My Philosophy Revisited: Not What, Who

   Chatting with some former Hancock colleagues, we were talking about why the Place was different, why the metrics used elsewhere didn't quite fit, and why perfectly acceptable, perhaps even good, teachers in other districts didn't succeed or last at Hancock. 
   All of us at the table had treasured our time there, knew that, at least for us (and, we hoped, our kids) the Place was home, where we belonged, giving us a career that, for all its frustrations, had rewarded us, spiritually if not monetarily, beyond measure. As to why this phrase, so simple as to seem obvious, waited so long to come to the fore, I can't explain, although I'd circled around it often enough, saying the same thing in different ways. At Hancock, it was who we taught, not what we taught, that mattered.

What's in a Name?

    Other than being an important piece of my development as a person and a teacher, and some nominal connections to current faculty, especially those who are also former students, I really feel little connection to The Place any longer. That’s kind of sad, I guess, and was perhaps unnecessary, but it’s hardly a feeling that presents any danger of my spiraling into an abyss. My exit turned out to be a blessing. (Details elsewhere on this blog)

    But I’ve noticed a change that, well, irks is too strong so let’s just say bothers me. The high school I loved has changed its name. Okay, it probably didn’t change itself, being an inanimate object, even if one imbued with a soul. Somebody decided it should no longer be Hancock High School, but Hancock Place High School. 

    As proud as I am of what a dedicated group of teachers accomplished there during those four decades, as previously noted I have little connection and even less influence over these things, so I can assure you I’m neither losing (even a little) sleep nor preparing one last charge at a windmill.

     Still, here’s the thing. The DISTRICT is Hancock Place, a moniker attached because its namesake, the esteemed Civil War general, W.S. Hancock, donated land for the first school. When people asked about the school’s location, they were told, "It’s down by the old Hancock place," directions apparently good enough for the time before Siri and Alexa. 

    As the area population grew and schools multiplied, they were all named for the general, plus political/geographic markers. The elementary schools were Hancock Wards 1, 2 & eventually 3. The junior high was Hancock Junior High. When the high school first came into being, closing in on about 150 years ago, it was named Hancock High School, a pretty good legacy for a man who ran for president and lost. How many other losers have that many schools named for them? 

    Don’t believe me? Just look at the picture at the top of the blog. Revisionist history is all the rage, I know, but I spent my 37 years at HANCOCK HIGH SCHOOL in the School District of Hancock Place, NOT at Hancock Place High School in the Hancock Place School District. I’m not thrilled about having that history, and by extension, my history, erased because, well, maybe there is a reason, but I can’t (or won’t) come up with one that I am going to agree qualifies as GOOD!

The Times, They Have Changed

 A FB post from a former student who is now in the profession stimulated this memorable, and I think amusing, anecdote, dating back to my first year at The Place. 

Story from the archives. How things have changed.

The year: 1971-72 (my first)
The Place: The Place (Hancock Place)
The Class: The “Make It or Break It” class, you know the one every first-year secondary teacher has; the one where, if you survive, you think, “Maybe I can make a go of this.” In this case, sophomore English, with kids experienced and bright enough to cause trouble, but not quite mature enough to stay out of same.*

As bell is about to ring, student** rushes for his desk, but fails to get close to the finish line before the bell rings. Bell rings, class falls silent (definitely NOT the norm), just as he exclaims, “Aw F🤬!” 

He looks around, looks at me, shrugs, and says, “I know,” then reports himself to the office.

And now here we are.

• I’m not sure this crew would even crack the Top 5 of my career, but that would take more analysis than I care to invest.

• Yes, I absolutely remember the kid, and while he was no stranger to office visits and discipline, obviously neither was he anything to close to a “bad” kid. (And yes, those DO exist. Sorry, not sorry.)

 Obviously they didn't break me. Not that they were trying. We ended up finding a way to survive the year together. I'm partly crediting my lucky inspiration to start the countdown to the end of the year with this class, using a number containing 3 figures. They joined in on the joke and made sure I erased the old number and chalked up the new one each day. I doubt this is what administration had in mind when they "suggested" we write our objectives daily, but it worked!  

Another Chapter Ends. This One Started at The Place

 

All good things must come to an end. If you’re lucky, you can choose your own ending. I chose my exit time when I left my classroom behind and now I’m choosing my time to exit the field. And that time is now.

Part of life is leaving it behind, and endings are always bittersweet. I will undoubtedly miss working with my friends and players. I have yet to address the nagging worry that with nothing to do, that is exactly what I will get done. I’ll save the “inside softball” thinking about the decision and its timing for the end if you’re interested, but, if you know me at all, you know I espouse multiple causation and reject simplistic answers in favor of simply complicated. So it will not be a short section.

What I want to share today is simply a reflection on another aspect of my life where I have been blessed beyond what I deserve. I’ve detailed elsewhere the accidental/serendipitous path I took to becoming a coach, a path I’ve traveled for 35 years now, a path that has afforded me true, lifelong friendships, joy, and purpose. 

And hope for the future of my community and nation. I’ve been touched by so many remarkable young women, been privileged to share a segment of their lives that reinforces my faith in humanity and the future. No matter what was happening in the world around me, I always had “my girls.” As politically incorrect as it may be, they will always be “my girls” no matter how successful and accomplished they have, or will, become.

Thank you ladies (and your parents), for allowing me to share with you this small part of your life journey. I love you all.

Why now? 

• Although not identical, the reasoning behind my departure from a regular classroom is parallel to my decision to give up my field classroom. (Click here to read that analogous piece.) 

• 2020 – For better and (maybe) worse, my style, such as it is, was up close and personal. I like to think my most effective coaching (softball and otherwise) came on the bus rides and conversations from the games. My girls tolerated sharing a seat as we talked about their game that day, and anything else that surfaced. Obviously, 2020 precluded that; we didn’t TAKE even a single bus. Close-in conversations were rare to non-existent. (I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a special note of thanks to my last squad for their compliance with masking; I took their care and concern personally and appreciated it accordingly.) While the thought of retiring had been percolating for some time, 2020 was certainly a disincentive to continuing.

• I was blessed to have been befriended by Tim Cerutti and to spend five years working together. Being in the same (age) cohort and sharing a philosophy of life and temperament made the relationship special. His death this spring created an unfillable void. Tim was actually the third coach/friend/mentor to die during my career, but I’m following his (and our shared) mantra of “Choose Happy” – my Rule #1: “You don’t get a discount on the Happy Meal just because you’re not.” But it just wasn’t as much fun without him. That was no surprise.

• Thanks to the leadership of our head coach, Bryan Gibson, and the commitment of many community leaders, Webster has built a softball program that expanded to 3 full teams even as other communities were and are struggling to field even a JV team. 2020 also shelved the WGBSL rec league this spring and the “Feeder” team that funneled girls into the program. I feel safe in predicting we won’t have sufficient numbers for three teams next year (I’d love to be wrong about that). We’ve recently added some new, young, female coaches who may represent the future of the program. It’s time for me to get out of the way and not block their development and connection with the program.

• My wife and I have things we want to do and places we want to go that are best done either during the Fall softball season or the Summer pre-season. Not that we didn’t know it before, but 2020 has reinforced doing what you can while you are still physically able. 

• We’ve been making a conscious effort to de-junk, even before the inspiration of the COVID-quarantine. I’ll be passing along most of my coaching wardrobe, thus freeing up significant closet/storage space, because Bryan Gibson and WG always reinforced the belief that looking good was part of good performance). 

• But mostly I’m tired, struggling to summon the energy to prepare for games and practices. To be clear, it was never the kids, never the parents, never the administration, never the varsity or JV coaching staff that wore me out; on the contrary, it was those groups that energized me to continue as long as I did. In many ways this was the longest short season, but even last year Tim and I both were forced to admit that our energies were not always sufficient to meet the demands to do the job in a way that would live up to our standards. As those who know me can attest, modesty is not a dominant quality for me. I know what I can bring to the party on any given day. While I might fool some people with my 80%, it’s not good enough, not good enough for me to be satisfied and continue. Even if I still have (or ever had) an “A Game,” I can’t always bring it. Time to move aside.

I may not have been all that mindful when I started the job, but the least I can do is make a mindful decision about when it’s time to go. So it’s time to say good-bye, and thank you, thank you for 35 years and close to 50 different teams in two school districts, Hancock Place and Webster Groves.

Apropos of nothing, as I typed this I realized that every school with which I have been regularly associated had at least two names.

#Blessed.

                                                          -30-

Your Cheatin' Heart

Well, not your heart exactly. A former student, whom I vaguely remember only by name, felt the need to insert himself into a discussion of vote fraud and, in the process, stumbled (jumped would require thought and intentionality) to the conclusion that because, unlike him, I hadn’t worked myself into a dither over the issue, I must have been okay with students cheating while I was in the classroom. 

He suggested that I should have made that known and my classes would have been more popular. I never had trouble filling my classes, although I admit that I also never invested a lot of time and energy in trying to nab cheaters. I had other priorities. But I do have some stories.

First, the reason I didn’t spend much time or energy worrying about cheating dates back to my own high school days. I didn’t have to cheat, but I had a friend who sat behind me who needed, shall we say, help. Now, I know that technically I was cheating, as well, but, well, just let the story tell itself.

It’s American history and we’re in the back corner, me in front of him. I’m getting ready to move from page 1 to page 2 of a test when I hear a whisper: “Wait, don’t turn the page yet.” A couple minutes later, “Okay, I’m ready.” I don’t really remember how many pages the test was, but I paused at least another time or two. Again, yes, cheating by both us. A couple days later the tests come back. I had a score in the mid-90s, his was low 70s and he directly copied my test! I came to the conclusion at that point (I was not even close to realizing I’d end up with my own classroom) that for the most part cheaters are so bad at it that it’s not worth worrying about.

So, when I found myself with my own classroom, kids cheating was neither a large nor loud blip on my radar. Not that I was Captain Oblivious, I mostly just didn’t care, unless it was so obvious and, frankly, stupid, that I had to act.

Anecdote 1

1975-76: If you were to ask me about the worst class I ever had I would hesitate not even a second in picking the focus of this story. I gave weekly vocabulary quizzes in English, because I thought, and still think, words are important and having a better vocabulary than a 5^th grader matters. This class may not have worked hard, if at all (oh, so many stories), but their behavior was awful and I wasn’t very good at managing them. So when one of the worst came to class a bit late and insisted on taking the weekly quiz even though I told him I’d excuse him…. And when he, like many, if not most, of the class got the first 11 questions correct (and then missed the rest), it was clear that I had been careless with the answer key. Their average score of 13 was a big jump over their normal performance. The next week I made sure I gave them time to copy all the answers before entering and starting the quiz. Of course it was a fake key, but their 2-week average came to about 5 or 6 out of 20, so order was restored.

Anecdote 2

Late 80s(?), teaching World history. I was an early adopter of the computer and had a test generator program that made it easy to create multiple variations of a test. Usually two was sufficient to thwart the “efforts” of people like my friend from high school. Of course, I didn’t exactly advertise that there were multiple versions. I usually let the kids watch as I graded the test. One student (Maurice Moultrie, if memory serves) was a good student who did well. A friend of his who shall remain nameless although I do remember him, watching his performance, got very excited. “Oh, do mine next Mr. Berndt. I really studied for this one.” Suspicious, because while he was a charming scoundrel, academic rigor was never one of his strengths. Apparently the kids all knew because they struggled mightily (and not very successfully) to not laugh as his face fell in synch with the rising tide of red marks. “You know, K, there were two versions of this test, don’t you?” “Aww, man.” He was really a good sport and rather than get angry, he joined in the laughter at his expense. Like I say, a charming scoundrel.

So other than a few precautions, I wasn’t really worried about cheating. You don’t need a degree in statistics to realize that, in the big picture, a few stolen points, even on every test, don’t really change anything. Kind of like extra-credit. Kids would beg for extra-credit, never realizing, apparently, that even 40 EC points didn’t really move the needle if there were over 1000 points available during the grading period. Plus, I didn’t enjoy getting mad at kids or trying to trap them in bad behavior. But some teachers did. Which brings us to 

Anecdote 3

I’m thinking this is maybe mid-late 70s. The health/PE teacher, who, honestly, didn’t really like teaching or kids that much, sent a student to my room to take a make-up test. I don’t remember her name, but I do remember, about 5 minutes into the test, her asking, “Mr. Berndt, how long does ossification* last?” “3 months or 3000 miles, whichever comes first,” was the first thing that popped in my head (probably due for an oil change). Ignoring a couple giggles from the class and my arched eyebrow, she dutifully recorded the answer. She apparently decided that worked so well she’d continue to trick me into helping her with her test. I don’t remember any more answers, although the ossification one was the least ridiculous in the progression; if she actually knew any answers, she decided mine would be better. She did ask, once, “Do you really know this stuff?” I assured her that I had taught health and was married to a nurse. On she wrote and eventually off she went to turn in her test. It didn’t take long before an overheated PE teacher steamed into my room, certain that I had disrespected both her course and her. She calmed down (some) when I explained the whole sequence of events. Never content to take the win (all wrong answers) she departed to vent her anger on the student for trying, and failing miserably, to cheat. Whomever you were, if this sounds familiar, I’m sorry. 

Final anecdote, I promise (unless another story pops into my brain while I’m recounting this one).

Spring of 1985, College Credit Composition. This one did bother me because I was especially fond of this group. It came to my attention, from multiple sources, that a cabal had been conspiring to cheat on the weekly vocabulary tests. I was both hurt and disappointed. On the day I decided to confront the class, there was, not coincidentally, an important paper due so I had a stack of compositions on my desk as I expressed, in forceful and perhaps mildly profane language, my feelings of betrayal. I then told them that if their grades were so damn important that they needed to cheat, then they could all just take their damn A’s and I wouldn’t bother any more. I then picked up the entire stack of comps and dropped them in the trash can (which I had emptied), saying any papers that remained when I returned would get an automatic A, but if anyone really wanted to learn something, they could retrieve their work and replace it on the desk. As the grand finalé of a staging that I think possibly eclipsed my portrayal of Felix in The Odd Couple (perhaps not a high bar), I stormed from the room to the teachers lounge where my department colleagues waited to hear the replay. I’ve been told that there were some tears, and at the end of the period, all the papers were waiting for me. And that was that (at least as far as I know). Lesson learned, I think, that process means more than results.

So cheating mattered to me, just not enough to divert energy from the bigger picture of what I was trying to accomplish. And here’s the thing. Cheaters get caught, one way or another, eventually. The price to be paid may not be immediate, it may not be obvious, but the soul will be witnessed, in that I have faith.

*ossification – the hardening of the top of the skull in a newborn. Also, getting stuck, becoming stagnant or rigid in your thinking – while important, I’m pretty sure that was NOT the context.

The Workout Fight: Mind-Body Connection

Working out at the WG Rec Center this afternoon, we were joined by one of the firehouse crews who arrived in their ladder truck and ambulance, so obviously still on their shift. As I was circling the room waiting for Carolyn, who had been interrupted by a phone call, to finish, I thanked some of them. I jokingly noted to one that on TV, responder houses all have cool tricked out weight rooms. Apparently the WG house has a small one, but not enough for the whole crew to get in a workout. I realized that maintaining physical conditioning is really a job requirement for first responders. 

My mind drifted, as it is wont to do these days, back to a dispute that roiled the high school for a few weeks over the issue of teachers working out (by walking the track) during their conference period. The principal at the time, in what I think was more about power than principle, insisted that teachers needed to be in their rooms or the workroom during their conference hour. Granted, this was before cell phones, but it was also before classroom telephones. I can’t imagine it would have been any more difficult to get a teacher from the track than his/her classroom. That was one of the arguments we made, but this was a fight we were destined to lose; the price of winning would have been too high.

While I would never try to argue that the physical demands of teaching (only those who have never taught can believe that it’s a sedentary profession) are equivalent to those of first responders, I would maintain they are significant enough that physical activity, and its mental by-products, would have been more beneficial than sitting in a classroom, waiting for an unscheduled summons or phone call. I know that when I walk my mind is as busy as my body. And while I wasn’t much (okay, even that’s an exaggeration) into exercise then, I tried serve as an advocate for those who believed they would benefit. It is why so many forward-thinking companies today recognize the need for the mind-body connections that exercise brings.

Accidental Counselor

As I was prepping an entry on one of my other blogs (Don’t Get Berndt), I examined the role serendipity has played in my life. My becoming Hancock High School’s guidance counselor fits perfectly into that pattern; needless to say, I didn’t follow the typical path to, well, anything, but especially not to manning a school guidance office. My my feeling for most of my career was that most guidance counselors had usually tried to escape the classroom at their first opportunity. Like all stereotypes, what truth lies at the base is potentially unfair to any individual.

Because I generally did not have a high opinion of the denizens of those offices (based primarily on my experience with those from Hancock in my early years, as well as anecdotes from teachers around the county), occupying a guidance chair was the least likely trail on my education career path I could imagine. All that changed in late October, 1990.

At the time, I had what some might have considered an ideal teaching schedule, five World History classes and one Advanced Credit (UMSL) class in political science, all taught in a corner room with a view of both Ripa and Clyde (Mr. Keel had just retired). Even though my buddy MaryAnn McGrane taught next door and we could keep each other amused, the truth was I was bored. A lesson that took me a full period to teach in the morning lasted barely half that long by the end of the day. 

I was about to head out for the day (it was right around Halloween) when Principal Jerry Schloss told me to make sure I watched the local news on TV, with a cryptic hint about a Hancock guidance counselor. My mind immediately leaped to a former occupant of that office who had recently moved up to Pattonville. With shock and disbelief I learned of the arrest of our own Junior High (Middle School having not yet been invented in Hancock) counselor, charged with, well, let’s just say a crime that made continuing in his role impossible. (I’ve heard that the boys who made that accusation recanted years later, only after a career was ruined.)

In any case, Jerry came to me the next morning, telling me that Curt Baker (junior high principal) needed a guidance counselor and there were two choices, of which I was one. I had earned my coaching chops under Curt and we were friends; I’m sure that played into the equation. 

I asked for the evening to think if over, knowing that if I declined there was a second option, but I’d have to pick up a couple French classes. So my schedule was going to change, no matter what. I had had a good student teacher (Dan Easton) the year before who was certified in both English and social studies (like me) and had not scored a job yet, so I was pretty sure he was immediately available. 

The stars aligned: bored with my schedule, the less than attractive option of returning to teach French, working with a(nother) principal I liked and respected, the district’s needs (you know, team player, which I sort of am, if I get to pick what team I’m on), the availability of a replacement I knew and liked, well, it didn’t take lots of margarita therapy at Hacienda with my wife for me to okay the change the next morning, with the proviso that I kept my college class (who had to trek over to the junior high – I think we met in the teacher’s lounge, I remember couches).

Thus began what I referred to as my “Year of Penance.” I think I did an okay job, even enjoyed parts of it, all things considered, to the point that when we began discussing the 91-92 year, I briefly considered going back to school and getting certified. Still, my assessment really was, “It’s a dumb job, but somebody’s got to do it, just not me.” Plus I had the opportunity to return to journalism at the high school and a more varied schedule (AmHist, Gifted 8^th Grade English (I had gotten to know and like that crew {Class of 96} during the year, even if not all of them had really unwrapped their presents yet), journalism (newspaper & yearbook), UMSL Intro to Politics; I can’t quite remember if Psychology was part of that picture yet, or came later, replacing the English class, plus softball, of course. #lowthreshholdforboredom 

“Wait,” you’re saying. You still ended up as a counselor? More serendipity.

Several years later I was out at the UMSL campus for a meeting about the political science class. Waiting for the meeting to start, I started reading a bulletin board (Readers gotta read). “UMSL in your own backyard,” it said, advertising classes at Lindbergh High School. One was a class in school counseling. Never mind that it had started a week earlier and required a pre-requisite that I didn’t have. I called the number, eventually talked to the professor who said she didn’t mind if I didn’t (adjunct faculty are not picky, just sayin’) and thus began my journey toward counseling certification.

Why? Well, I had been using the phrase, “I’m so old I teach history from memory.” Unfortunately, it was starting to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wasn’t there yet, but I could feel staleness starting to creep in and I wasn’t feeling inspired to invent new classes, at least not then. I could see the need to reinvent myself. (I also used to joke that I changed departments every five years or 5000 miles.) I also knew that Barb Klocke would be retiring, not imminently, but down the road and that there would be an opening.

With some twists and turns (other stories for other times) and a transfer to Lindenwood’s school counseling program, I eventually was close to being certified, needing only a course or two and a practicum (“Student Counseling”). The timing was perfect as Sherry Rischbeiter, the Middle School Counselor, was pregnant and ready for a maternity leave that would essentially end her school year. (Although she returned with a week or two left in the semester, Superintendent Bourisaw allowed me to finish the year, working side by side with her.) Mike Wersching had been my student teacher and was available to finish out my classes, giving him some experience to build his resumé. So I joined Paul Huff and the HMS. 

To be honest, I don’t know if it was the next year or the one after that that Barb retired and I became the only internal candidate-applicant for the HHS counseling job. (The superintendent let me know that I wasn’t his choice for the job; not that I wasn’t his first choice, just not his choice at all, but Jerry Schloss was the principal and I was his choice.)

Thus began my 6-year career as a high school guidance counselor, more by luck than by design. I brought some things to the party, thought I did a good job in general, if far differently than my predecessor. No one really knows what a guidance counselor does, so the job allows for creative definition of its roles, with the plusses and minuses that entails. I know Barb Klocke had strengths that I could never replicate, benefitting kids that I probably couldn’t have helped; what strengths I had were very different and the dynamic in the office changed, probably for better and worse. Just as no teacher is the best fit for every student, the same must be said of a guidance counselor. And in what was essentially a one-person shop, that can be problematical for some kids. But, as the saying goes (actually the following was not a saying then), “It [was] what it [was].”

There you go, your word of the day: “Serendipity!”