Everybody Has a Story

Whenever I meet somebody for the first time and we have a conversation, I often hear a school related story. It seems that all of us like to tell stories about things that happened to us when we were in school. It is even more common when talking to a school teacher.

For example: last week I was at a tire shop talking about some new tires and wheels with the manager. When I mentioned that I am a science teacher, he told me a story about his “good old days” in high school. He graduated from the school where I presently teach.
He and three other guys were in shop class standing around a 50 gallon garbage can chewing tobacco and spitting into the can. The principal caught them and after dealing out some consequences, he ended up giving my new friend a ride home. To this day they are good friends.

Four guys in a shop class standing around a barrel and spitting tobacco juice into it do create a rather incongruous picture. But then this was a shop class where on some days students would have contests throwing axes at a target on a board. There was even a time when kids in the science class above the shop would tie a piece of candy onto a string and dangle it down into the shop through a hole in the floor. When a kid would grab for it, the candy was pulled up to the shop ceiling.

We all have stories to share about our days in high school. I see my students living out their future stories and I often think about some of my own. Like the time I parted Harry’s hair with a paper clip shot from a rubber band. I was lucky I didn’t hit him in the face. Or when I pushed David’s face down into a water fountain to get him all wet and ended up having him cut his gum on the water shield. We booby trapped lockers and were really fascinated with girls, who were at least two years ahead of us in many different ways. I remember another Dave driving his father’s car to some kind of a meeting with Jimmy and me as passengers. He was driving about 100 mph and kicking the dashboard with his right foot because the radio wasn’t working properly. He must have had his left foot on the gas. Later that year another boy became half vegetative after being badly injured in a crash along that same road. Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived school. Some of us were lucky. Some of us were not.

We had fun in school, sometimes got into trouble, and were never vindictive in our actions. All but a few of graduated and most lived good, successful lives. A few did not. Ned committed suicide a few years after graduation (I never found out why.). John had a heart attack and died before he was 30. Jimmy had a nervous breakdown in college and lived at home until a fatal accident. Judy passed away in her early fifties while Bernie, my best friend, died in his early sixties. Most of us still chug along and tell stories to anyone who will listen about “the good old days” with a Mr. Dubs or a Prof Meyers or a Coach Kline or a Mr. Potera or ……

I bet everyone who reads this blog could tell an interesting short story about their school days in the comments section. In fact, feel free to do so.

What we do in school stays with us throughout life in many ways. We don’t only learn academics and fine arts. We don’t just pass standardized tests. We also become members of society. School helps us develop emotionally through our interactions with teachers and our peers while teaching us to use our minds. Too many people in authority forget that school is more than scoring high on tests and preparing for college. Who gives a damn if Japanese kids are smarter than American kids in math? There is a lot more to education than being a math whiz.