“Being a smartass in school had its merits, especially the time me, Buck, and Ellis showed Ms. Ciscowitz just how far behind we were in some subjects”
USA – (satireworld.com)
Note: This is Part Four of “my two cents worth” about the education system in America. It is not a rant against teachers, but about the overwhelming bureaucracy and waste and stupidity that is the Public School System.
Okay, so this is the part where I get to brag about all of my great accomplishments, right? Nope, this is mostly going to be me practicing some self-ripping and lamenting my failures. Yes, it is more self-deprecating humor (at which I seem to excel). If someone is going to insult me, it may as well be me!
In my other essays, I talk about what I view are the deficiencies in the education system. In this one, I discuss my own failures with education. I guess this is my way of letting the teachers get even (though I do rip on two of my former teachers… who deserved it).
My grandmother had an almost photographic memory. Unfortunately, she was born a poor farm girl in a place and time where women never received an education. In later life, she became a state champion Scrabble player due to her abilities and intelligence, but she was realistically born seventy-five years too early.
My father inherited a lot of his mind from his mother. Coming out of college, he was drafted into the service. He achieved the first ever perfect score on the A.S.V.A.B. test (or whatever they called it in the 1950′s) and could have had his pick of any M.O.S. in the military and gone to Officer’s Candidate School. He knew, however, that officers served three years and enlisted men served two, so he chose to remain an enlisted man. Because of his degree in mathematics and his test scores, however, they sent him to White Sands Proving Grounds (later called White Sands Missile Range) to work on the early rocket systems.
In turn, I got a lot of that brain power through my D.N.A. and it seemingly made my life easy. I could remember enough from reading a book or chapter one time to do well on a test (85% or above) without having to go back and study, so I never studied. If I listened to the lecture and took specific notes, I could remember them well enough to do well on a test without studying, so I never studied.
To me, a mid range or high “B” was good enough, so why work at it to improve it?
I was the guy in class who knew all of the answers to all of the questions, and enjoyed showing up both classmates and teachers. I loved the opportunities to embarrass a teacher when they were wrong, relishing showing them that I was smarter and knew more.
I also have terrible handwriting. I use the excuse today that my wrist has been operated on a couple of times (and they had to fuse some bones together), but the handwriting was bad even before the surgery. If I didn’t know the answer to an essay question, I’d make sure that my answer was pretty much illegible. The only words that would be readable were words that I knew had to be in the answer (“George Washington,” “Valley Forge,” and “Cornwallis,” for example).
Almost every time, the teacher would give me the points, thinking that I generally knew what I was talking about and I did have some of the right words in my answer. Of course, I’d take a second or two to look up the real answer after turning in the paper, just in case I was ever verbally quizzed on what I had written down. It was clever and a lazy way to improve my grade, but it worked.
(To my shame, I shared this once with my son, who also has terrible handwriting. He used it himself and it worked for him also.)
As a result of this, I was a lazy student. I never really learned how to study as I never had to study. Grade school, junior high, and high school were easy for me.
If I had homework in math, I did it in science. My science homework would be done in health. That homework would be done in English. I never had homework at home, unless there was a major report or a term paper. All of my evenings at home were mine, for reading or television or playing with friends, or whatever.
In math, we always got ripped on about “show your work.” When I showed my work, a problem that took nine steps was generally done in three. Teachers thought that I was copying from someone else until I demonstrated to them that my mind was thinking three or four steps ahead, and doing those steps three or four at a time. If they made me slow down and show every step like they wanted from the other students, I’d mess up.
We once had a competition on reducing fractions. The teacher divided the class into boys and girls and sent the first boy and girl to the chalkboard. She would call out a fraction like 2/14ths. The first person that could simplify this to 1/7th would win and get to stay at the chalkboard, while the loser had to sit down and another person of the same gender would take their place. The teacher said that he had a prize for the first group to make their opponents exhaust their members.
I was the third boy to stand up. I easily beat the first girl that I faced, then the second, and then the third. I ended up beating all of the rest of the girls in the class. The teacher started the girls over again, and I went through all of them again. After going through them three times, he decided that I had beaten my limit and needed to sit down. It didn’t matter to my team as I had single-handedly won them the competition three times over. Yes, I was smug about it.
I was generally given the green light to stop showing my work by math teachers within a few weeks of each new year. They came to know that I knew what I was doing, even if my steps were a little different from theirs. This also helped them to know who was copying from my paper. If a person was using the same “steps” I was, they were obviously cheating.
Everyone assumed that, because of my successes in math from an early age, that I would become a mathematician like my father. He used to say that I had the best mind for math that he had ever seen, even better than his own. I continued to do well through my junior year in high school, when I stopped taking math after my first semester of trig. Math was not my first love and I had all of the credits in the subject that I needed, so I turned my pursuits to other subjects.
Going back to the subject for one more example, however, will further show my thoughts about my own skills and abilities.
In high school, I had a math teacher that was very particular about using a pencil. She hated students to do their work in pen. I was just the opposite: I hate using pencils for anything and always used a pen (preferring black ink in fine line pens). I thought that pens were neater and made finer lines. They also didn’t need constant sharpening.
She argued that scratch outs with a pen when people make a mistake are ugly, while pencil mistakes could be easily erased and were much neater. I countered by saying that I didn’t make mistakes and so had no scratch outs with my pen.
Her response was to say that she was a teacher and was going to take off ten points from each test or paper that was done in pen.
As this teacher always had an extra credit question worth ten points on the bottom of each test and assignment, I knew that I was fine. One six week grading period, I averaged a 100%, using an ink pen on each and every assignment (and losing ten points every time). My getting the extra credit points and never missing a problem the entire time kept me at a perfect score.
Right after that grading period, she dropped her ten point penalty for using ink.
Unfortunately for me, this success did not translate well outside of high school. When I got to the University, I learned that I was not as smart as I thought I was. I was surrounded with a lot of other A-B students that knew how to study and knew how to make the grade. I also learned that professors are not as lenient as teachers. They could care less about failing someone if they didn’t comply with their requests. Using ink on one of their tests, when they said not to, could bring a zero instead of just a loss of a few points.
Suddenly, I was surrounded by people with doctorate degrees. I was no longer smarter than some of my teachers; they were all smarter than me.
To my eternal shame, I did not react well to this. Instead of learning how to study and knuckling down and doing the work and trying to improve myself, I walked away. I tried going back a few years later, but there is something about having a 40+ hour a week job and trying to raise four kids and maintain a marriage and doing church work and still finding time to sleep that seems to sap all of your energy. I still think that I am smarter than all of my siblings when it comes to basic brain power and logic and reasoning ability and memory and intellect, but I am not the one of the ones with and advanced degree (both of my brothers have Masters degrees, and one of them has two different Masters). When it comes to sticking it out, they did it. I had more brains, but that made life too easy. They had to work more for what they got, so they learned how to work (while I never did). I congratulate them on their success.
Knowing that I was smarter than everyone also gave me a bit of an attitude. Part of this is demonstrated in an incident that happened to me my last year in elementary school.
Back in the sixth grade, I had a social studies teacher that none of us kids liked at all. Her name was Ciscowitz (and I probably spelled that wrong), but we called her Cisco around other adults and Ciscowitch or Ciscobitch with each other (my mother also eventually adopted referring to her as Ciscobitch).
Before the bell rang, while we were moving from class to class, she would stand in the hall and watch each student enter her classroom. At the sound of the bell, she would pull the door closed with her right hand. At the same time, she would raise her left hand and index finger, point into the classroom, and say some variation each day of “it’s time to sit down and shut up!” We all found the way that she did this to be highly amusing and used to do it on the playground when we made fun of her.
(Yes, we made fun of our teachers. Right now, if you are a teacher, that thought probably horrifies you. Remember, however, that the only kids in school who did not make fun of their teachers or ridicule them outside of the classroom were probably the myopic, constipated, little girls that were always teachers pets. You know whom I am talking about as they are the ones you assign to take names when you have to leave the classroom for a minute.)
Anyway, we were doing a photography program in both art and science classes that was sponsored by Kodak. They had given all of the kids free cameras and free film and built a darkroom in the school (also providing all of the equipment and chemicals). In science, we studied the scientific aspects of reflection and refraction and light and the chemical aspects of film development. In art, we studied artistic setting and expression and light (in a different way) and many more things. It was a program in school that I thoroughly enjoyed and where I learned a lot.
Part of the assignment from our science and art teachers was to take our cameras (Kodak Instamatics with flash cubes and 126 film, if you are old enough to remember these) and go around taking candid pictures of people. I thought that getting a candid picture of her doing the signature move as she closed her classroom door would be funny… and would immortalize the movement for all time.
When I entered the classroom, I hid behind a rolling bookshelf that was opposite the door. Someone was set up to point to me as she started to make the move, and I would jump up and snap her picture.
Everything was going according to plan, until… a guy in the class named Bob knocked his books off his desk at the same moment I jumped up to take the picture. Cisco heard the bang as the books hit the ground, saw the flash from the camera, and thought that she’d been shot!
She grabbed her chest and reeled backwards, hitting into the door and staggering. It was funny and everyone in the class laughed (even the myopic, constipated, teacher’s pet). The combination of all of this left her embarrassed and angry and still a little shocked (should I say “shell shocked?”).
I was marched down to the Principal’s Office. It was actually the first time that I had ever been sent to the Principal’s office (and I had managed to make it all the way to sixth grade before it happened!). My mother was called. As my mother was the P.T.A. President that year, she knew the principal on a first name basis.
When my mother arrived, I was taken into the office to explain myself. I talked about the cameras and explained about the assignment to take candid pictures.
The teacher told me that I was a liar for saying that I had been given the assignment to take candid pictures. I repeated my story, said that I was not a liar, and demanded that she verify this with either Mr. Perez or Mr. Caster (the science and art teachers, respectively). Mr. Perez happened to be in the teacher’s lounge at the time and he was called in to the room.
Here I learned that the other teachers and the principal were not really fans of Cisco either.
I said that we had been assigned to take candid pictures of people. Mr. Perez agreed that this was true. Cisco said that the assignment was not supposed to take place on campus.
Mr. Perez then said that they wanted most of the pictures taken on campus as we could all recognize the places and subjects when we viewed pictures as a group in class. This would give us better background to help critique each other’s work.
She wanted to know why her permission had not been sought for this. The principal told her that she had approved the Kodak program for the campus and didn’t need to consult a sixth grade teacher for her permission to do so.
Cisco countered by saying that we were supposed to take pictures of people, but not teachers. Mr. Perez replied that he considered himself “people.” The principal said that she was also a person, as were my mother and myself (the other occupants of the room) and even Mrs. Ciscowitz.
Needless to say, Cisco didn’t agree.
About this point in the conversation, I demanded my camera back. Cisco refused to give it back. Mrs. Williams, the principal, said that the camera was my personal property and that she had no reason to keep it. She told her to give it back.
Cisco was not happy. She had to, however, obey direct instructions from her boss.
She took the camera out of her bag, popped open the back, and took out the film. The teacher and I both got upset as this had ruined the roll of film (by exposing it to the light before developing). My mother was upset because I was upset. Mrs. Williams held her cool.
I said that Cisco needed to replace my film as she had ruined it. She said that she had no intention of returning it as I had not gotten her permission to take her picture. Mr. Perez said that returning it was unimportant as the film was ruined by her stupidity.
Again, I emphasized that she needed to replace my film. That film had been given to me to complete a school assignment and she had ruined it, therefore, she needed to replace it. She refused.
Mrs. Williams told her that she needed to go to Kmart that night and buy a roll of film to give to me to replace my ruined film. Cisco took turns glaring at me, Mr. Perez, Mrs. Williams, and my mother. Mom glared back just as hard (never, ever, ever piss of my mother).
Since this all happened during the last period of the day, I went home directly with my mother. She was furious, but not at me.
The next day, Mrs. Williams brought a roll of film to me during one of my classes. I guess that Cisco didn’t have the guts to give it to me herself.
The principal did announce that we should not take pictures in the classrooms. She said that the cafeteria, the hallways, and outside on the playgrounds were okay, but that classrooms were off limits. This, however, did not stop my classmates. Every single student in the sixth grade made sure that they took a picture of Cisco at some time over the next week… and not one was sent to the principal.
Unfortunately, none of them ever caught her in her signature pose.
Cisco never said a word to me in class the rest of the year. She never called on me to give answers and never recognized me if my hand was raised. Naturally, this made me raise my hand (and my friends to snicker) every time she asked a question. I was, however, okay with this because… I knew that Cisco wasn’t really “a person.”
Seventh grade brought me what was probably my most embarrassing moment in my educational experience. This had absolutely nothing to do with brains or intelligence (unless you consider that I didn’t use mine at this instance). This was physical.
Okay, I’m short and I’m not the skinniest guy in the world. I have also never been the most athletic guy on the planet. I was usually one of the last ones picked for teams… because I sucked at sports. I am a klutz. I have two left feet and am uncoordinated in both of them. I can’t hit a baseball, can’t get the tennis ball over the net, and can’t dance at all.
One day, as we were leaving P.E. and on the way to the classroom building, a punch of the guys decided it was easier and more fun to climb over the chain link fence. Never mind that the gate was only twenty feet to the right and it was a lot quicker just to walk that way and step through it… this was a “guy” thing.
One by one, they spread out and scaled the six foot tall, chain link fence. Fred, the one kid in class who was always picked after me, managed to get himself up and over. Undaunted, I joined the climb.
In retrospect, I guess that you need to get a little higher than I did before swinging your leg over the top bar. When I did it, I snagged and then ripped my pants and ripped a big gash in my leg from one of the top wires on the chain link fence. I couldn’t move forward or back as the wire was in my leg.
Friends walked back around (through the gate that I should have gone through in the first place) and tried to push me over. I yelled at them to stop because the wire was cutting in to me more.
One of the guys went and got a coach. He brought another coach with him. By this time, a crowd of my classmates and other kids in the next period P.E. class were gathering to watch. To my eternal consternation, one of these was a really pretty eighth grader named Belinda.
Belinda was the school beauty. Every guy that had started to notice girls had noticed Belinda. She was the junior high hottie who went on to be the high school hottie (and head cheerleader, and prom queen, and homecoming queen, and class favorite, and on student council, and just about any other thing she could be).
Well, to make a long story short (and any time you are caught on the top of a chain link fence with a wire digging into your leg and hanging upside down, it feels like a really long story), one of the coaches went back to his office and got a pair of scissors.
They cut my pants off me and then the two coaches basically lifted me off the fence. Then, one of the coaches walked me (in my underwear, with blood running down my leg from a gash) to the nurses office. IN MY UNDERWEAR! In front of Belinda and everybody! As a seventh grader! I knew that I would never be able to hold my head high again in front of my classmates.
The nurse cleaned the wound, said it didn’t need stitches, and put a bandage on it. (In retrospect, I think that it probably did need stitches and that it probably wasn’t cleaned well enough as I still have a scar there on the inside of my leg to this day. ) She also gave me a pair of sweatpants that one of the coaches had brought her from the locker room and I had to wear them the rest of the day. To my horror, she wouldn’t call my mom to come and pick me up from school, but sent me back to class (to face humiliation from my classmates).
The horror! The shame! I could not look Belinda in the face again! Even though she was friends with many of my friends in high school, I never once had a conversation with her (and turned red in shame if she ever entered the same room).
I was also shamed in front of the girls in my class (and there were some cuties there too, but none as fine as Belinda… the girl of my unfulfilled fantasies).
I have not climbed a chain link fence to this day (and I have not tried to either). I would rather go around than over, even if I have to walk a mile out of my way.
About ten years ago, while on a conversation on a Classmates discussion board about our most embarrassing school moment, I told this story. Belinda was active on the site and coincidentally one of the people in that discussion. She didn’t even remember the incident happening! I guess the image of me in my underwear had not been attractive enough to burn the image permanently into her brain! (Either that, or she was too embarrassed to admit that it had secretly turned her on.)
So… in summary, I basically wasted the potential of the intelligence I was born with because I was too lazy to use the gifts that God gave me. Had I continued in school, and this was my dream,I would have gotten a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, with minors in Religious Studies, History, and Literature (but this minor would have been just for fun). I would have gotten a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology with emphasis on the effects of religion on culture and then a doctorate in Religion. I would probably be teaching somewhere at a University today and writing the religious tomes that I have always wanted to pen.
A life wasted? I think not. If I had continued down that path, learned how to study, and gotten those degrees, then life would never have taken me to many of the places that it did.
I would never have met my ex-wife or had my children (the true and absolute joy and pleasure of my life). I never would have met many of the friends that I have through my jobs in theatres and in the food service industry. I never would have lived in some of the places that I have called home and experienced the culture, the people, and the life there (and would not have come to love living in small towns). I never would have started writing humor for fun and enjoyed it immensely.
I found out many years ago that I can pass the MENSA test and qualify as having a genius IQ, but then learned that the group is mainly snobbish and just not the type of people I want to be around. I’d rather hang out with my church group: people of varying intelligence but with similar values, standards, and goals. A MENSA membership may be cheaper than paying tithing, but the rewards are nowhere near as good.
The journey of my life through education did not end up what I expected it to be or what my parents planned for me, but it has been a joyous experience and I treasure the memories. What I learned from school was never a challenge for me, but the results have been a blessing.
Watch for:
Part One: The Supply List
Part Two: Educating Illegal Aliens
Part Three: Standardized Testing
Part Four: Me and Education
Part Five: Fund Raising Activities
Part Six: Failure
Part Seven: Other Misc. Crap I Couldn’t Fit In Elsewhere