10. Shenendehowa

Shenendehowa

I was in the eleventh grade at Shenendehowa Central School and I was seventeen. Shenendehowa Central School started when I started school 1954. It was all under one roof from grades K – 12. It was about twenty minutes by car from our farm along Route 146. When I started there were a few hundred students, there are 9800 students now (2015).

Being seventeen in 1965 was a lot different than being seventeen now. I think of where my sons were at in their social progression when they were seventeen. Sacha was living on his own in Queensland, Australia and Leigh had already signed a contract to play baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers and was playing in their minor league club in Vero Beach, Florida. He had played baseball with eight South Australian State teams and seven national teams, pitching in South Africa, the States – twice, Canada, Taiwan, and in every state of Australia. He had numerous trophies and awards and had been on television a few times and in the newspapers many times. Me? I was seventeen and had only been on camping trips with my parents as well as a few escapes to New York City to show for my life.

By ninth grade I surmised that I was not really an academic.
As the year went on and I began to be ‘more hip’ my grades
went down.  I especially love my French marks: First quarter = 68,
second quarter = 53, third quarter = 48 and fourth quarter = 30.
My final exam = 28. Why is it that when I go to France I get by
perfectly fine? Overall, I passed enough subjects by a few points
(65 is passing in the USA) to stumble into grade 10 where
I managed to score lower marks in Math 9 and French I,
even though it was my third shot at both (took them in summer
school but failed there too).

The only thing I seemed to function in was band.

Maybe I was always a bit stupid because on my second grade  report card some idiot  teacher wrote “... He still lives in confusion...”  On my first-grade report card I got two U’s (unsatisfactory): in “Shows self-control” and in “Observes rules of the school”. Damn did not these people realise I was a rebel, a free thinker?  Ahead of my time - setting myself up for the 1960s.

What is ironic I suppose is that I now (2010) teach grades 1 - 3 in a public school in NYC and these kids are all me times ten.  (And in 2014 – 2016 I was a relief teacher teaching these same grades in Australia) Of course since failing high school and a few attempts at it later I not only got myself a BA but a BA with Honours, A Master’s Degree and a PhD.  What does this say about the academic system?  I have been a schoolteacher (still am) and a professor.  When will society realize that giving grades during youth is shit? (Now in 2015 I am a relief teacher in Adelaide, South Australia teaching feral children who are as dumb as I was when I was in primary school and no doubt still am.)

NEXT 11. THINGS I HAVE DONE – that you may not have done!

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