the road I was sitting in the first faculty meeting of the year at Seneca High School. and the Principal said, "I would like to introduce the new teachers this year,  first, someone many of you will remember, Mary Heitz."

Oh, my, this is not good.  After the meeting I caught Mary in the hall and awkwardly explained that I had been telling the story.  that is all the farther I got and she said you told people about the Battle of Fredericksburg.  I tried to soothe her by saying I never expected her to return but, she was rightly upset and I was, rightly, humbled and rueful.

Again, Mary was the better person and accepted the situation like an adult and accepted my apology.  Mary became a very successful educator and administrator and I do truly thank her for her consideration about this blog.  And, Mary, I really didn't set you up, I was just ignorant.  The laughing, that is another thing.  I have no excuses.  Bless you.

Samantha

There are so many examples of wonderful students, wonderful people who were my students and some time I get wonderful athletes that were wonderful people who were wonderful students. One of those is a young lady, first name, Samantha.  Because she is one of some local notoriety and since many of you know her personally, you will easily guess who she is but I will stick by my policies of only using first name.

I first got to know Samantha at Manual high school watching this tall thin freshman play basketball for the school.  At more than 6 feet tall she could have play forward or even center on some teams, but she was a guard and a superb on at that.  I never saw her show anger or disgust but she made her statement through her play and quiet competitiveness.  She never got in people faces or did anything to show off, but just did the job.

Later, she was one of my students in US History in her junior year.  By then she was well known among followers of girls athletics in Jefferson County and the state of Kentucky.  I found her to be humble, caring and congenial with all, respectful of her teachers and peers and never heard a bad word about her.  I was not sure if this was sincere but soon learned that it certainly was. I was watching her play one night and was sitting beside a female spectator and struck up a conversation.  While watching the game, I happen to say to her, do you see that player dribbling the ball, that is Samantha __________ and she is not only a great basketball player, but she is also a great person and student.  The woman turned to me and said, "Thank you, Samantha is my daughter."  We introduce ourselves and had a big laugh.  I told her that I needed to be the one thanking her for rearing such a great kid for the benefit of the world.  I think that may have embarrassed her.

Samantha went on to be an a star at Auburn, University in Alabama, and as far as I know, she still holds the school record for career three point shots made.  Samantha went into coaching and eventually made her way home and is now an assistant coach for Jeff Walz of the Louisville Cardinal women's basketball team.  A couple of years ago she had her number retired by Manual High School and I went to the game to see it.  I talked to her before the ceremony due to be done during half-time.  With her were a couple of players from the University of Louisville.  One was the now famous WNBA player and native-American ambassador, Shoni Schimmel.  Shoni found out that I was one of her teachers and asked me what Samantha was like in high school.  When I told her the truth, she asked me how much her coach had paid me to say that.  But that is how she is.  Samantha is one of the best.

This is the third time I have tried to post this entry.  The first time I left and forgot to the save it, the second, I tried to save it and failed.  this time I am not going to be interrupted and finally be able to just push publish and be done with it.

After joining Facebook and gathering a number of former students as friends, I began to realize that many of them no longer live in the community and many do not live in the city, the state or the country anymore.  I tried to go through my friends and count the one who were somewhere other than the US and with almost 900 friends, I became tired and gave up.

Some I can remember off the top of my head and I am sure I will not get them all.  Feel free to respond with others.

One of my students from quite a few years ago, is teaching ESL (I think) in  Thailand, and if you are following the news (or lack of it in today's egocentric press)  Things are not well there.  He is also very honest and out there in his Fb postings and I hope this does not cause him problems.

I have at least three students in England, one in Scotland and one that I know of in Ireland.  One is living in Italy and a couple live in South Africa.  So at this point I have covered three continents and except for North America, I don't of any other.  Australia is not covered, as far as I know, nor is South America  and I would love to know if anyone is living in Antarctica.   That would be cool. (Sorry)

One young lady lived in France and had her own baking business.  She has since returned to the Louisville area with her two beautiful daughters and we have lunch occasionally.

there are some in Canada and the last I heard, at least one in Mexico.  Let me also add Uzbekistan.

Some have moved often.  One of my earlier student first traveled with the Marines and after retiring, eventually found himself in Alaska.  From there, he and his wife moved to Hawaii, talk about your change in climate.  It wasn't long that the moved back to Alaska because of a better job offer and it is possible that they soon will be moving back to the Louisville area.  So, Tom, have you ever actually unpacked you suitcases over the years?  A student from a few years ago, at one time lived in Houston and now resides in Florida, as do many others; there are, at least two living in Washington State, two in Arizona, and a very large number in the states near Kentucky, particularly in Indian, Tennessee, and Ohio.  I know of one who is a teacher in Michigan,  and a number who live in New York City.  Many of those are actors and of those Lavon, a mother and actor, just finished a long stint in a big role on Broadway.

Other states and countries that I remember, would include, Missouri, Virginia, Both Carolinas, Georgia Louisiana, Colorado, California, and Montana.  At least no one has claimed North Dakota, which I contend does not exist.  Some other nations would be,  Germany, Poland, Denmark and, I think I remember Sweden.

If I have missed someone, please forgive me but do call me to task.

Much of this is a testament to  successful and adventurous lives and I am proud of so many of my former pupils who have made marks in life, those that have had successful unions, who have struck a blow for a better world by their actions and those have managed to survive and thrive during tough times and tragedies.  I have lost a number of them to death and many have had the lose of parents and other family members through the same.  I rejoice in their triumphs and cry in the dismay and mourning, and feel old in looking at pics of their children and, yes, grandchildren.

Many of the kids, will, by the fact that they live in non-English speaking nation, grow up bilingual and multilingual. Yes I realize, that bilingual is also multilingual, but, please pacify an old man. :) Those who do will have a great advantage. However, I never had trouble being understood by using a few words and sign language as I often did while living in Germany and the Czech Republic (Ceske)

I learned to speak one phrase in the Czech Republic with a perfect accent, jeste jedno pivo, prosem.  It means, I'll have another beer please.  You had to know I would get that one right. It is pronounced something  yestia yedno peevo proseem.)

To all of my student, I salute you in the things you have done and the lives you have touched.  Keep up the fight and know that there is someone who cares.

Just remembered another state, Alabama. Sorry Krishna.

One of my students, Jill, was winner of the Kentucky Junior Miss Pageant and qualified to represent the state in national competition. She was and, I assume is still, a wonderful singer and a great personality. She did not receive the national titles but we were very proud of her. a year of two later I was playing on a softball team that was mixed men and women and it was held at one of the local YMCA sites. While walking to the playing field for our first game with a friend who was also on the team, I saw a beautiful young woman running across the field and threw her arms around me and told me how nice it was to see me. It was Jill, who was now working at the "Y" between college years. We talked a while and my friend stood and watched with a strange look on his face. Later on the bench he kept nudging me and finally I asked him what he wanted. He asked who that stunning young lady was and why she was hugging me on a softball field. I simply replied that she was the former Kentucky Junior Miss. I later explained. I eventually quit that team because the men were batting natural and not opposite of the their natural side, left v right, and I found it to be dangerous for some of the less experienced women.

SHONI SCHIMMEL I understand that this blog is about teaching and students and there is a special feeling in my heart for all the former students I have had along the way. Today, I want to deviate just a bit. My, son, my wife and I have been U of L women's basketball season ticket holders going into our 8th year. Even though I actually seldom meet the young ladies that play on the team, I do, in a way, feel much the same about them as I do my former pupils and I also see many of my past charges at the games. Last night, July 19th, I watched one of the Cards grads set the court on fire in the WNBA All-Star game in Phoenix, Arizona. She put on an awesome display of basketball wizardry. Shoni Schimmel, a native American from Oregon and former reservation resident, put on a show that will not long be forgotten in a game that is often forgettable. Not only will this game be remembered, 125-124 in overtime, but Shoni will become legendary in the collective memory of the fans. Shoni scored 29 points, a record for an all-star game, including 7 three-pointers, had 8 assists, some due to amazing no-look passes, with some behind the back and behind the head executions. She also managed to get 5 rebounds. She was voted the games Most Valuable Player and was exceptionally gracious, staying and taking photos with her wonderful family, opponents, and fans for a very long time. What I like most about Shoni and her younger sister, Jude, a U of L senior in the approaching season, is that they have become icons among the native Americans, especially among those who feel trapped on Reservations across America. Both the Schimmel sister work tirelessly for the cause of the native-american population. Jude has done enough that a national magazine has named her one of the ten most remarkable college women in America. Her 3.8 something GPA didn't hurt either. Because of Shoni's fame, she has been the one most renowned and both the sisters take on that tiring roll with decorum and humility. I applaud them and I, too, look to them for inspiration as I do for many to my former students who have shown strength and resilience in difficult and tiring situation. I think we may be leaving this world in better hands than we ever anticipated. Here's to the youth.

MY STUDENTS TOOK CARE OF ME It never ceased to amaze me how my students took up for me in very subtle situations. In some of the less disciplined class I had, I would often need to stop instructions and reminds student that the real reason for being there was to learn, not socialize. Some days it was a serious battle. Those classes transformed into the most respectful and interested students when I was occasionally evaluated which each teacher is supposed to experience each year or two. On those occasions, the student looked at me (a rarity) raised their hands, asked questions and actually paid attention. After the administrator would leave I often asked them "Who are you and what have you done with my class?" On one occasion, I very vocally sent a student down with a referral that she was totally disrespectful of me, threw books across the classroom, cussed like a sailor and screamed at the top of her lungs. I slammed the door and turned around and faced my class and said with a smile, "I'm sorry you had to witness that." they applauded. The girl was suspended and after returning the counselor assigned her to another history teacher until the girl protested that she wanted to back in my class because she really liked me. The councelor called and asked if that
would be OK with me. Sure I said, if she acts like that with a teacher she likes, I can't imagine how she would act if she didn't like her new teacher. I accepted her with certain behavior requirements and she was an angel the rest of the year. Man, you never know.

THE LONGEST BLOG SO FAR, THE SLAVE GAME KIDNAPPING When teaching the Civil War I devised a simple question and answer competition with a twist. By lots, I divided the student into slaves and owners. Actually they worked as a team with the owner being in charge and the one who gave the official answers to questions. I made “slave money” of my own design and ran it off on an old steno machine. It was very detailed and haphazard in order to keep my student from counterfeiting. I dealt out an even amount of money for each team. Each team could wager as much as they wished on any question. There ways provided for the slave to become free and for owners benefit either by trying to deny the freedom of their slaves or for cooperating in their freedom. Those were situational issues. The number of questions answered, multiplied by the size of the wagers, determined the amount of dollars the the teams had and this was part of what determined their grade. Since these were honors and advanced student this often caused much stress. Considering that there were no limits on the wagers, the money amounts could become extensive and for that I had blank checks that I could sign. All kind of strategies came up spontaneously about thing I never considered, such as, “may I lease a slave to another group.” This happened when a slave was very well versed or wise. “May I trade slaves with another owner.” “May I sell a slave to another owner.” “May I refuse to cooperate if my owner is not treating me correctly.” I tried to make my answers as true to the actual slave customs of the pre-Civil War Southern society as I could. All these had to be dealt with within the game and each year, the game became more refined because of them. These were very sharp teens and thus, each year the game became much more complex and sophisticated and, for the most part, better. I tried to remain flexible as much as I could and I tried to keep the game as realistic as possible. The questions for the game were created by me. The first year I spend many, many hours finding and writing these questions, I estimate about 2000 of them. Some were easy, some were difficult and many were actually taken from our textbook and and other classroom supplemental material. Many were taken from the many specific books within my own library, thus some questions were very esoteric and some were quite general. When a question was missed I put it back into the stack and asked the same question at a different time or date. I always shuffled the 3X5 index card in which he questions were written. Occasionally we would have a bid on a question. As the game progressed I witnessed some sophisticate organizing I have ever seen student create. Some organized by subject, others by date, etc. With the internet and Google, this game would not work with the extensive ability to gather specific info, this game would no longer work under this format. Because these questions were so incredibly valuable to the students, I had to take great precautions that the answers did not get out. Would AP students's cheat. You must be kidding. They would cheat more than any other groups I taught. I believe that there is often so much pressure for grades from the level of student that many, not all, of them would take every edge they could get, even out and out cheating and with some of amazing strategy that have witnessed from teens. Even their cheating was impressive. And that statement leads me into one of the most incredible classroom situation I have ever participated in or I ever heard of. If you have not read my post about the “Stick,” you may want to read it now, because is about to become the focus object of an amazing story. Basically the stick was a custom altered window closer that I carried everywhere and held it while I was teaching. One year, during the Slave Game, I was delivered a note from the office during my planning period. It read something like, “Mr. McAdams, your stick has been kidnapped and if you ever want to see it alive again, please follow these instruction precisely and completely. I day later I was delivered a note to go to the Library and on shelf such and such pull the book that is fourth from the left and look on page so and so and find more instructions. This part I really like, the name of the book was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.. How about that, sports fans? Things progressed quickly from there. I was subsequently instructed to bring, lets say, $12,000,000 in slave money and to place it in a particular locker in the locker well on the third floor and immediately walk away. I exactly followed the instructions with a couple of secret maneuvers that set the culprits up for detection and doom. I made more money with my initial template except for a couple of additional readable but ultimately subtle marks that one had to look for to find. I also arranged for the audio visual department to secretly tape the whole procedure from a class room across the hall with the classroom lights out and the shades drawn so they would not be detected. With that information secured the next day and with my stick being returned early that day. no worse for wear, I asked all the teams to let us count their money in order to see if I needed to make change of what money I had available and then confiscated the money of the team that had perpetrated the kidnapping “put them under arrest and announced that we would have a slave trial to determine guilt or innocence.” they did have the marked money and I had the taping in hand and proceeded to assign Lawyers, jurors, a bailiff, court recorder, and a judge (me) and the trial began. I managed to get a riser from the drama department and had my desk raised to a higher level from the floor. And I got a robe from the choir room for me to wear as the judge. The trial was not going well for the defendants and they were getting desperate considering their grade was on the line. I might note that no one was going to fail this game with the worse team receiving a “C.” they tried a plea bargain but the opposing attorney wisely turned them down because he/she had a strong case. They tried begging. Didn't work. They tried throwing themselves on the mercy of the court. There was none. a day or so into the trial a man showed up at my door with what looked like a big suitcase and shook my hand and said he was an operator for the company that conducted polygraph tests for the Louisville Police Department and when he saw my blank expression he said that is was his understanding that I had requested a demonstration; I had not. As it turned out, one of the defendants father worked with the police and she had arranged this to happen. She stood and proposed that I be put on the lie detector machine and be interrogated by her. What she planned to ask I do not know, but the guest assured her that they never put teachers on the machine but they would students. The student who had arranged this, Aileen, was thus given a lie detector test after the opposing lawyer gave the operator a list of questions he wanted asked. Aileen failed miserably. They were convicted and none of their money was returned. In fairness I extended the game a couple of days and they were able to borrow money from the bank less interest and was able to come back quite a bit ( it helped that they were very organized and sharp) and their grades were not disastrous. I feel that this event was unprecedented, even unique in the annuls of education. It was cleverly done and an amazing amount of fun was had by almost everyone. I can't believe how blessed I was in my career.

For a number of years I shared a ride to work and back with another teacher. At the time I was driving an F-100 pick-up truck without air bags and I don't remember if it had seat belts. It had a one barrel carburetor (does anyone remember those)that I actually rebuilt. One day, as we were leaving school, we were traveling down a neighborhood road and there was a squirrel in the road having a snack. I jokingly said, " hey let's see if I can hit this squirrel." I assumed that it would see a two-ton bright red, relatively loud vehicle approaching on a road with no other traffic. Bad calculation. I ran over the animal which was accompanied with two distinct thumps, one each from a front and a back wheel. I was upset and had some strong feelings of guilt. The other teacher, I think, believed that I actually was trying to kill the squirrel. I was, instead, just being stupid. It took me a few years to convince my friend that it was unintentional. I find that with age you make those types of decisions less often, but, in my case, never eliminate them.

One in a Million
About half way through my career as a teacher and coach, I was walking through what was called the Old Gym that also functions as an auditorium.  A few student were shooting baskets as was often the case after school.  Steve, who was a student of mine, challenged me to take a shot.  I was dressed in slacks, shirt and tie and, despite that, took the challenge.

My thought process went something like this.  If I shoot a lay-up that will impress no one and they will let me know just that.  If I shoot a 15 footer, they will figure it was luck and make me shoot another. but if I took a shot from the corner of the half court (about 50 feet) I wouldn't be expected to hit it and if I even came close, it would be a victory. So, that was my choice. You have to hedge your bets.

I set my feet at shoulder width apart, Got my elbow under the ball, remembered to finish with a good follow through, and heaved the ball as hard as I could toward what appeared to be a backboard the size of a textbook and cast my fate to the wind.  I wished to touch iron but would be satisfied with touching anything before the floor.  The ball traveled in an amazing arc, for what seemed to be about 5 minutes and dropped through, touching nothing but net, about the only way one can hit a shot from 50 feet.  I was in shock.  I don't hit those often.

There was, for an extended second, an amazing silence and then uproar with the kids falling down laughing.  They rushed over with high fives and congratulations and of course offered for me to do it again.  I declined and stated that I had already proven what I could do and I hustled out of the gym as fast as my feet could carry me.  Had I missed that shot, which I truly thought would happen, it would have been lost to all memories, but I didn't and those kids, and I, would remember the successful one.  That is the way my student were.  Great bunch of kids.  I really had a great job.

GETTING TO KNOW MY STUDENTS

Although many teachers would never admit it, each teenager he/she has ever had in class are complex and emotional and fragile human beings. Since I enjoyed being a bit more involved with my pupils than some other teachers, it took me longer to reach our level comfort and familiarity. I always needed to tread lightly at the beginning to know what each would accept. I don't want to tease a kid about being tall/short/ red haired, etc. If they are sensitive in that area. Some kids love teasing, others do not and I wanted to learn all those sensitivities first. Some students stay very quiet and care to remain less conspicuous and I honor that need.It does not mean that I don't call on them in class, but it certainly means that I don't draw undue attention to them.

 It is really important for future communications that one does not breach that trust. There were times when a student responded in class that I would joke about something he/she said. With others I would not. I discovered that macho males respected a show of force on occasion and in at least one time when I got up in a boys face in a somewhat threatening manner that student became much more respectful of me and almost defensive of me with others. If I saw a quite introverted student who seemed distressed or distracted, I might take a second after class and ask if everything was OK. The one thing I had trouble doing was to allow that person the privacy to say, “I don't want to talk about it.” that happened on occasion.

One girl fell up against my chest and started crying and told me that she thought she was pregnant and seemed to find solace in the fact that I was not going to judge her, just be a friend at that moment. It turned out that she was not pregnant. Another asked if she could come by just to talk. When she came by after school she began to tell me that she lived with her grandmother and that her granny was so old fashioned that she was not allowed to a lot of things that other teens were able to do. She had a twin brother and he was treated much more liberally than she was and she thought that that was not fair. For more than an hour she poured out her concerns to me and for the most part, I asked a few questions, consoled a bit  and asked her to consider her grandmother perspective. Other than that I did almost nothing but listen to her. When she was finally finished, she got up in the motion of leavings looked at me and said, “Thank you, Mr. McAdams, you have really helped a lot.” Sometime they just need someone to listen to them.

One Freshman asked me to beat up a senior for him. In discussing why, he told me that this guy had been a hero to him while growing up in their neighborhood and had treated him rather well. But when he became a Freshman in school, the senior would not even talk to him in the halls and lunchroom. I tried to explain as best I could that there was some pressure to be cool and that did not mean being friends with underclassmen. I suggested that he talk to him out of school and try to work things out. In this case I intervened a bit and told the senior how the Freshman felt. He was surprised that it had hurt him that much. It seems they worked things out.

Teens are such a maze of emotions to begin with and that time of their lives is such a traumatic one,  puberty and the accompanying body changes, need for popularity, degree and strengths of sexual desires they have never experienced, the looming separation anxiety of leaving home for college, the peer pressure to fit in is never stronger than in the teen years.  I think we make a big mistake by telling them that these are the best years of their lives and to enjoy it while they can. Nothing is farther from the truth. We adults have selective memories about our adolescence. Let them be anxious, let them fret and just be there for them when they think they can't deal with it alone. These are fascinating people with immature and mature problems and are in a learning process of how to handle it. It surprises me how well they handle such fears and angst.

Following the rules

I was perceived by many teachers as a troublemaker, because I brought up problem in our system within the school.  If a rule was instituted and I didn't like it, I said so and tried to discuss it.  It was then assumed that I would not follow that rule.  That would be wrong.  I was and am a chronic rules follower.  An example was the rule that if a student was tardy one time, mark them as tardy. second time assign additional work and the third time refer them to the front off where some asst. Principal would assign them some punishment.  I always followed that rule.  Ironically, I saw some of those same people who thought of me as a rebel allow student in and never mark them tardy at all.

One day, Becky, one of the nicest and best students I ever had and whose mother worked in the central office down stairs, was late and,being the fine person that she was, she was running to get to my class since she knew I would follow the rule.  As she approached the door the tone sounded and she was officially late.  Becky fell and slid into my door and hit her shin on it which, I am sure hurt a lot.  Since Becky was a softball players, I made the appropriate safe gesture moving my arms from center to the outside and calling, "safe." It was a bit mean but, later, Becky and I laughed about it. To add insult to injury, it was her third tardy.  I had to write her up and send her away.  Here is the type of family these people were.  They were.  Both Becky and her mother totally understanding and stood behind me.  I really had a great situation, for the most part.

Remembering some specific students

Today, at my eye exam, I was speaking with a lady who graduated from Seneca the year I started and she mentioned a number of students she knew who went there.  It was amazing how many names I remembered and for most, I could remember what they looked like, and in some instances, I even remembered something about them or, on some occurrences,  that the two of us were involved with.  It is really interesting how much effect my students had on my life.

It is also interesting how reinvolved some of them have become in my life.  Three of my former  Seneca students are owners of two Restaurants, both in Jeffersontown, and one former student is part owner in another.  I see them often.  Another was, for a while, my next door neighbor.  Another was a policeman that responded to an accident that I had witnessed.  Another Manual student lived for a while in France but we tried to  share lunch each time she came back for a visit.  She. now lives nearby.  An emergency room doctor at Baptist East was a student of mine and I see him during various visits there.

A surprisingly large number became fellow teachers with me.  I did the same with some of my teachers.  My former daughter-in-law and my son, met through a Seneca extra-curricular activity and she now teaches at my second school, Manual.  I have lost maybe 20 or 30 of them because of their deaths.  I am amazed how much that sorrowed me.  It was almost like they were my own kids and each year, when they graduated, I had some strong feelings of loss and stronger feelings of pride for them.  One senior girl, on the goodbye walk through the halls of Seneca, came over and planted a kiss right on my mouth.  I was a bit embarrassed but I certainly remember it well.  She is, as are many, a facebook friend.

for the most part, the vast majority of my student that I still know have become wonderful citizens and scholars, even if they did not attend college, They're good parent and, in many cases, grandparents, many with grandchildren much older than my own.

I just can't adequately expressed how my students, as a group, and some individual ones have blessed my life.

One December on the day before the last day of school before the winter holidays, I jokingly told one of my classes that the best Christmas present for me would that none of them show up for class tomorrow.  The next day I enter class to find only one student sitting there.  We were both very confused and I began to wonder if there was an assembly that I didn't know about or maybe I had missed a fire drill.  The lone student and I began to investigate.  We noticed there were students in other classrooms (not many considering what day it was)  I asked other teachers if they had seen my kids and the answer was no by all except one English teacher.  I looked in the window of the door of her classroom and there sat my class.  When I entered they all began to laugh as did the teacher who was in on the joke. The lone student who did show up was upset that he was not told about the caper. I really loved my students.

MY OLD NEW FRIENDS.
when each new technology came out, my wife and sons had to drag me, kicking and screaming, into a modern era.  I didn't want to get a computer. I got one. Got so I couldn't do without one.  I used Commodore 64 primarily for word processing, usually for tests and study guide for class.  Amazingly, my students seemed to love it, because now they could almost read them.  There were still an amazing number of typos, transposing and misspellings making some sentences hard to understand.

Then I bought a PC and began to use WordPerfect, didn't understand it, hated it, cursed it, screamed at it and sometimes refused to use it.  Eventually  I got pretty comfortable and my students began to appreciate that I had spell check and grammar check.  So did I.

One thing I took to very quickly was cellphones.  But being the careless, forgetful and unorganized person that I am, I have lost three or four and murdered at least two.  One was while running across the Seneca courtyard in the pouring rain and the phone slipped from my pocket and into a deep mud puddle.  It was instant, the phone never felt a thing.  The other was while visiting my son and his family in Philly.  I washed it in the washing machine with detergent.  I insisted that all I wanted to do was make and receive calls.  When we went to teach in the Czech Republic we bought really cheap European phones and learned to manage texting with a keyboard because it was a lot cheaper.  Now I have a really nice phone and enjoy always having the internet and Facebook  available.  With lots of apps for work and entertainment.  Then Facebook came up and all I could think was, "Why in the world would I want Facebook?"  and as usual I was forced into it by my tech savvy family and I began to collect friends many being my former students.  In fact, of the 850+ friend I have, probably 600+ are former pupils I had at Seneca and Manual High Schools.

This brings me to my point.  I have, for years, felt a very personal relation with many of my pupils and worried about them, wondered about them and really wanted to know how they were doing.  Facebook did that for me.  I still fret, I still worry, but now, at least in many cases, I know some of these things.  I also love speaking with you as adult and not in the student-teacher relationship.  Many of you still call me Mister McAdams, and that is fine but I am very comfortable with Charlie, if you are.

There are times when I receive disturbing news about you, including the loss of parents, serious illnesses and even the lose of children which is really difficult for me.  There have been the occasional loss of life by some of my former pupils.  I laugh, I cry, I mourn and I celebrate with you and all is better than it was.  I am so glad that we are able to reconnect.  Facebook, with all its problems has been a true blessing to me.

Theo

I want to tell you about someone I'll call Theo.  Theo was born into poverty and lived in the west end of town.  I knew a couple of his brothers and they had dropped out of school and had been in and out of jail a number of times.  Theo told me that it happened often in his family and that his home, usually shared by 15 or twenty relatives at a time was always in an uproar, some had jobs, most did not.  Theo had a number of bad years at Seneca and had been in and out of school.  When I first met him in his ninth grade home room that I conducted, he was quiet, untrusting, often surly, and frequently sleep deprived and angry.  We had our bad moments but for the most part we had made a silent pact of agitated co-existence.  I really didn't hold out much hope for him but really wanted him to do well.  His home life was a really bad influence.  Many were on drugs, had babies without support, others were violent without warning.

I thought about theo a lot but was powerless, it seemed, to help him.  After his first year I would see him on occasion and would tell him that I hoped things were going well for him.  He would reply with a quiet "think you" without any embellishment.  He eventually showed up in a senior Psychology class of mine and I noticed that he had come out of his shell a bit and was more alert, less angry and, for the most part very nice to have in class.  He still didn't participate a lot but he did what I asked and turned in his worked and did well on tests and was no trouble.  He improved the entire year and and the end of the year I spoke with him one-on-one and I stated how pleased I was that he come along so well.  He had been accepted into a good college and it looked like things were going to work for him.  I just bluntly asked what had happened and he said that sometime late in his sophomore year he decided that he did not want to live his life in and out of jail, nor did he want it to end prematurely.  He went to live with a relative that had a much better home situation.  He thanked me for my interest through the years and said that Seneca had been good to him.

Theo has graduated and is doing well and living somewhere in the Northeast and is raising his own family, and I am sure is raising them well.  This the kind of story that makes me feel that it is worth the effort.  The strongest kid in the room was always Theo and I didn't know it.

THE PURLOINED FILE CABINET AND WHITE GOLD

I always found that the requisitioning methods in the school system was put in place by a demented person at the central office in order the keep teachers busy during all their free time and designed to never work. The best example I can provide is my quest to get a file cabinet that had drawers that opened, locks that worked,  and one that didn't have layers of wood splintering falling off and one that wasn't ready to fall over and crush a student or me.

When I started teaching, I had a classroom that had a file cabinet donated by General Grant after the Civil War. It was made of wood and had a general list to the right. I realized immediately that that side had to go against the wall to keep someone from getting hurt. While pushing it against the wall, I received wound from two splinters that peeled from the side wall. There was actually a hole in the left side where I could see through to one of the four sagging and sticking drawer. Over the years the drawers had deteriorated to the point that they were no longer square and one had to yank very hard to get them to come out and often on trying to get them to go back in made a horrid sound like a red tailed hawk on the hunt.

After a number of years of teaching I discovered how these things happened. When a teacher retired or transferred, the school went through the great file cabinet migration. The older teachers had the best cabinets and this is why. They had gotten to know the custodians well and that is the best group to have on your side. Custodians have keys to EVERYTHING and they are not afraid to use them. They are the secret link in this mass migrations

Teacher “A” retires and teacher “B” who has an in with the custodial staff has them open the room and remove the beautiful new heavy metal file cabinets to their room. Now she has an extra cabinet and barters her other “in good shape” cabinet to her friend. He, in turn, gave his to another friend for a promise of a box (ten reams) of copier paper at the beginning of the next school year. There is a continuous movement of file cabinets from one room to another the entire summer and the beginning of the season in August. Needless to say, as the the quality of the moved cabinets continue, each get older and older and sicker and sicker. Thus the new teacher (s) get stuck with General Grants cabinets (s) It take the new comer a few years to realize what is going on. It took me about ten years. I am a slow learner.  In that ten years I turned in 12 request for a new file cabinet, sometime I did more than one in a year, and was rejected 12 times. With only twelve years seniority, I had moved up in file cabinet quality only marginally and was still in desperate need of one. One year I came back to my room in August only to find a mouse had made her nest in my file cabinet and was raising her brood in there. The only consolation I had was that she was scared just a little more than I when we encountered each other.

In 1981, I was walking through a classroom in Our auditorium when I looked through a door window and to my surprise saw five, yes, five file cabinets that had never been taken out of their protective plastic shipping bags. My mouth started to water, my mind started reeling and I began making plans. One custodian told me that those file cabinets had been sitting there through what I calculated to be 5 or 6 of my requisitions. Oh, man, I thought, and I sort of got angry. “Could you get me one of those” I enquired, He couldn't, or more accurately, wouldn't. I determined that the person or person (s) who ordered them had totally forgotten about them, and thus they were considered public domain. I asked if he knew how I could get a master key, he walked to a cabinet, took a key off a keyboard and placed in my hand and said something like, if you or any member of your Impossible Mission force get caught, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your action. I smiled and began to plot my crime.

These cabinets, I could tell, were very nice and heavy so I enlisted the help of a couple of students and, being a proponent of Title IX, employed a male and a female student to aide and abet me in my felony. After school, one day the three of us snuck from my Third floor room down to the first floor with the magic key in hand. I had previously tested IT eight or nine time, I was very nervous. We managed to muscle that 200 pound monster up two flights of steps 250 feet along a corridor, with one ninety degree turn and into my room and then proceeded to destroy all the evidence except for the file cabinet itself. When we finished I looked at my prize and was moved to tears. It was a red letter day in my teaching career and the cabinet got many oohs and aahs, from approving teachers and administrators. As I suspected, the cabinet was never missed, or,  at least, I didn't hear about it. The other file cabinets remained in that room for a couple of years and then were moved to another storage area where my friend told me remained for a few more.

The two juvenile delinquents that I created, did very well for themselves. One is a very successful business executive and the other is a judge. I figure that skill will help the one to make a lot of money and the other to understand the criminal mind.

After learning the system for a few years I became a master of it. I began to hoard, bum and gather many things that teachers didn't want anymore. These commodities could be simple things like pencils and the little pointy erasers that you put on the back end of a pencil (teenagers used them so much because they made so many mistakes. I also bought a large supply from the bookstore of pencils notebook paper and other essentials goodies using my own money. I gave away tissues for free.. I also learned early that when a student wanted to “borrow' a pencil, you were, in essence giving it to them because you were never going to see that item again and on the rare occasions when you did it had teeth marks in them. After a few years I learned that fact and quit giving things away. I sold them. I made no profit but I didn't lose money either. If it were a partially used pencil we would barter in order to pro-rate it. The kid got a very good deal on pencils with teeth marks or funny colored spots that were not originally on them. I even sold note book paper a penny a sheet. If there were complaints, I told them that the bookstore was open during lunch. Or they could borrow from someone else. I sometimes took stuff for collateral like watches and shoe laces. After a few days it went pretty smoothly. I often got about 40 dollars per class per year and then I would go out and buy junk food and had a party at the end of the year. By doing so I was out those forty dollars but I think it gave the students valuable life lessons.

In dealing with teachers, I discovered that there were certain materials that became very valuable as the school year became shorter. The king of the black market and the white gold of the school house was copier paper. When final tests and lesson were due and the other teachers had frivolously frittered away their supply, I was king of marketplace. Each teacher got a budget at the beginning of the year and I always used my entire budget on paper. A typical teacher supply of paper per year was about five boxes that each containing ten reams of paper, 500 sheet per ream. 500 x ten= 5,000 x 10 is 50,000 sheets of paper. There were 187 student days per year time 150 students per day. If each student get 2 sheets per day that would be 187 x = 561x 150 = 84,000 sheets+. This does not include the lesson plans lost and tests messed up where a students needed a replacement. You see where this is going. I did not average that many papers per day I averaged about one sheet per day. With these numbers in mind, paper became the international currency of Seneca High School in the second semester of each year. With that in mind and with my not losing a large amount of money on pencils and such, I was always well supplied for my students. Some teachers complained that I had too much paper and the Administration reminded each one that I had the same budget as everyone else. That was not strictly true because the science department teachers got more.  

My son, Jeff, graduated from Seneca in 1991, while I was teaching at Louisville Manual Magnet School, and he had also heard it all and was very much aware of the North Dakota thing. He later got to know one of my former students, Rob, and began hanging with Rob's group of close friends. North Dakota came up and Jeff remarked that their really is no North Dakota. A number of the group turns and said something like, “Not you , too.” Jeff replied, “where do you think Rob got that stuff? From my dad.”

Rob related to me a story of how he and his friend, another of my former Seneca pupils, Susan, got into a discussion of how to pronounce the capital city of South Dakota. They even went so far as to call the governor's office to ask. When the receptionist answered the phone they actually asked to talk to the governor to solve their disagreement. Amazingly, the receptionist informed them that the Governor was out of town but they could speak to the Lt. Governor if they liked. You must be kidding me. When else and where else other than 1990's South Dakota can that happen. They were thrilled and asked the Lt. Governor how to pronounce his capital city. “Peer,” he said. I don't who won the argument. They conversed with the Lt. Governor for a few minutes and finally said, “ we had a history teacher who claimed that North Dakota was a myth and did not exist. Without hesitating, the Lt. Governor of South Dakota replied, “ As far as I can tell, he is absolutely right.” does it get any better than that. Now I have over 800 Facebook friends, about half of which are former pupils of mine and the concept has gone, at least in a local sense, viral.

MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

It took a few years to develop my teaching philosophy and, to be honest, with all the education classes I took, with all the practice I had, and with the semester of student teaching I took, when I got my own classroom I still didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. I remember the first class I taught by myself. It was not an auspicious beginning. I was acting like the big tough dude and what I really was was the big scared dude. At least I was big. Those first classes, unfortunately, were my laboratory and the students occasionally suffered for it.

I had been told by the old timers, “Never smile until Easter.” So, being a brand new teacher, I really laid down the law with firm words and dire warnings about what would happen if my charges defied my will. I was really playing the tough guy. I was also told that I should engage my students in discussion and honor their ideas as if there were actually right. I worked very hard to get my student to speak and contribute to the non-existent discussions in class. But I noticed that when I came into room, everyone got really quiet and really still. After some weeks I finally got the kids to start talking. I asked why they had been so reticent to take part in discussing anything class. As it turns out my rule making and warning had been much more successful than I had anticipated. They told me they were afraid to breathe, let alone venture an opinion about anything. I also discovered that I had a much better rapport with all my students if I engaged them honestly and respectfully; even to the point of telling them that I may have been a little harsh in my initial disciplinary rantings. 

Another revelation was that they had no idea that it was my first year of teaching and how scared I was. I started teaching when I was 25, after having served time in the US Army. Some of that self assurance gained obviously was apparent. I was also married with a child, thus was not your typical “just out of college teacher. Those classes turned out to really great classes and they are wonderful memories for me.

Within a few years I had developed, often by trial and many errors, a message that worked for me. 1. “You will be expected” is a much better statement for their behavior than, “Thou shalt not” 2. You will be expected to take an active part in class and for those of you who are shy, you may take part by actively listening. You will be expected to respect others by listening when they are talking and respecting others opinions even it is wrong, in your opinion. One can disagree respectfully 3. I am a human being with a family, (one son, at the time) and I get hungry, so if you see me in the grocery store try not to feel awkward, because I have to buy food. 4. I have a very good sense of humor and and if you say something funny in the classroom, I will laugh. I will laugh even harder if the humor is appropriate to the subject matter at hand.

Andy, a very capable and quick thinking young man, made a very appropriate statement about our subject and it was even a clever shot at the teacher. I was telling about the Gilded Age of the late 19^th Century America that developed among the rich during the American Industrial Revolution . The very rich often lived a very showy, even ostentatious, lifestyle. Andy raised his hand and when recognized (Hey, I know you) said” Mr. McAdams, I think that if one uses the word ostentatious, he is ostentatious. I laughed, the class laughed and Andy beamed with pride. “Great point,” I said, you have an 'A' for the day. I really got to love that stuff.

I became a very popular teacher with the teens and I championed many of their causes, which occasionally got me in some hot water with the administration because some administrators had an “us against them” mind set. I wrote very few referrals and my students and I thrived together in mutual care and respect. In some cases we survived .

The question then becomes, “what approach should a teacher take as far as the subject matter is concerned. Clearly, that depends a lot on the subject matter and what is required to master the subject and on the nature of the class. For example, In algebra class it is essential to do a lot of memorization of equations. In Chemistry, one must know formulas, and in Geometry, theorems. In history it is not nearly as important to do a lot of memorization of exact quotes, exact dates, speeches and laws. Names of laws sometimes were important and a good understanding of cause and effect on everything is helpful, but my students could live a very fulfilling life even if they did not learn a lot of History. History, in the big scheme of things, is a minor life skill. English grammar, math and science are much more important for survival in our society. There are three basic life skills in History class I wanted my students to have at their disposal 1. A lust of learning that would carry over into all phases of life. 2. Critical thinking skills lessons to be learned from studying History that can help them learn even more in the future 3. An appreciation of who they are and why they are who they are. This is the reason History is important or, in case someone goes on a game show 4. Enough History facts ( a very slippery word) that will provide an overall foundation in the subject if they choose to go that way.

Thus, my biggest questions started with the words , “why, do you think that?, what is your opinion on? Do you thinks this was handled in the best manner and, followed up again by the that student frightening word. “why.” And the most dreaded of all, discuss the assets and liabilities of, and, the second hated phrase, give specific reasons for your conclusions.

This philosophy carried over into testing. Yes testing, which is often hated by students and teachers alike. Even though multiple choice items are frowned upon by certain folks in the field of formal education, I found them to be very useful in evaluating a student grasp of the subject matter. Poor test questions often evaluate trivial learning.  Typical multiple choice question often started like, “In what year did, who of the following said, who was the leading general at,” Well you get the picture I preferred stems like the following for multiple choice questions, “Which of the following statements best describes," “Which of the following factors led the leading general at Gettysburg to command Picket to charge the center of the Union forces."  These are a totally different kind of test items. One requires a basic knowledge of facts, the other requires the same plus analytical and critical thinking skills. Even thinking, concentration skills and observation skills can be tested with multiple choice items. For example, “Which of the following statements least describes Washington decision to put down the Whisky Rebellion?" Be careful of those negative concepts that require attentive reading.

My bottom line philosophy? I eventually figured out that I needed to go into each class period with the vow to respect each student as a thinking entity with feelings and pride until I am proven wrong. It worked for me but not necessarily for every teacher.

One of the things I had on my side was the awareness of personal humbleness and being armed with the knowledge that in every classroom, there were many people smarter than I and some that would make a lot more money than I did in my lifetime. that some would become famous, usually for good things they did.

I was a big tease and often had some sharp barbs for students and I always made it clear to them at the beginning of the year that I would probably tease you often this year and you are perfectly welcome and safe in doing so to me. For the most part, they took me up on that and it was great. They deserved my best shot at making their goals and life choices easier and part of that was to be able to engage with adults in respectful banter.

Summed up quickly, I wanted my students to love learning and I wanted to give them the skills to do so. Some classes were tougher than others to institute that love and those skills. Having students who are grouped together in homogenous classes, I.e. Advanced, Honors, Regular and Remedial, I found that some groups were harder to motivate than others. In my experience, the “better,” sometimes more popular teachers and occasionally those with an in with the administration, eventually get the higher rated classes even though the other classes are ones that need the more motivated and motivating educators. Those “lesser” classes are a bit more difficult to build that urge to learn and the desire to work hard enough to acquire the skills to learn. They often feel forgotten, with seems to tend to have a lack of hope for high achievements. It was inevitable that in the “regular” classes, when the lust for learning kicked in in a student, it was always a big thrill to me.

I actually have an advantage with the Non-advanced, honors program student because, 1- I was a very bad high school student and 2- I was willing to admit this to my students. They are able to see a person like themselves who, at least, in their eyes, achieved. I was often asked to give them a break on a grade because I had experienced bad grades. My answer to those request was, sorry, nobody gave me those breaks, but I think you can do well yourself and I am willing to help you improve.

It all comes down to the kids and whether a teacher can hit the right nerve or nerves. Sometime we can and sometimes we can't and sometimes that is very sad.

Vivian and I had brunch with a fellow teacher and two former students at Wild Eggs.  Fun time and great memories.  Good to see you Krishna, Kelli and Phyllis.  Krisna's friend, Brian, also joined us.

During my tenure as a softball coach at Manual, we played a team who really wasn't very good and there was never a chance that we were going to lose. I was coaching first base and their first base person obviously had never played at that level and her fundamentals needed work. I began giving her tips and showed her how to position herself for left and right handed players how to receive a throws from the infield and where to throw in certain situations.

During the game our catcher, Amy, was coming into score and the opposing pitcher, not knowing that Amy had crossed the plate, took the relay throw and turned and whipped the ball to the catcher and inadvertently hit Amy in the head, who, thankfully, was still wearing her helmet. Amy, as it turned out, was fine. After checking to see if Amy was OK, I started walking back to first base and noticed that the opposing pitcher was distraught and crying. The opposing coach and I went to the mound and determined that she was upset about the incident and wanted to quit. I assured her that Amy was fine and even had Amy tell her so. Amy said  , “oh, I am fine” and the pitcher composed herself and continued. Chuck had also done much of the same kind of thing.

A number of days later, Chuck and I, during our planning period, were called to the Principals office, usually a very bad sign. We walked down together trying to figure what we had done wrong. When we arrived he had us sit down and said that a parent had left a note to him on her way to work and he thought that he needed to read it to us and that we also needed to discuss the situation.  As he began reading we came to understand that this was a note from a mother of one of the players on the team we had played. We also determined that, in spite of the stern demeanor and tone of voice, that this was a letter of praise for the two of us stating that she had never seen such concern and sportsmanship in opposing coaches and that we were great role models for young women in sports and taught that there are more important things than winning and losing.  Joe, Our principal looked up, smiled and said "keep up the good work."  Some things are worth it.

Peter Ping Pong

You may remember that I was a sucker for a sad story when kids could not get a coach or sponsor for a sport or organization. I was approached one year by a group of students who wanted to start a Ping Pong club but our Principal had told them they needed a sponsor to use the gym after school. I jump at the chance because I fashioned myself and pretty fair ping pong player and would love to play and participate in this. We met a couple of time a week in the “Big" gym and it was a lot of fun. AS it turned out, I was pretty good, at least in this crowd. Word got around about the club and my playing ability and most of my kids would say, "I'm never going to play you in ping pong."  My head began to swell a bit and an aura of invincibility overcame me.

Please let me introduce you to Peter, who I will name, Peter Ping Pong. Peter was a very serious, high achieving and competitive second generation chinese immigrant who was even competitive in classroom discussions, and if I challenged him to do some silly thing like balancing a yard stick on his nose,(I could do it easily) he went home and worked at it until he could do it. He was, at the same time, quiet and introspective, respectful and polite. After a few weeks of ping pong, Peter stayed a few second after class and said to me, “ I hear you are a really good ping pong player.” Being me, instead of being humble, said, “Yeah, I guess I am pretty good.” In Peter's kindest way he said that he would love to play me sometime. We arranged a day after school and went down for the games. I got my special paddle that I brought from home and I noticed Peter taking a paddle out of a padded pouch. I thought that was pretty ostentatious. We began to warm up and get more serious and I noted that Peter handles himself rather well at the table. Finally near the end of the warm-up period, I had the opportunity to hit a monster slam to his backhand. He was standing 3 or 4 feet away from the table and caught the ball a foot or so off the floor and fired a more vicious backhand to my backhand and caught the tip of the corner. I never knew what hit me. We played two games and I believe the score were something like 21-4 and 21-5, I improved the second game. After two, I confided to Peter that I was sure that neither of us were probably enjoying the games. Peter in his most polite manner said, “Thank you, mister McAdams for taking your time with me. I'm pretty sure he was not mocking me, PRETTY sure.

RODNEY ROACH AND THE MEN'S “LOUNGE”

For many years the teacher's lounges at Seneca were separated lounges with women using one and men using the other. I either never knew or can't remember if that was by design or by evolution, but the rules were not strictly enforced and I spend some time in both. The Men's lounge, and I use the word lounge with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, was a room not much larger than a big closet. It was about 6 feet by twelve feet and back in the time when almost everyone smoked, it was often filled with ten to 15 men smoking cigarettes as quickly as possible because we would hurry down and smoke during class breaks. . As one gazed through the tobacco haze one could observe hot ashes of about an inch hanging from cigarettes. I will assure that, with the correct timing, combined with years of experience and practice, a relatively healthy person, usually a man, could go two or three hundred feet to the lounge in a busy hallway duck into the lounge, suck, enthusiastically on a cigarette, dash back to the classroom with seconds to spare. There were amazing happenings and tall tales going on in the lounge all the time and one thing a teacher tried not to do was to draw attention to themselves for anything positive or negative because that teacher would be in danger of receiving serious and embarrassing attention the following day. I shall relate some of those in the chapter “?????????????”

besides smoking in the “lounge there was a tiny bathroom with barely enough room for a toilet and basin and we often ate our lunches in the lounges and reveled in the “I can top that one” stories that were constantly present.

One day the Principal came in and made the observation that smoking on that room was dangerous because we might accidentally start a five. At this point, you need to know that the room had smoked stained concrete block walls and non-flammable, and usually un-repaired furniture. We pointed this out and he drew our attention to the intercom speaker that had been stuffed with those brown bathroom paper towels because the volume on the speakers rivaled that of a concert by “The Who.” It was located in the ceiling 14 feet above the floor. We all then tried to flip lit cigarettes up to the speaker but never succeeded. This was about the time that busing had been instituted in Louisville and the men were required to wear neckties and all teachers had to wear identifications tags.

The Principal directed us to stop smoking, and eating in the lounge. Within a few days there appeared on a small side table an enormous roach (about 15 inches long and 6 inches wide with large fierce looking teeth and fangs, with a cigarette in his mouth, wearing a tie and a tiny, nearly exact replica of the official name tag issued by the Board of Education. The name tag read Rodney Roach but the greatest of the characteristic of Rodney, was that his immense body was constructed, are you ready, with brown lunch bags. Rodney became a cherished Icon and remained in the lounge for a number of year before old age and decomposition final spelled his demise.

Everyone, meet Jill.  Jill was a great young lady and is a great person,  today.  During the school year when she was my student, Jill entered and won the Kentucky Junior Miss competition.  Because of this, Jill was able to compete on the national level against girls from other states.

When she arrived they gave her a roommate assignment.  Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to which state her roommate hailed?  You're right, she was a proud inhabitant of NORTH DAKOTA.  Jill, of course, related to her roommate my claims about the mythical North Dakota and it was discussed between them.   

When Jill returned to school on Monday, the first thing she told me was the fact of her North Dakota roommate.  Of course, I had to deny that it was true.  I'm sure I used a number of rationalizations such as, her roommate was a liar, Jill was a liar, Jill's roommate only thought that she lived in North Dakota, the whole weekend never happened and Jill dreamed it all, etc.  All done in good fun.  

Jill taught for some time in Texas before returning to the bluegrass.  Welcome back, Jill.

More on the No North Dakota theory
A number of years after he graduated, a former student, Rob, related a story to me

Rob said that he and his friend, another of my former Seneca pupils, Susan, got into a discussion of how to pronounce the capital city of South Dakota. They even went so far as to call the SD governor's office to ask. When the receptionist answered the phone they actually asked to talk to the governor to solve their disagreement. Amazingly, the receptionist informed them that the Governor was out of town but they could speak to the Lt. Governor if they liked. You must be kidding me. When else and where else other than 1990's South Dakota can that happen. They were thrilled and asked the Lt. Governor how to pronounce his capital city. “Peer,” he said. I don't who won the argument. They conversed with the Lt. Governor for a few minutes and finally said, “ we had a history teacher who claimed that North Dakota is a myth and does not exist. Without hesitating, the Lt Governor  replied, “ As far as I can tell, he is absolutely right.” does it get any better than that?  I have over 800 Facebook friends, about half of which are former pupils of mine and the concept has gone, at least in a local sense, viral.

Forty years ago, on this date, Louisville, Kentucky was struck by a very destructive F3 tornado that took a long path south of the downtown area.  It was after school and I was coaching girls track at that time.  I notice the sky getting very dark and foreboding and decided to stop track practice and send the girls home.  After making sure they had transportation I went back into the building just in time to hear the principal announce that there was a tornado in the area and for all people to abandon the building and go home.

If you are familiar with the structure of Seneca High School, you will know that the building is made up of  thick steel reinforced, concrete, exterior walls.  In other words, a bomb shelter.  Short of being in a cave, there are few places safer than in that building.  Bad call on that one Mr Principle.

I really wasn't any better.  I decided I needed to get home to take care my family.  I drove home to J-town scanning the skies along the way, which crossed the path that the tornado had taken.  There was no damage at that point and so I was unaware.  I came screeching into my driveway and my wife and two children were in the front yard.  I jumped out of the car and Vivian said, "Are you crazy, you could have been killed.  There's a tornado in the area."  So much for the conquering hero bit.  My heart goes out to the family who suffered the lose of property and worse, the lose of a family member or loved one.