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.