Around 55 years after the second term of my sophomore year in high school which I spent at Broad Ripple, I also now only barely remember much what else about what happened inside my Broad Ripple classes that term. Except for my memory of Mrs. Griggs reading aloud my character study about an African-American classmate in my World History class at Bayside H.S. during the fall 1962 school term, whose name was "Benny," during one of her English "G" class sessions of the more academically-oriented students, in which I was now assigned in the spring 1963 term at Broad Ripple.
Because, like I've mentioned a number of times already, in retrospect, it was likely Mrs. Griggs' Indiana-based recommendation which persuaded Columbia College to admit me, that's probably one reason why her reading aloud my "Benny" character study essay in class is what I remember.
Also, in retrospect, remembering Mrs. Griggs' reading of the "Benny" essay in class once again reminds me that it was pretty much what my writing produced that : 1. got me into the "G" English class that Mrs. Griggs taught at Broad Ripple H.S., because my previous English teacher, Miss Barker, had been impressed by "The Ideal President" story my writing had produced in response to one of her homework assignments; 2. got me into Columbia College in September 1965 because the "Benny" essay my writing had produced for an English "G" class assignment to write a character study had apparently impressed Mrs. Griggs so much that she remembered me favorably enough, even over a year after I had been one of her numerous students, to write a favorable letter of recommendation to Columbia College's admissions office that persuaded it to admit me there; and 3. got me elected to the Columbia SDS steering committee in the spring of 1967 because my writing had produced the "Columbia's IDA Connection" paper of "The Columbia SDS Research Committee" (of which I was the sole creator and sole member) that first revealed Columbia University's institutional membership in the Pentagon's Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research think-tank to Columbia's students, faculty and student newspaper, during the 1960's Vietnam War Era.
In retrospect, what prompted Mrs. Griggs to read aloud my "Benny" character study essay in her class was for one or the other following reasons: 1. Although Broad Ripple High School's student body and teaching staff was about 99.5 percent white in 1963, Mrs. Griggs was an anti-racist white liberal in 1963. So the fact that I was likely the only one in her "G" English class who had produced an essay devoted to describing an African-American former classmate probably made the essay seem like a more interesting one to read than the essays others in the class had written; or 2. Since the essay also included a paragraph describing Benny's humorous reaction when I mentioned to him that my family was moving from New York City to Indianapolis in a few weeks, Mrs. Griggs might have felt that reading this "Benny" essay in her class would cause my new classmates to Broad Ripple to tend to relate to me in a welcoming way for the rest of that spring term of 1963.
But whatever Mrs. Griggs' reason was for reading the "Benny" essay in class, to the degree that the essay led Mrs. Griggs to recommend me for Columbia College admission, it turned out to be an historically significant document. Because, without a recommendation or knowing somebody who's a "tapper", an individual without any upper middle-class or upper-class family background, prep, private school or elite public high school background or some kind of referral from an individual with special influence, someone from my family's class background generally did not get admitted to an Ivy League school like Columbia College in the early 1960's.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
On The Road In The 1970's--Part 35
The last memory I still have of my first month of being a transfer student at Broad Ripple H.S. in January 1963, during the last month of my first term as a high school sophomore, is of feeling myself being unexpectedly pushed and shoved hard in an unfriendly way, from behind, by some white freshman or sophomore student guy, who was about my height and weight, as I was putting a textbook inside my assigned locker in the school hallway. And, when startled by feeling myself being pushed and shoved hard from the back without warning, I turned around suddenly to see who was pushing me and to find out why I was being suddenly shoved, my elbow accidentally hit the nose of the white bully, accidentally causing his nose to bleed. So with his nose bleeding, he quickly made his retreat from the space where my locker was located in the school hallway.
Although in my previous years as an elementary, junior high and first term high school student within New York City's public schools in Queens in the 1950's and early 1960's I had never been especially targeted in a school hallway in this way by either another student I was acquainted with or by some student, like this particular white bully, that I had never met before, I pretty much immediately forgot about the incident.
But about a week later in late January 1963, while I was in the middle of delivering that weekday afternoon's edition of the Indianapolis Times newspaper on my route and walking back from a subscriber's home to my parked bicycle near the street, on either Winthrop, Guilford or Carrolton Avenue, I suddenly noticed the same white bully who had shoved me inside Broad Ripple's school hallway, jumping out of a double-parked car on the street, that was driven by a teen-aged companion, and rushing toward me. And then he began to punch me until he apparently felt he'd proven to his teen-aged male companion in the car that he had gained revenge for the bloody nose my elbow had accidentally given him inside the Broad Rippel H.S. hallway.
The white bully then ran back to the double-parked car on the street that was driven by his teen-aged male companion and jumped back into the front passenger seat of the car, just before his male companion drove the car away quickly. And after the car disappeared, I finished delivering that day's issue of the Indianapolis Times to those subscribers that I still had not yet delivered newspapers to before being assaulted; and then rode on my bicycle back to my home.
In retrospect, I probably could have told my parents about being punched by the white bully, filed a complaint with the police, gone to Dean Jackson's office at Broad Ripple and told him about this out-of-school incident involving the Broad Ripple freshman or sophomore who had previously shoved me inside the school by my locker, or telephoned Mr. Evans at the Indianapolis Times office to notify him about this assault on an Indianapolis Times newspaper carrier.
But not having suffered any particular injuries from the white bully's flurry of out-of-school punches, and having previously been socialized to not be a "tattle tale," a "stool pigeon," an "informer," or someone who ran to adult authority figures like parents, teachers, deans or cops to resolve conflicts with fellow students or playmates, I ended up telling no one about this out-of-school bullying incident.. And since I never encountered or ever noticed this particular white guy either inside Broad Ripple H.S. (since it turned out he and I were never scheduled to be in the same classroom at any time) or on the street outside Broad Ripple again before my family moved back to New York City in June 1964 , and was also never bothered while delivering the Indianapolis Times on my newspaper route again, memory of this particular bullying incident quickly seemed to recede; and it seemed not to have impacted my life's direction in a significant way.
Ironically, it was only when watching James Dean in the Rebel Without A Cause movie again in the 21st century that I began to, retrospectively, recall and then reconsider why I had been particularly targeted in the Broad Ripple school hallway and, later on the street after school, by this white student, who didn't know me from Adam, only a week or two after I first began attending Broad Ripple as a transfer student in January 1963.
An individual high school student who has transferred from another high school in another neighborhood, another city or another state is less likely to know other students who might align with him or defend him in response to being picked on or targeted by a student or group of students who might neurotically get their kicks out of bullying others, than a student who is not a newly arrived transfer student at the high school; and who is, thus, more likely to be able to call on other students who have attended the same grade schools with him, in previous years, to align with him in response to any attempt by bullies to target him. So that might explain why, like the James Dean character in Rebel Without A Cause, I was immediately targeted by some freshman or sophomore Broad Ripple student misfit who was apparently looking for some student to bully, after he apparently had taken notice, unbeknownst to me, that I was a newly-arrived student at the school in the last month of the fall term in early 1963.
Although in my previous years as an elementary, junior high and first term high school student within New York City's public schools in Queens in the 1950's and early 1960's I had never been especially targeted in a school hallway in this way by either another student I was acquainted with or by some student, like this particular white bully, that I had never met before, I pretty much immediately forgot about the incident.
But about a week later in late January 1963, while I was in the middle of delivering that weekday afternoon's edition of the Indianapolis Times newspaper on my route and walking back from a subscriber's home to my parked bicycle near the street, on either Winthrop, Guilford or Carrolton Avenue, I suddenly noticed the same white bully who had shoved me inside Broad Ripple's school hallway, jumping out of a double-parked car on the street, that was driven by a teen-aged companion, and rushing toward me. And then he began to punch me until he apparently felt he'd proven to his teen-aged male companion in the car that he had gained revenge for the bloody nose my elbow had accidentally given him inside the Broad Rippel H.S. hallway.
The white bully then ran back to the double-parked car on the street that was driven by his teen-aged male companion and jumped back into the front passenger seat of the car, just before his male companion drove the car away quickly. And after the car disappeared, I finished delivering that day's issue of the Indianapolis Times to those subscribers that I still had not yet delivered newspapers to before being assaulted; and then rode on my bicycle back to my home.
In retrospect, I probably could have told my parents about being punched by the white bully, filed a complaint with the police, gone to Dean Jackson's office at Broad Ripple and told him about this out-of-school incident involving the Broad Ripple freshman or sophomore who had previously shoved me inside the school by my locker, or telephoned Mr. Evans at the Indianapolis Times office to notify him about this assault on an Indianapolis Times newspaper carrier.
But not having suffered any particular injuries from the white bully's flurry of out-of-school punches, and having previously been socialized to not be a "tattle tale," a "stool pigeon," an "informer," or someone who ran to adult authority figures like parents, teachers, deans or cops to resolve conflicts with fellow students or playmates, I ended up telling no one about this out-of-school bullying incident.. And since I never encountered or ever noticed this particular white guy either inside Broad Ripple H.S. (since it turned out he and I were never scheduled to be in the same classroom at any time) or on the street outside Broad Ripple again before my family moved back to New York City in June 1964 , and was also never bothered while delivering the Indianapolis Times on my newspaper route again, memory of this particular bullying incident quickly seemed to recede; and it seemed not to have impacted my life's direction in a significant way.
Ironically, it was only when watching James Dean in the Rebel Without A Cause movie again in the 21st century that I began to, retrospectively, recall and then reconsider why I had been particularly targeted in the Broad Ripple school hallway and, later on the street after school, by this white student, who didn't know me from Adam, only a week or two after I first began attending Broad Ripple as a transfer student in January 1963.
An individual high school student who has transferred from another high school in another neighborhood, another city or another state is less likely to know other students who might align with him or defend him in response to being picked on or targeted by a student or group of students who might neurotically get their kicks out of bullying others, than a student who is not a newly arrived transfer student at the high school; and who is, thus, more likely to be able to call on other students who have attended the same grade schools with him, in previous years, to align with him in response to any attempt by bullies to target him. So that might explain why, like the James Dean character in Rebel Without A Cause, I was immediately targeted by some freshman or sophomore Broad Ripple student misfit who was apparently looking for some student to bully, after he apparently had taken notice, unbeknownst to me, that I was a newly-arrived student at the school in the last month of the fall term in early 1963.
Monday, December 23, 2019
On The Road In The 1970's--Part 34
Over 55 years later, I don't remember much else about how my experience at Broad Ripple H.S. during the last month of my first semester as a sophomore in January 1963 differed from my first semester as a sophomore experience at Bayside H.S. in the fall of 1962.
The Biology I class I was assigned to attend at Broad Ripple was one in which the students were not that academic high-achievers, whereas the Biology I class I had been in while attending Bayside, in which I was scoring over 90 on all the multiple choice tests the teacher gave us, was an "honors" class of academic high-achievers. And all I really remember about my Biology classes at Broad Ripple during my sophomore year was that we dissected some frogs in my first semester class; and in the spring semester Biology II class I attended between February and June 1963, the biology teacher was a wrestling coach, who seemed to be more into being the wrestling coach than into devoting much time to trying to interest his class of non-academic high-achieving students into learning a lot about biology.
Eating lunch in the cafeteria at Broad Ripple seemed to be about as much of a drag between January 1963 and June 1964 as eating lunch in the cafeteria at Bayside H.S. had been in the fall of 1962; although the hot lunch food that Broad Ripple's cafeteria staff cooked allowed me to pretty much just eat a hamburger and fresh fries each day for lunch, instead of just eating some bag lunch sandwich that my mother gave me to bring to school, like I had done at Bayside.
At both Bayside and Broad Ripple during my sophomore and junior years in high school, I can't recall ever sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch at the same table with any of the students who were in any of my classes and talking with any students who were in any of my classes during lunch hour in the cafeteria. One reason was that, at least at Broad Ripple, once you found an empty space to sit at one of the cafeteria tables for lunch at the beginning of each semester, that seemed to become your regular, permanent lunch sitting spot for the whole semester.
The only student I can recall ever talking to at lunch hour when I attended Broad Ripple between January 1963 and June 1964, therefore, was the physically heavy white guy who generally sat across from me at the same cafeteria table, which had had an empty seat across from him in January 1963, that led me to sit at that same table during my three semesters at Broad Ripple. What this white high school student guy (who spoke in what sounded more like some kind of rural Kentucky southern accent rather than an urban Midwestern or Indiana accent) talked about most of the time, after we each finished eating our lunches and waited for the bell to ring that sent us to our next period class, were comparisons between cars and motorcycles and comparisons between the various Indianapolis 500 Speedway race car drivers and their racing cars. His big interest, when he wasn't in school, seemed to be fixing his car, driving around in his car, fixing his motorcycle and driving around in his motorcycle; or following what was going on at the pre-Indianapolis 500 Speedway Race qualifying trials and race that was held in April and May each spring at the Speedway race track, just west of Indianapolis, in great detail..
His interest in the Indianapolis 500 race was so intense that he not only certainly attended the race at the Speedway around Memorial Day each year, with hundreds of thousands of other spectators at the race track, but also seemed to go there to watch the Indianapolis trials, whenever that seemed possible for him. One result of sitting across from him each day in the lunchroom cafeteria for me, was that I pretty much was able to keep up on what was going on at the Speedway in April and May, without having to go to the Indianapolis 500 race myself and observe what was happening there, personally.
The Biology I class I was assigned to attend at Broad Ripple was one in which the students were not that academic high-achievers, whereas the Biology I class I had been in while attending Bayside, in which I was scoring over 90 on all the multiple choice tests the teacher gave us, was an "honors" class of academic high-achievers. And all I really remember about my Biology classes at Broad Ripple during my sophomore year was that we dissected some frogs in my first semester class; and in the spring semester Biology II class I attended between February and June 1963, the biology teacher was a wrestling coach, who seemed to be more into being the wrestling coach than into devoting much time to trying to interest his class of non-academic high-achieving students into learning a lot about biology.
Eating lunch in the cafeteria at Broad Ripple seemed to be about as much of a drag between January 1963 and June 1964 as eating lunch in the cafeteria at Bayside H.S. had been in the fall of 1962; although the hot lunch food that Broad Ripple's cafeteria staff cooked allowed me to pretty much just eat a hamburger and fresh fries each day for lunch, instead of just eating some bag lunch sandwich that my mother gave me to bring to school, like I had done at Bayside.
At both Bayside and Broad Ripple during my sophomore and junior years in high school, I can't recall ever sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch at the same table with any of the students who were in any of my classes and talking with any students who were in any of my classes during lunch hour in the cafeteria. One reason was that, at least at Broad Ripple, once you found an empty space to sit at one of the cafeteria tables for lunch at the beginning of each semester, that seemed to become your regular, permanent lunch sitting spot for the whole semester.
The only student I can recall ever talking to at lunch hour when I attended Broad Ripple between January 1963 and June 1964, therefore, was the physically heavy white guy who generally sat across from me at the same cafeteria table, which had had an empty seat across from him in January 1963, that led me to sit at that same table during my three semesters at Broad Ripple. What this white high school student guy (who spoke in what sounded more like some kind of rural Kentucky southern accent rather than an urban Midwestern or Indiana accent) talked about most of the time, after we each finished eating our lunches and waited for the bell to ring that sent us to our next period class, were comparisons between cars and motorcycles and comparisons between the various Indianapolis 500 Speedway race car drivers and their racing cars. His big interest, when he wasn't in school, seemed to be fixing his car, driving around in his car, fixing his motorcycle and driving around in his motorcycle; or following what was going on at the pre-Indianapolis 500 Speedway Race qualifying trials and race that was held in April and May each spring at the Speedway race track, just west of Indianapolis, in great detail..
His interest in the Indianapolis 500 race was so intense that he not only certainly attended the race at the Speedway around Memorial Day each year, with hundreds of thousands of other spectators at the race track, but also seemed to go there to watch the Indianapolis trials, whenever that seemed possible for him. One result of sitting across from him each day in the lunchroom cafeteria for me, was that I pretty much was able to keep up on what was going on at the Speedway in April and May, without having to go to the Indianapolis 500 race myself and observe what was happening there, personally.
Sunday, December 8, 2019
On The Road In The 1970's--Part 33
One initial difference in my classroom experiences at Broad Ripple, compared to my previous classroom experiences in the New York City public school system, emerged between January and June 1963, when I was enrolled in Mr. Hougham's Geometry class.
In New York City, my Mathematics teachers in elementary school and junior high school were very good at explaining how to solve the mathematics problems that I was required to answer correctly on homework assignments, quizzes and various kinds of tests. So, as long as I continued to spend time doing the homework assignments they gave their classes to do each day, I always was able to obtain final grades in Mathematics on my report cards of "S.O."/Excellent/Outstanding" in elementary school and "90 or 95" in junior high school. And on the standardized I.Q. multiple choice "idiot tests" or Iowa multiple choice "idiot tests" we were given in elementary school and junior high school, I had pretty much always scored in the highest percentile or nearly aced the mathematics part of the tests.
I also was able to obtain final grades of either a "90 or 95" when I then took first-year Algebra, because my father , who had only graduated from an evening high school in New York City in the 1920's, still remembered enough of first-year Algebra to be able to help me determine the correct answers for an Algebra homework assignment problems that might still be giving me some difficulty.
During my first term of taking Geometry in an "honor" class at Bayside High School with a very skilled Geometry teacher who seemed to be in her late 40's, named Mrs. Rogoff, taught, I continued to always get "90," "95," or "100" on any Geomety tests; and I found it easy to learn the required Geometry academic work. A different Geometry textbook, however, than the textbook used in Bayside High School's eometry classes was used in Broad Ripple's Geometry classes. In addition, Mr. Hougham didn't seem to me to be able to explain as clearly or teach Geometry as skillfully each day's Geometry lesson as the Bayside teacher, Mrs. Rogoff, had been able to do.
Hence, the combination of having to adjust suddenly to a different Geometry textbook (that didn't primarily emphasize Euclidian geometry, as did the textbook that Bayside High School used) that introduced geometry topics in a different order and having a Geometry teacher who seemed less skillful than the one I had had at Bayside, seemed to suddenly turn me into a "C" student in mathematics for the rest of my high school sophomore year.
Yet the next year, taking Intermediate Algebra during my junior year at Broad Ripple with a mathematics teacher who seemed more skillful at teaching than Mr. Hougham had been, I once again usually was scoring "90" or "95" percent on the tests and was, once again, considered an "A" student in Mathematics. Which seemed to prove that there was some relationship between how well a student like me scored on mathematics course tests and how skillful his or her mathematics teacher was in explaining the mathematics topics a student like me was to be tested on.
By the end of my senior year in high school, of course, I felt that after public school students learn counting and calculating basic mathematics, it didn't make much sense for U.S. educational system to require students to take so many mathematics courses in high school, whether these courses are taught in the traditional way or taught in accordance with some kind of "new math" teaching concepts, in order to obtain academic high school diplomas. And by the end of my senior year in high school, I also felt, of course, that acquiring knowledge of a subject that interests you for its own sake was a more valid thing to get into than studying a subject that doesn't interest you; in order to just score high enough tests so that the teacher gives you an "A" or a "90" or "95" grade on your report card at the end of the school term.
In New York City, my Mathematics teachers in elementary school and junior high school were very good at explaining how to solve the mathematics problems that I was required to answer correctly on homework assignments, quizzes and various kinds of tests. So, as long as I continued to spend time doing the homework assignments they gave their classes to do each day, I always was able to obtain final grades in Mathematics on my report cards of "S.O."/Excellent/Outstanding" in elementary school and "90 or 95" in junior high school. And on the standardized I.Q. multiple choice "idiot tests" or Iowa multiple choice "idiot tests" we were given in elementary school and junior high school, I had pretty much always scored in the highest percentile or nearly aced the mathematics part of the tests.
I also was able to obtain final grades of either a "90 or 95" when I then took first-year Algebra, because my father , who had only graduated from an evening high school in New York City in the 1920's, still remembered enough of first-year Algebra to be able to help me determine the correct answers for an Algebra homework assignment problems that might still be giving me some difficulty.
During my first term of taking Geometry in an "honor" class at Bayside High School with a very skilled Geometry teacher who seemed to be in her late 40's, named Mrs. Rogoff, taught, I continued to always get "90," "95," or "100" on any Geomety tests; and I found it easy to learn the required Geometry academic work. A different Geometry textbook, however, than the textbook used in Bayside High School's eometry classes was used in Broad Ripple's Geometry classes. In addition, Mr. Hougham didn't seem to me to be able to explain as clearly or teach Geometry as skillfully each day's Geometry lesson as the Bayside teacher, Mrs. Rogoff, had been able to do.
Hence, the combination of having to adjust suddenly to a different Geometry textbook (that didn't primarily emphasize Euclidian geometry, as did the textbook that Bayside High School used) that introduced geometry topics in a different order and having a Geometry teacher who seemed less skillful than the one I had had at Bayside, seemed to suddenly turn me into a "C" student in mathematics for the rest of my high school sophomore year.
Yet the next year, taking Intermediate Algebra during my junior year at Broad Ripple with a mathematics teacher who seemed more skillful at teaching than Mr. Hougham had been, I once again usually was scoring "90" or "95" percent on the tests and was, once again, considered an "A" student in Mathematics. Which seemed to prove that there was some relationship between how well a student like me scored on mathematics course tests and how skillful his or her mathematics teacher was in explaining the mathematics topics a student like me was to be tested on.
By the end of my senior year in high school, of course, I felt that after public school students learn counting and calculating basic mathematics, it didn't make much sense for U.S. educational system to require students to take so many mathematics courses in high school, whether these courses are taught in the traditional way or taught in accordance with some kind of "new math" teaching concepts, in order to obtain academic high school diplomas. And by the end of my senior year in high school, I also felt, of course, that acquiring knowledge of a subject that interests you for its own sake was a more valid thing to get into than studying a subject that doesn't interest you; in order to just score high enough tests so that the teacher gives you an "A" or a "90" or "95" grade on your report card at the end of the school term.
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