First and Fifth Period, November 13

"Old age is no place for sissies." Betty Davis

The class where I now sit used to be my quietest class- shy Freshmen. For two months I could hardly get a word out of them. Then two voices emerged, loud and self-important. They happened to be friends. I first moved their seats then they would talk across the room to chat with each other. I moved one to the back and one to the front. Alice sat in the front and behind her a shy diminutive and good matured girl, Maddy. Alice would make seemingly joking, but biting comments to Maddy. I gave an ultimatum to both of them. Either behavior changes or I call home every day. Behavior did not change and I tried to call Alice's mother but the number in our database was wrong. She would not give me her mother's phone number. Boom- referral. So now I sit again in a quiet class as everyone writes in their journal.

Writing prompt: "Would you like to be famous? Create a scenerio where you actually become famous for something that you do well."

Now in fifth period- never ending well of good feeling, but today noisier than usual and eating more. I walk around the room as they are chatting and should be quiet. Proximity to try to get them to focus. It works to some degree but there is still some chattering. I walk up to the front and ring my bell. Then there is silence. Most are writing in their journals. Becca is a little late. "Sorry, Mr. Lynch." So polite. It has not gotten to the point where I can hear a pin drop. Then I hear a page turn and a pencil drop. "Mr. Lynch, can I go to the bathroom." Now some more whispering. I must get up and stamp their journals. My aids anxiously await the vocabulary quizzes that they grade for me every week. The sun is shining, the students are happy to be here. It is a good day and it's Friday.

Antsy Sixth Period

There's Bryan in front of me eating a sandwich just after lunch. I had to move him to my friend, Alta's room. Ari passes a note to Megan who passes it to Hana. Hana drinks from her soda then has a brief conversation with Ari. Eva is asking Ari something. Ben is sitting there in front of his journal doing nothing- wait, wait, he is now writing. Brian is taking a big swig of something orange. Nicole is reading Lord of the Flies, which was the homework for last night. Bryan just made two loud coughs. Brenden is quiet. Hmmm, I wonder what is wrong. Ginsea is looking to both sides of the room. But the room is quiet- and then I have two little tests and a quick grammar exercise. Max comes up to me and politly asks if he can have the test to take in the RSP room. I give him his tests.

Then I will hand back their literary essays. I am pretty displeased with the shallowness of the analysis, but I am not one to call it to their attention. My main focus is that they follow an argument in a logical way and that they follow the devised five paragraph essay format. It is an easy one and I would estimate that about 50% got it right. I chalk up the shallow thinking to sophomore disability that we will work on. My main goal this year with my English students is to get them to analyze literature, no small task. And in Ender's Game, a light science fiction, the task was difficult. Now as we read "Lord of the Flies" I am bombarding them with symbolism, socio-political theory and Freudian analysis. The should be pulling out the obvious at least.

I sit here now after class exhausted. I crammed the class full of assignments. After journal they took their vocabulary quiz, then a mini- grammar lesson that I go around and hand grade A+ if they get all three sentences correct. Then I gave them what I call the "Did you read Chapter 1? test." I handed back their essays, gave back the portfolios from last year and collected them again. Then for this antsy gregarious bunch I decided to have the class use the text to draw a picture of the island. But they were noisey. I projected a little powerpoint that asks questions about chapter 1 and asked them to answer a series of questions on the back of their map. One kid says, "All of that is in Chapter 1?" So it is. Then, collected it and yes, now I have to grade it.

Just as the bell rings and the students leave, the phone rings. Lindsey tells me that there is a student study team for Anothony in whose room? I walk to the other side of the campus to the wrong room and finally make it to the right one. This student has been struggling all year, more of a Junior High School type Freshman, in term of maturity. He is confident that he can turn in a story, pass the upcoming vocabulary quizes and read ten more chapters of a book where he has only gotten to Chapter 5.

So here I am. Now what am I doing tomorrow? 3:45 PM- time to prep for tomorrow's classes.

The Social Contract

Several forces have converged to make me think about the social contract. In my one history class as we study the Enlightenment, my focus for the class is to have them understand the social contract. Briefly the social contract posits a tacit understanding between the government and the governed so that that an orderly society might ensue.

I googled "social contract" and came up with a variety of videos. Most captivating was the wacko anarchists who appeared to be the only ones to truely understand the concept. But I felt that they railed against a theory which really has changed since we had kings. They point out the inherent contradictions in social contract in that citizens really have no say on whether to sign on to this contract or not. Perhaps the idea is only an idea to put into nice words the reality of governments relationship to the governed. If you are happy with the government, then one will feel good about the "contract". If you are discontented with government as most anarchists are, then the social contract is unfair.

The Internet shows various ways that activists use the term social contract. A left leaning group uses the concept to reevaluate the relationship between workers and a company. What obligations does a company have towards its workers? Another tries to evaluate the success of a government in the way that it provides services to the people. In the health care debate, many are calling universal health care part of the social obligation of the government within social contract theory. Although the terms seems to have lost its relevance in terms of its use by Hobbes and Locke, the public uses the phrase to boost its particular take on sociopolitical problems.

We come to English and I have a choice of books. Lord of the Flies seems to fit the bill in terms of developing an idea of social contract or lack of it. We are reading from the afterward in the book that tells of all the deeper meanings in the book. I am trying to give them some background to understand the forces at work. So first we deal with the Freudian concepts of Id, Ego and Super-Ego. Then we take on the social philosophers of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.

St. Joseph's Seminary - Part 2

Joe Cahill, I don't mind using his real name, was an ass. Perhaps he had positive characteristics but I hadn't known any. Before I knew what a Republican was, I knew that he was a Republican. It was just after the election of John F. Kennedy and every day produced a tirade against Kennedy. He tried to teach us world history, perhaps tried as best he could, but he wasn't very good. "You throw shit against the wall and usually some of it stickes." He used to say. "But with you, guys, none of it stickes." I suppose I do remember something from that class. Perhaps his better qualities were in University administration because he became the President of St. John's University in Jamiaca, New York.

Joe Marin taught us Latin- kind, young and handsome. He would come into the class with his Latin book, open it up and actually get excited about Caesar's Gallic Wars. He loved giving us the Latin words for all of the war munitions of the Roman army and talking Roman strategy and famous battles. Even though I found Latin very difficult, I enjoyed is relaxed manner and easy laugh. Here was a priest who like people and young people in specific. The difficulty would come when he gave us a test. The Monday after the test he would walk in truely crestfallen. He would sit down at his desk and put both hands over his face. He was very quiet. Then he would slowly rub his face up and down slowly, then a few groans. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong," he would say. Then he would repeat it several times. Then he would pull out the test papers. It was an effective teaching technique. We felt so bad for disappointing him that we actually tried a little harder next time.

I was on the Internet yesterday looking for a photo of Joe Cahill for this blog. One would think that the former President of St. John's University would have a photo on the Internet. He died several years ago, but it appears that he left without a trace. But I accidentally came across a disturbing website. It was a database of priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct. Fortunately Joe Cahill had not, but there were thousands of priests and some had photos as well as links to the news stories as well as a summary of their crimes or alledged crimes.

Since I had know so many Vincentian priests I decided to search the database for priests that I had known. At first when I seached "Vincentian" alphabetically, most of the priest that I came up with were from the west coast. But then I came up with someone I knew. I will not relate his crime. He was a year or so ahead of me in the seminary. The most shocking thing for me was that an event placed him higher than most others in my opinion.

I left the seminary in my Senior year of university. It so happened that my mother died that June in 1972. He was the only person who sent me a letter of sympathy on my mother's death. All of those Vincentians, and perhaps they didn't know, but he was the only person part of that community to send me a note. It meant a lot to me at the time.

I think of all the contradictions in this issue. The community that I belonged to was begun by a parish priest in Paris of the 1600's who saw the corruption of the diocesan clergy. Corruption at that time probably had to do mostly with sexual abuses and money collections. Priest led loose lives at that time little connected with a community of priests. So we had the idea that our particular order should have rooted out the "bad apples". I don't really consider this priest a bad apple. I subscribe to the school that teaches that we are all human. We are all subject to making mistakes, even big mistakes. And these mistakes, especially some kind of sexual behavior with a minor, come from a real isolation from physical and possibly even close collegial relationships.

Since I began this piece with Joe Cahill, I will end it with his paid obituary in the New York Times, September 30, 2003.

"CAHILL--Rev. Joseph T., CM, 84, Priest and Educator of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentian Community) on September 27. Former pres. (24 yrs) St. John's University, NY. Mass 12 noon Thursday, Star of the Sea Church, Cape May, NJ. Viewing Thursday 10-11:30AM Sudak-Danaher Funeral Home, Cape May. Mass also on Friday 10:30 AM at St. Joseph's Seminary Chapel, Princeton. Interment St. Joseph's Seminary Cemetery. Donations Lilian & Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Box 1070, NY, NY 10029. It was through this institute that Fr. Cahill received extraordinarily competent, compassionate and respectful care."

"sic transit gloria mundi."

St. Joseph's Seminary

The campus of the seminary sprawled from east to west over about 200 acres, just north across Lake Carnegie from Princeton, University. A dairy bordered one side, a large nursery backed the property and small sheep farm was just across the road. We could tell if it would rain if we smelled the cow manure coming from the east. Across Canal Road we had a large pine forest, trail, grotto just next to the no longer used Raritan Canal. A footpath separated the canal from Lake Carnegie. The signs of life outside this isolated oasis were few. Cars still speeded by, black fishermen with their rods and buckets would walk along the canal path and once or twice a year a lost driver would stop and ask for directions. Sometimes we watched the daughter of the grounds keeper twirl her baton just outside their home, a hundred yards across the front lawn. It was a modest cause for excitement for her face and figure blurred in that distance. Yet it was still the only trace of a youthful females in this male dominated enclave.

A group of German refugee nuns occupied the original seminary building on the far east of the property. Then the main seminary building, a large gothic stone edifice, had two wings and three floors. The dormitory on the top floor had a seperate t-shaped room on each wing with 32 beds in each wing. Since each bed sat only 3 feet from the next someone devised a modest method to undress in the evening and dress in the morning. Of course it involved a robe and sequence of steps so that no would have impure thoughts triggered by viewing the underpants of another boy. Yet the gymnasim showers were a completely open space where any hiding of any part of one's anatomy. The first time I saw the room full of naked boys, it shocked me.

When the alarm rang to wake us at 6 AM we would walk down three floors to the lockers in the basement, grab a towel and take a shower. Still sleepy we'd walk to the chapel, take our assigned seats, listen to a short prayer or thought of the day. Then we'd sit and meditate, or daydream or nap. Strangely enough we were never really taught how to meditate and the hour itself- 6:30 AM, made true meditation all but impossible.

The main floor of the main building held two classrooms in the main hall and a reference library at one end of the hall. At the other end of the hall was the former refectory. Eventually all classes were moved to the main building. I don't know how some of these rooms were subsumed by other occupation, except to remember that as editor of the YV, The Young Vincentian, I worked in one of those rooms with AB Dick paraphenalia to produce a literaty magazine. At the other end of the hall was storage, I believe. As I am limited by time, I must abbreviate this memoir. So silent good reader, if you want more, you must ask for it.

"Little Ed" begins High School- Part 1

We had a meeting the other day with an entire entourage of caregivers. Two psychologists, a counselor, parents, school principal and six teachers but the student was nowhere in sight. It is clear that he was drowning in the overwhelming demands of high school. I was such a student.

I had struggled all through elementary school, but high school was another level of difficulty. I had moved out of a loving but crowded household at the age of 13. Another school private seminary had rejected me in eighth grade because of low entrance exam scores. But my father had connections. Both he and his brother, Francis, attended a Catholic seminary in the early 1940's just as World War II began. Some of his best friends were priestd now and my Dad took me to see the place, St. Joseph's in Princeton, New Jersey at the tender age of 12. I remember his words exactly. "It's not so important that you become a priest, but they can teach you how to study."

At the age of eleven I had expressed an interest in becoming a priest. It seems like a good idea at the time- being raised in a deeply religious family, it seemed to offer the opportunity to see the world and do good all at the same time. But by the summer of eighth grade I had started to change my mind. Girls had started to get my attention. And I said, "Dad, I think that I would rather wait until after high school to enter the seminary." My Dad knew better. He knew that if I did not enter now, that there would be little chance that I would be interested after high school. So I quote his reply in the previous paragraph.

I remember trying to read Great Expectations as a Freshman. I might as well have been trying to read Greek. (Greek would come later.) Every subject was far more difficult than I had ever had to do before, especially Algebra. I could say especially everything: World History, English, Latin, Algebra, and Theology. I think that they were all of the subjects. I pulled staight "F's". In fact the seminary school graded us with numbers and not letters. Under 70 was failing. So it came as a revelation once I left the seminary that a 69% was actually a D+.

I often feel a comradeship with failing freshmen. I know what it feels like to be at the bottom. I know what it feels like to be hopeless and overwhelmed. I was convinced that I was stupid. I know now that many of my problems stemmed from a reading disability. When I was in seventh grade, I could hardly read. I remember looking at the funny papers as a child, but only having the energy to read "Henry", a comic of few or no words. Somehow I was lucky. I wanted to read in spite of my disability. I pushed my way through my first book "The Longest Day" because I was interested in the subject.

I tell my Freshman that I am the only person at Analy High School to have attended five years of high school. My first year in the seminary was such a failure that they gave me the option of returning only if I repeated my Freshman year. Fortunately I wasn't alone. Dennis Greeley and Seth Copeland were my companions on this journey through a second Freshman year.

Every 15 minutes

For two days our staff and students participated in program called "Every 15 minutes". On the average every fifteen minutes a teenager dies in a traffic accident. I think that that is the statistic. The idea is to bring teens away from making reckless choices about drinking and driving, even deciding to ride with a drunk.

An announcement comes over the loudspeaker. It is the recreation of a 911 call. Something like, "Oh, my God, there's been an accident over on Franklin Road." "Is anybody hurt?" "I don't know." "Stay there I'm sending a police and ambulance over as quickly as possible."

That message is our cue to send the teachers down to a place below school where two cars have apparently collided. A girl, bloodied is hanging out of a broken window. As all 1300 students watch, first a police car arrives, followed by several more, a first responder rescue squad, a fire truck and an ambulance. The first responders ascertain the situation. The big equipment comes out to cut open the car and rescue the injured in the back seat. The girl who went through the window is put in a body bag and taken by the coroner. One of girls in back seat is brought to a waiting helicopter and flown to a trauma center. Another of the injured is placed in an ambulance to be taken to the local hospital. A policeman subjects the driver of one vehicle to a sobriety test. Then the cop places him in handcuffs and excourts him to the back seat of the waiting police vehicle. A dozen students and one teachers along with the grim reaper stand by. On the previous day, every 15 minutes one person was removed from the student body, symbolizing the death of a student in a traffic accident every 15 minutes in the United States.

The next day the entire school assembles in the gym. We get the back-story there. A fifteen minute film is assembled reviewing the events of the previous day, but adding the visit to the hospital, the communications with parents and the booking of the drunk driver. Many of the support staff have take the victims and their families though a simulated accident scenerio during those two days. The parents of the "deceased" have written a letter to their "dead" child. Their children have written back from the grave and both read their stories to the assembled 1200 students and support staff. Then an undertaker described in detail how he gives dead people their last bath. Sometimes he can clean them up so the family can say their last goodbyes face to face and sometimes that isn't possible. He discribed how a family had to feel a loved one through the body bad. A twenty six year old woman spoke about driving with a friend from Oakland to Sebastopol. Her friend, Alex, did sound for the band that night and stayed sober. Driving at the intersection of Stoney Point and Route 116 a car driven by a drunk Sonoma State student hit them so hard that their car with them in it ended up in a field and her friend, Alex died and cushoned the fall for her.

Then our principal, Chris Heller got up. "I would like everyone to know that I am six feet six and I am a man's man and it's OK to cry." And so as he read an emotional statement about how he cannot imagine a day without his two daughters, and choked over those words.

It is hard to know if this three day presentation will have a real impact, but it emotially touched many at the moment.