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!” 

It's The Little Things

I was recently asked to solicit “testimonials” from former students about the impact of teachers on their lives. That generated some warm fuzzies from formers on Facebook about their years at Hancock, but it also got me thinking.

It also generated some memories, and because it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my HP-HP blog, I thought I would share a few, plus a lesson it took me a while to learn.

When I started at the Place in the early 70s (okay, very early 70s) I resisted the notion of being a “role model.” I parroted some professional athletes of the time who were rejecting that job. “My job is to teach, not preach. It’s not my place to set an example, that job belongs to their parents, not me, etc., etc., etc.”

I was wrong on a couple counts. What it took me years (too long) to realize was that I was a role model whether I wanted the job or not. We are all role models, not just for our own children (and I think I became a better teacher when I became a father because my perspective expanded) but for all the children with whom we come in contact. I immodestly also think that in spite of not wanting the role model job, I managed to do it decently anyway, just because I truly did care about the kids in the Hancock community.

When people asked me what I taught, my semi-flippant answer was always, “Kids.” I instinctively realized that who I was teaching was far more important than what I was teaching. But it took me a longer while to realize that as teachers there is a huge difference between what we think we’re teaching and what we’re actually teaching. What the students in our care remember is not some random fact or skill so much as an attitude, an approach to life. 

Conversations with formers frequently reveal that what they remember best is a random thought, a throwaway line, a kind word, a compliment; it’s not some specific part of the curriculum, it’s not whether you put the day’s objectives on the white board (or smart board, or, in a retro reference, blackboard – and if you have to ask what a blackboard is, just “Shut up!”), or whether you got all the boxes checked on some administrator’s walk through checklist.

I’m guessing that’s what will be revealed in the brief videos that will alleviate what is the usual tedium of those interminable in-service days. For those who submitted them, know they were appreciated. And for those who just thought about that teacher or organization that helped during your adolescent school years, those thoughts, too, are appreciated – because I believe that energy makes the universe a better place.

And if you get a chance, pay it forward with your own kind words, thoughts, and deeds and be a role model for good.

End Game

I thought I had recounted this before, but I cannot find it anywhere on either blog; apologies if the story of how I came to leave Hancock High School and the School District of Hancock Place is a repeat. Incidentally, this is not the end of the HP-HP blog, just another random story generated by a news hook.

An article in the newspaper (yes, this dino still reads one) talks about how about 2/3 of Missouri schools offer no AP or ACP classes to their students. 

There are many pride points to my career, but one of the most important is the role I played in starting Hancock High School’s AP program (and, prior to that, its Advanced Credit Program, years earlier, as well as distance learning through the Junior College District). For my second year of retirement I proposed starting AP-US History (APUSH) at the high school. This earned support from both the district and building administration, so I headed up to Illinois Wesleyan for a summer institute on teaching APUSH and began developing the course.

It was a success and, like any franchiser, I began planning expansion. I proposed bringing a new teacher on board as a trainee for the future. I was, after all, at least officially retired, albeit teaching two college level classes, Pysch 10 through UMSL, as well as APUSH, and I didn’t want the AP program to wither away or be passed on to someone not ready or able to continue it at a high level once I finally decided to put away my chalk, retire my dry-erase markers, walk away from my smartboard, although I admit I didn’t anticipate leaving the Place for at least another year or two.

Little did I realize at the time I had planted the seeds of the demise of my career at Hancock; I just thought I was being proactive in building a strong program. I’ve always been a little naïve. However, Dr. Ed Stewart, who told me I could work at Hancock for as long as he was superintendent, retired and an outsider came in. He (apparently, I learned later) wanted to dump me his first year but was convinced, grudgingly, to keep me on for the additional year (with a 25% pay cut). I took my mentee/successor up to Northwestern with me for another AP institute; we talked about vertical integration to the middle school, other courses we could add to the curriculum, etc.

My mentee, as it turned out, knew my days were numbered long before I did, but had been sworn to awkward silence and secrecy, forced to wordlessly watch as I dangled, investing time in doomed proposals to a principal (Jeff Buscher) who, while acting as though he was my advocate and friend, had, unbeknownst to me, already not just thrown me under the bus, but chained my feet to the pavement. Had I known of his betrayal, I would have pursued a different strategy in my futile attempt to stay on. However, to be fair, which is more than I can say for him, I doubt anything would have mattered. The new super’s mind was made up.

In any case, I went out in, if not a blaze of glory, at least incendiary indignation, with a speech to the Board of Education, which, not surprisingly, backed the superintendent, buying his lie of “I have people who can do what you do [and don't let door hit you in the butt on your way out]” (Hancock still doesn’t offer Intro to Psych, the closest thing to a universal graduation requirement elective out there, or even AP Psych), plus a district-wide “farewell (e)ulogy” (the closest I can get to an FU) letter. I still have a copy. That superintendent? Long gone and unlamented, as near as I can tell.

And that was that. My 37 years at the place were over, before I was ready, my institutional memory and contributions discarded like detritus from the old building. However, please do not assume that I continue to harbor any bitterness or resentment, although I confess that was a process, not an immediate reaction; rest assured that not only am I at peace, but grateful, living a life that “is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” 

Because after a year off, spending priceless hours and days with my newly born granddaughter, I found the perfect landing spot for my career with the four incredible years I spent at Solomon Schechter Day/Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School. I became fulfilled again, learned a ton, met many wonderful people, taught a bunch of great kids, and made lifelong friendships. And, thanks to the lessons I learned during my first (and subsequent) Yom Kippur(s), and long before Frozen, I was able to “Let It Go.” When I retired again, it was on my terms and my timetable, because it was time and I was ready. So it turns out that the lack of loyalty was actually a blessing, one for which I will be eternally grateful, as I will also always be for my 37 years at the Place.