(What school was like) Learning during my 1970s High School years

Do you remember what it was like going to High School in the 1970s? I do. I most certainly do. In fact, the older I get the more removed that I am from it. As time passes, it starts to look like some kind of a scene from “The Twilight Zone”. The truth is that the kind of life that I had growing up is really alien to the way kids grow up today. That is worrisome, and it really concerns me.

When an American intern comes in to work for me, I am stunned just how absolutely helpless they are. They do not realize that they must go to work before the start of the working hours, and cannot leave until the workday is over. They don’t realize some of the most fundamentals regarding self-initiative is totally missing from them. American kids today are robots, or maybe zombies. They need and expect constant supervision. They are afraid to do anything.

The interns that I get from Germany, France, Singapore, and England are just fine. What is wrong with America? What are they teaching in schools there? Ugh. I think that I will devote another post to cover that subject. As it is truly alarming.

Whenever I berate an intern about something that they did wrong, I often use examples from my childhood. I use them to illustrate key points. Such as, [1] you need to eat breakfast at home before you come to work. [2] Showers are not optional. [3] Don’t check your Facebook when you are in a meeting with the boss. [4] Lunchtime is for one hour, and long lunches are not an option. As well, as a pet peeve of mine, [5] you must

Started out in Baltimore schools late 50’s. We were learning French in 3rd grade. My family moved to Vera, VA (Appomattox County) midway through the 3rd grade. Got harassed by those Virginia boys, so I took on the biggest one and kicked his butt. After that they accepted me.

Elementary school in Vera was three-room school. 1st, 2nd and half of 3rd grade in one room. The other half of 3rd, 4th, and 5th was in the second room. 6th and 7th were in the third room. When the teacher wasn’t working with your grade, you were assigned “busy work”.

Penmanship was big. In Baltimore we were taught phonics. In Vera it was southern... Marbles was big at recess. So was baseball, there was a ballfield behind the school. One of our teachers was a no-nonsense person. One day two boys were fighting on the ball field. She grabbed them by the collars and cracked their heads together. They never fought again. I could usually be found in her class with my nose in a circle drawn on the blackboard or writing “I must not (fill in the blank).”

Sixth and seventh grades were the serious ones as we had to be prepared for high school. We learned a lot in the third room. My buddies and I learned Morse Code and rigged lines between desks with a key and a light burried in the desk opening. We weren’t cheating, we were chatting during class. When we got caught, that was one beck of a paddling. They used tbe paddles with the holes in them.

We once lifted a new teachers VW and set it between two posts. That was funny. There was the applesauce episode where we stuffed apples in the school bus tailpipes. They were parked in a row. As the busses took off they blew the apples into the grille of the bus behind them. Applesauce.

High School in Appomattox was cool. There was football, baseball, track, science lab, and GIRLS. Also, us farm boys got off at the start of the school year to help harvest tobacco. I did well in math, science, shop, and history. English... I got better grades in Latin. Never learned southern. Being from Baltimore, we never used a “t.” I was good at spelling. Even took second in a spelling bee. Actually, I tied in the spelling bee, but it was getting late, and I lost the coin flip. Scarred me for life.

No but I really came to loath my high school. The staff were not only frequently genuinely hostile to students they were for the most part third rate hacks. Emphasis was on mindless bureaucratic routine and a profoundly unintellectual approach to education. In reality with a few notable exceptions it was training that was the goal not education. The people in the math and sciences department did know their stuff and generally taught it well. (Exception was the biology unit. Staffed by some of the worst examples of lazy, angry, time servers.) The other units were either mediocre or worse. I certainly had taught myself more about American history than the instructors knew or cared to know. It was good training for the armed forces and other large organizations. I learned two things of value. (1) One doesn't get an education in a school. If you want that you will have to do it yourself. Concentrate on learning what the educrats want you to regurgitate and focus on grades. (2) Unless you are super scholar or super soldier try and remain anonymous and never take initiative but do anything you are told today more than well and be very ostentatious about doing it.

Alas I found schools are not about education but accepting organization obedience and the armed forces are not about being military but about enduring mindless crap until one gets a retirement check.

At least fifty years ago high school was simply absurd and stupid now what is called public education has become a socialist reeducation camp as what passed for schools in the former Soviet Union were.

I graduated in 1975. Played basketball, with my varsity year being 74-75. We had this one guy on the team who was a real oddball. Selfish, never passed the ball, jacked up shots, etc. One day at the beginning of practice while we were all shooting around the coach started yelling at him. “G*d damn you, I’ve had enough!” He pulls out a pistol and boom! Then the kid crumples to the floor, holding his midsection.

“My God coach shot him!” we all thought. Then the coach starts laughing. It was starter’s gun. We all started busting up.

Today he’d be thrown in jail.

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