Program Building: The JEG

Just a short piece, at least in part because on the political front I don’t know where to start, and, some would say, don’t know when to stop, either. So those thoughts will continue to percolate until they spew messily all over the counter. Not sure anyone is looking forward to that mess.

A former, now friend, who shall remain nameless but knows who she is, wrote to thank me and let me know that she had received kudos (and some $$) from her bosses, based in part on her written communication skills. The credit is hers, of course, because she took instruction that was available to everyone and developed skills that continue to serve her well.

But where those skills were honed was in the JEG room. JEG was born in my second attempt as a journalism adviser (my first was short-lived and less than memorable because I had no clue as to what I was even supposed to do). When Curt Kenner left Hancock (and, for a while, teaching, until finishing his career in journalism at Lindbergh) after the 1977-78 school year, the high school needed a new yearbook adviser. In true Hancock fashion, I was selected because I had the best camera, a Nikon, and knew, more or less, how to use it. I never was journalism certified, but worked (very hard) at learning the skills needed to teach it and train young journalists.

With the help of Rich Wall (and the gang at Schiller's Photo – an uncompensated and unsolicited plug) and some enthusiastic young photographers, together we learned how to set up and run a darkroom and some of the toys we inherited from Curtis (like a huge process camera). The next year, trying to tap into the Foxfire (cultural journalism) trend, we resurrected the school newspaper and, eventually, a literary magazine.

I believed that to build a program that would be a source of pride for its members, we needed to create an identity and tradition, just like any team, organization, or club. Thus was born the Journalism Education Group (JEG). We were successful enough that the acronym stuck for a long while. (In fact, I think it survives to this day.) We muraled the wall outside of our door with paintings of front pages and yearbook covers. My alt. kids also decorated the darkroom with the names of their favorite music groups, some of which I not only remember but have on my playlist: Ramones, Blondie, Sparks, Gruppo Sportivo, Devo, Roxy Music, The Tubes, etc. Music drove a lot of work printing pix in the dark and breathing the chemicals.

Anyway, we grew and developed not only an identity, but a certain amount of power. As you might guess, that was not always well received. But I contend to this day that Hancock’s first state championship was actually in 1985 when we were awarded All-Missouri status in a state sponsored competition for the school newspaper, one of only two St. Louis schools to be so recognized (the other was Kirkwood, a perennial all-state journalism program). 

There were a couple unfortunate by-products of that success: the school principal did not speak to me for a year and a half; I got tired of the conflict and quit the post after that year. Our HQ in Room 102 was then broken up like Germany after World War II, and moved to another, more easily observable, location in the building. I had some great young journalists in the pipeline and still feel bad about abandoning them, but the situation had become untenable and I needed to step away from the fight.

I returned, under a different principal, to the position in 1990-91 and stayed for another six years, and while the second batch of student journalists was more mainstream and less alternative, they were equally successful and proved that location is just one challenge, not an obstacle.

The point of this, however, is that I believe a strong journalism program is the best college (and life) prep available on the high school level. Think about the skills: writing under pressure with deadlines and for public consumption; editing one’s own writing as well as those of others; finding multiple ways to say the same thing in fewer or different words; researching supporting ideas with evidence and detail; talking with people, making cold calls, developing and living within a budget; working as a team, playing well with others, committing to excellence.

Unlike many people, the students in JEG understood that being critical was NOT being disloyal. They felt a part of something important, something that had a tradition, something that was bigger than any individual, something that could make the school they loved better. I could go on and on, and, seeing as how I don’t have anyone to edit me, probably would, except I said this would be short. (You didn’t really believe that, though, did you?)

I’m proud of many things about my Hancock career, but the bright trajectory of the JEG (which, after several stops and starts, is once again in capable hands) I consider one of my top achievements, and, if you look at the alums of that group (both the 80s and 90s versions), you’ll find a significant (and diverse) number of successful Hancock graduates in a variety of fields. I’m proud of each and every one of them.

You're Fired!

Before Donald Trump ultimately delivers his own coup de grace (surely some statement so outrageously stupid will finally sink his ship, although current polls and events offer depressing evidence to the contrary, despite his best efforts to live down to my expectations) and fades into (at least) political oblivion, I thought I’d share my story that ties into his (typically despicable) catch phrase. I am going to post it on both my Hancock and personal blog because, well, I can.

The setting: Year 5, which some of you might know as Tenure Year. Although tenure’s protections are vastly overrated, it does mean that administrators must at least follow procedural rules to fire you. (They do NOT need to actually prove their allegations.) Prior to that, it’s a simple, “Buh-Bye.”

I don’t claim that I had achieved anything close to Master Teacher status by this time in my career. In fact, I make no claim to have ever achieved that. But this was an especially tough year.

• A new principal, the late John Gibson, arrived. 

• I was the president of the teachers union and was a constant (and some would argue, perpetually obnoxious) PIA to administration. I was also effective.

• I had the worst class in my entire career (of course, I didn’t know it at the time; I probably DID intuitively know that if many more like that had followed I would have self-terminated, at least as a teacher): Freshman English, a class roster of 28 students, 24 boys and 4 girls, with family names that read like a Who’s Who of Lemay infamy (including a couple of the girls). Average reading level of 12^th percentile, with the highest at the 25^th percentile. 20% were off the chart at the bottom. (I know of only 3 from that group who graduated, although I may have missed 1 or 2.)

• I was naive, believing that I could change the world and them. I kept trying to actually teach instead of just retaining (some semblance of) control. I had yet to learn that you couldn’t actually teach unless you had control; I hadn’t needed to know that the previous four years. So at least I learned something that year.

• I was not a good teacher for those kids. Could someone else have done better? I don’t know, but they could hardly have been worse. (They DID provide me with some of my best stories, though.)

• Relatively new father, with new responsibilities in that area and resultant marital stresses did not help.

Did John Gibson actually have orders to fire me? Can’t prove it one way or another, but he was an ambitious man and knew, at least instinctively, that getting credit for my leaving the Place would be a feather in his cap.

I was struggling. It was no secret. Gibson told an English department colleague concerned about evaluation that it be unfair (his words), for example, to evaluate me based on that one class. (I remember no particular problems with any of my others; neither do I remember even one bona fide evaluation prior that point in my career. One year’s consisted of the principal stepping into my room and throwing me a mini-basketball from Lemay Bank; I successfully reached down and to the left to make the grab and earned praise: “You’re all right!”) Guess which was the ONLY class he sat in on and on which I was evaluated.

That spring, the late Jim (father of Cardinal broadcaster Dan) McLaughlin and I were in the lounge next to my room when the late Don Steckhan, math teacher emeritus, came huffing and puffing up the stairs. (Steckhan was a 5x5 smoker, so that description is pretty literal.) PCs were at least a decade away from common usage; everything was handwritten on paper, and Steckhan had a habit of perusing said papers on the principal’s desk while he was away.

“You need to get down there,” he wheezed. “You're being fired!” Mac (and I? – maybe) immediately headed down, confirmed what Steckhan had seen on the evaluation, and the wheels started turning.

I met with state union reps, lawyers were contacted, strategies discussed (including initial preparation for a lawsuit claiming a violation of my 1^st Amendment rights – did I say I tended to be outspoken and critical?). Most importantly, Mac (the law school graduate) set up a sidebar meeting with Superintendent Brodbeck. As near as I can tell, whether this was a plot or just a rogue operation, Brodbeck was either not in the loop or up for a fight. In any case, he assured Mac, “We don't want to fire the union president.”

They didn’t. When the evaluation conference was finally held (the shortest in my career, except for the year the [different] principal wasn’t speaking to me and just shoved it in my mailbox) the cover sheet, and ONLY the cover sheet, had been changed to read, “Recommended.” This despite, if you believe what was actually written on the evaluation itself, my being the worst teacher in the history of the universe. If I had believed it, I would have fired me. Instead, not even attempting a rebuttal, I took the win, signed the document, and left the office.

And life went on. By the time I finally retired, 29 years later, I think my personnel file had its own file drawer. 

Yes Deer, No Deer, My Deer, Oh Deer

Many apologies for having taken such a long time between posts. Thanks to those of you who have encouraged me to reboot by telling me how much you’ve enjoyed my observations. My original intent was to sort of take a chronological approach, but if I can get back into this, I’ll just kind of make random observations from my 37 years at the Place. 

The confluence of two different bits led to this memory, another in my cultural dissonance with Hancock. Veterans Day (upcoming) makes me think of my father, of course. Although he liked the outdoors and took us on camping vacations (although those may have been motivated as much by frugality as a desire to commune with nature), apparently he had gotten his fill of guns during the war, to the point that they were not a part of our lives and hunting never was on the family radar.

I’ve noted elsewhere my disconnect with guns, so you can see why I was confounded in my first few years at Hancock High School by the annual disappearance of a significant number of (male) students during deer season. Apparently it was a not uncommon Lemay (and elsewhere, no doubt) family tradition to take off a few days or even a week when the season opened. I didn’t get it, but the administration just kind of shrugged their collective shoulders and took a “What you gonna do?” attitude. Maybe there was some subtle discouragement at play of the practice, or a suggestion that weekends would also work for that foray into manhood, because I don’t remember it being any kind of issue as the years wore on. When it actually faded away I don’t recall, but only remember it as an issue for the first maybe 3-5 years. Or maybe I got use to it.

Perhaps it had something to do with attendance being more closely tracked and monitored, rather than the early-years procedure of Mrs. Dougan asking Mr. Messner or Mr. Eichhorst what our attendance was on any particular day, followed by a pause and the shouting of a (clearly) fictional number, e.g., “93%” or whatever. Ah, the good old days.

New Memories Under Construction

Forgive the over-long hiatus. It’s embarrassing to admit just how quickly I forgot how much work is the art of teaching. I’m currently filling in on a maternity leave at Lindbergh High School (where Hancock connections show up almost daily). I will probably have comments about this experience on my other site (Don’t Get Berndt), and will then resume this memoir, as well.

Thanks for your patience.

TBT - Working to Contract, October, 1973

For Throw Back Thursday, an old picture (probable photo credit to the late Curt Kenner, passed on to me by the late Richard Sharp, and that's two too many “lates” for my liking) of me being interviewed by Betsy Bruce (who, incredibly, is still working). It was, for the record, one of the worst interviews of all time, and if any other record exists I hope it never sees the light of day. Just the memory of it is embarrasing enough. I would have had to improve to make it up to awful. Thankfully, it never aired. Before that school year ended, however, I was giving (radio) interviews almost in my sleep for the early morning broadcasts. Key: ignore the actual question and answer what you really wanted the reporter to ask.

This came to mind as I read an article about Marshawn Lynch’s tactic to avoid being fined by the NFL prior to the Super Bowl last weekend. (See: http://theweek.com/articles/536184/subversive-brillianceof-marshawn-lynch ) “Work to Rule” is an old tactic, although at Hancock in 1973 we called it “Work to Contract.” I’ll leave it to others to debate whether it was a reasonable, fair, or even effective tactic, although teachers were definitely frustrated and felt like we had to take a stand.

Among other issues, like frozen salaries, we were protesting the attempted elimination of personal leave. I think there were others, but that was the flash point I remember. Jim McLaughlin and I were selected to meet with a subgroup of school board members to try to work out a compromise. We meet weekly in the evenings for at least a month and finally reached an agreement. However, the school board, I specifically remember Earl Meuhlfarth, Berlina Green and Art Hartman as the prime recalcitrants, and Superintendent Veryl B. Young rejected the agreement, giving momentum to a period of labor strife that lasted for several years.

There were two daily newspapers back then, and a (sympathetic) reporter for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat once told us, “Just call me when you go out on strike. The story is already written, I just need to plug in the dates and new information.” That’s how inevitable such an action seemed.

But that October we were certainly not at that point; the grievances had not yet accumulated and we hadn’t done the necessary planning and political groundwork. So the teachers association (HPCTA) voted to “work to contract,” meaning, like Marshawn Lynch, we would do the minimum required, which meant we would not stay past the listed hours for any “extra, uncompensated, duties.” As you might guess, students were not happy to hear that whatever clubs or extra activities they participated in would disappear until the dispute was resolved.

Politically, that did not include sports teams, of course, because coaches were compensated via extra duty contracts. Although the action would have been even more effective had sports been threatened, we would have lost the coaches’ support, as tenuous as that seemed to be at the time (and, in fairness, would have cost them the minimal money they made for coaching).

Student reaction was swift. They staged a walkout that quicly brought the media to our front steps and pushed me in front of Betsy’s microphone. I have no knowledge that our students were actively encouraged by teachers, but it would take a level of naivete beyond even mine to deny that the seed had at least been planted and, probably, nurtured. Certainly HPCTA was accused of working behind the scenes for such an outcome, with the expected denials. In any case, there we were, making history with the first (to my knowledge) student walk-out in St. Louis.

Things got worse before they got better, but a new school board and superintendent, Roger Brodbeck, slowly reached accomodations, and, eventually, even trust, with the union. That strike story remains unwritten, although there were at least two last-minute agreements in the next couple or three years to avoid that ultimate confrontation, but those are stories for another time.

As evidence that even the teachers were not completely on the same page in terms of what actions to take, I’ll share a final story of how Jim McLaughlin and I split, temporarily, on our own stand. Debbie Weissflug and I had been working to start a Drama Club. Not being a sport, there was no question about us being compensated, of course. But Debbie and I came up with a proposal that kind of made an end-run (another football reference to tie in to the Super Bowl) around “work to contract;” we convined the school board to issue us a contract that would pay us with a cut of the “profits” from whatever play we put on. I’m pretty sure that play was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Mac argued with me that we were sabotaging the job action and undermining teacher unity. Being trained as a lawyer, however, he recognized that technically we were also following the “letter of the action.” I’ve always loved irony. And I don’t remember getting any money.