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!  

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.

First Impressions, Part 2

Still trying to lighten the mood while trying to sort out my feelings about local events. I know this is America and knowing what you’re talking about is not a requirement for voicing an opinion, but nothing is ever as simple or clear-cut as it appears on the surface, or as people want it to be. However, I hope the following two anecdotes just are what they are.

My First Open House

Open Houses at Hancock High School in those days were poorly attended affairs, a mandatory duty that accomplished little, except giving the few parents who showed up the chance to chat up the teachers, rookies and veterans alike. But it was a learning experience for me, another big example of culture shock. The evening was nearing its end and one of my sophomore boys bounced in. That was not uncommon at the Place back then; in some years students coming up to visit almost equaled parents. What did throw me, however, was his question: “Want to see a picture of my son?” Wait, what, sophomore, son.... “Uh, sure?”

I was naive, certainly; but this was the first high school student I knew of to have a child. That’s because in my circles it was either never mentioned or “taken care of.” He, however, was as proud as could be and while I don’t know what happened to him or his family, I at least hope that pride translated into being a good father.

Remember, this was 1971, and good, blue collar, usually union jobs were there for people who had the skills and willingness to work. A couple decades later I tried to explain to students how quickly the world had shrunk. “When I started here,” I would say, “my students were competing for jobs with kids from Affton, Bayless, Mehlville and the City. Now you guys are competing with people from not just the metropolitan area, the state, or the country. You’re competing with people all over the world. You better make sure you’re up to the challenge.”

(F***) Bombs Away

Another sign of how things have changed comes from my “Make It or Break It” class of sophomores. I think we had reached our accommodations by then, working together to get through the year. The bell had not yet rung and students were milling around their desks, conversing before class started. One of the “stars” of my challenge class rushed in and tried to drop his books on the desk (in the front of the room, of course), but one spilled on the floor. It was his bad luck that for probably the only time all year the entire class got quiet at once, just as he dropped the “F-bomb,” clearly if not loudly.

Two points. First, the word was certainly not in as common usage as it has become. Second, with all eyes upon him, he looked around, shrugged, and said, “I know.” He then reported himself to the office. I didn’t have to say a word. By the end of my career, students would either argue that they hadn’t said what everyone had heard them say, or ask belligerently, “What the big f***in’ deal?”

First Impressions, Part 1

Hoping, perhaps, to lighten the mood and offer a diversion from the disturbing events out of North County (Ferguson), let me share a couple stories from my first year at The Place.

You have to understand that Lemay was something of a culture shock for me. My parents may have been South City kids (Idaho and Osceola Avenues, Cleveland High graduates), I was not quite 5 when we moved from Nottingham to Webster Groves. My school districts had been Webster (8 years), Lah-de-dah-due (Ladue, 2 years) and 3 years of high school in Brussels, Belgium. College post-high school was more than the norm where I grew up, it was the default. Even when I left Hancock 37 years later, almost every graduating class had 5-10% of its graduates as the first in their family to finish high school.

My first Assistant Principal was Siegfried Messner. For some of you, that should be enough to send your mind careening down memory lane with your own stories. My first actual contact with the 5x5 bowling ball who moonlighted as a bar bouncer was one morning as I was headed up the stairs to the third floor of the West Wing. By contact I mean literal contact. A blur blasted past me on the left (I had properly used the “Up” staircase, Up the Down Staircase having been a recent bestseller). A couple seconds later, as I reached the top of the stairs, came a significantly larger blur brushing (fortunately) by me and launching itself in a flying tackle of the offending student. There followed a wrestling match. Lee Warren was otherwise occupied with his Wrestling at the Chase duties, apparently, but the outcome was quickly determined. I’m guessing Siegfried enjoyed a close to 200-pound weight advantage.

Later that year (or perhaps the next) a student offered a rather unflattering opinion of me (standing up to announce, “You're a J-off,” to which I calmly [and for those who knew me later, calmness was something of a gradually acquired attribute] replied, “And you're gone.”). It is a sign of how dramatically times have changed that the student took himself to the office and reported the exchange. Anyhow, the next morning Mr. Messner called me to the office.

“Come in here,” he said. “I want you to see this.” I entered the office to find the offending student (Yes, I do remember his name, no, I’m not going to tell you.) waiting inside, trembling.

“Bend over!” bellowed Siegfried. The student complied, grabbing a chair or desk with both hands. To be fair, students were always offered the choice of swats or a suspension, so I guess he knew what was coming, at least in a general sort of way. Messner then proceeded to take down the leather glove he kept on a nail next to his prominently-displayed paddle. Slowly he flexed his hand into the glove, testing to make sure there were no wrinkles, I assume. 

Messner then took the paddle, rocked back and forth a couple times and, literally, I swear, launched himself at the skinny butt, repeating the force of the 300-plus pound blows twice more. That young man was a lot tougher than me, I’ll tell you that, but, then, he was a Lemay kid.

    Having finished, Messner then ordered the offender out of the office. “Get out of here!” he choked. The poor kid was lucky he didn’t get another blow from the door as Messner couldn’t get it closed fast enough so that he could fall on the floor, rolling in laughter. “Did you see that?” he chortled. I assured him that I had. I also never sent another kid to the office for years. I don’t know if my student was traumatized, but I certainly was.