Living in the Present

After five days of Thanksgiving holiday my first period students roll back into class. The first statement that I hear is one that is on my mind too. "When is winter break?" We seem to measure time from holiday to holiday- a very unzenlike process. I should be enjoying the now of my teaching. Actually there are moments that I enjoy extremely and moments that are painful and I will try to pick apart those.

Painful moment- Hannah, a loudmouth self-absorbed student, is now giggling over something as most students are writing quietly in their journal. On the other side of the room, her friend Alexys makes a comment that she was busy with Megan. Megan is a student they make fun of and pick on. I have already given one referral over this issue. I have written both mothers and I know that at least one of the mothers has read the riot act to her daughter.

Enjoyable moment- Then the same girl sees a sign in the back of my room. "Stop Israel's slaughter in Gaza." She asks about Gaza. This is what I love. My whole class attentively listens as I try to simplify the issues involving Israel and the Palestinians. They keep asking questions. I joke, "Don't you guys have a social studies class?" Looking at my crude map on the board one of my students asks, "Where is India?" I point to a place beyond the board and answer, "over there."

Period 3
Enjoyable moment- My students ask for a new idea from my Ideas book. Our idea this week: Are we the top ape? The issue of human superiority.

Painful moment- Tanner has his head on the desk, and says that he got no sleep. Then Jeff says he needs to go to the bathroom and doesn't return. Then Tanner asks to go to the bathroom, then Jared asks to go to the bathroom.

Period 4
Painful moment - I am trying to get class started and as many times as I tell Jake to sit down he ignors me. Then he says, "I have to tell Mark about the Stanford game." Then when he finally gets to his seat, he is sitting on top of the desk instead of in it. I tell him to sit down. He says, "The seat is broken." I say, "Sit down." Then I say, "See me after school." He says, "I can't. My family... blah, blah, blah." I hate this.

Painful moment - We're reading Lord of the Flies and I hear some talking in the hall. I go out and 7 of my students are out there talking. "You let me go." "I had a call slip." "I had to use the bathroom." I respond, "All of you! no bathroom passes for the rest of the semester." Then as they come into class, I tell the class to remember who is involved- Mark, Rosie, Ashley, Angela, Jackson, Yudic and Amelia.

Painful moment- "I don't have my book." I had about six books up here for students to read and now there are only two. I say, "Whoever forgets their book next time will have to read." I call on two students who are not paying attention. Then someone says, "This is a boring book- too slow." The kiss of death. Do I now become the defender?

Enjoyable moment- a discussion manages to get started about the personalities of the main characters and the use of fear as a tool.

Enjoyable Moment - Jake comes to me and profusely apologizes. He says he will change. The sentiment is nice but I don't believe him.

The reader can see how little of this is about education- or maybe it is. Maybe this continuous back and forth between teacher and student is social learning.

Period 5

Enjoyable moment - They are quiet as I write. The sun is out and I am finally getting a little warm after shivering all morning.

Painful moment: Katie says, "This is too close to our five day holiday. Everybody is tired. Can't we just lay back and rest?"

Enjoyable moment- As we work through these sentences, the students are genuinely trying to make their sentences better.

Lunch: Enjoyable moment- our 30 minute lunch with my peers: Lanette, Alta, Susan, Mark and Joel- but far too short.

Period 6
Painful moment- The class is still talking after I ask them to quiet down. I start putting those little behavior checks in my roll book. Max comes to me and says, "I don't know if I've finished that test. Should I go down and finish it with Ms. Dugan." I say, "I don't know if you've finished it either." "Well, I don't think that I have finished it." I say, "Well, you can go and finish it now."

Enjoyable moment- the class is quietly writing. Also I just got the form that says Brendan is out of my class. One of the students told me he has gone to a military school - a good place for him.

Enjoyable moment- It seems like this class is actually reading the Lord of the Flies. We just had this great discussion over the two main leaders in the book and what they represent. Ralph is the liberal left in terms of the one who wants more government. Jack is the libertarian in terms of wanting less government. But where is the facism of Jack? I think I can go somewhere with this.

Period 7
Enjoyable moment- my prep period.

A letter from Angela

I received a letter today from a student at Cooper City High School in Florida. She is in a Computer class that prepares students for college. She wants to know about this school, Analy. What classes do I teach? What activities Analy offers? electives, college credit, dual enrollment, standardized tests?

Dear Angela,

I hardly know where to begin. I have taught at least two computer skills classes at Analy High School since I began teaching here about ten years ago. My class consisted of one semester of projects relating to learning Microsoft Office. I assume that many of them were similar to the projects in the class that you are taking now. In the second semester I taught a variety of programs that helped students learn web page building, including Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash.

I use the past tense because this year the Computer Skills program was dropped, not for lack of interest but because of lack of funding. California has been going though major budget cuts and it is affecting the schools severely. Unfortunately for the next several years it looks like more of the same with a projected cut of 17 billion dollars more in k-12 through community college funding next year. The sources of the problem are many. But our governor and legislature bear a large percentage of the blame. Also it appears that tax payers are not willing to pay for an educational system that used to be the envy of the world until 1978. I will end my grandstanding and try to answer the rest of your questions.

Analy High School is located about 60 miles north of San Francisco, in Sonoma County, a place known for the best wines in the United States, along with our neighbor Napa County. Our town Sebastopol has about 7000 inhabitants, it is one of the more wealthy communities in the area and gives great support to the arts. We have several art galleries and a theater in this small town. Analy has about 1300 students. We have a small agriculture program and an active FFA. Our arts program is superior to most of the others in the area: an excellent school band, school ochestra, regular school theater and excellent art teachers. Our funds for the arts are supplemented by school bond. Some of our students take college classes at nearby Santa Rosa Junior College. Our school ranks high in academic standing.

Our students must take a number of state tests. There is the STAR test for all students which helps ranks the schools in terms of academic standards. Up until this year all Seniors had to pass a high school exit exam, but the state dropped this requirement due to budget cuts. There are also the usual array of Advanced Placement Exams.

My credentials are in English, Social Studies and Art. I also have a Masters in Education with a specialty in Educational Technology. I have been teaching for 22 years and ten of those years in this district. Having all these credentials has made my teaching career varied but difficult. One year I will teach Freshman English, the next World History, the next Junior English and so on. This year I teach two Freshman English classes, two Sophomore English classes and one Sophomore World History class. My hobbies are playing guitar and several other instruments as well as singing. Also I do some classical painting sometimes in the summers. Like you I love to travel and was lucky enough last summer to go to Russia, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic.

You asked about colleges. The University of California systems has some of the top schools in the world, equivalent to the Eastern Ivy League schools. Also there is a large system of state schools with many varied programs. Our community colleges are also excellent but all the state funded schools are suffering from the severe budget cuts in the state. There are too many private schools to name, but you must know of Stanford University, one of the top schools in the United States.

Feel free to write anytime. I am happy to answer your questions.

Sincerely,

Edward J. Lynch

Winter Fest

Saturday night we were to meet on A Street, dressed as furniture- Donna put on a bright red wool dress with a lampshade at. I donned a matching lampshade. A Street in Santa Rosa has become a center for artists. This event happened last year and this year even more spectators arrived. The Hubbub Club met in an alleyway decorated with lights, a tractor bearing a snowman and a roaring fire. A nearby studio had a jazz duet and several performance artists. We had forgotten our bottle of holiday cheer, so I entered a study to fill a glass. Yet the numbers had emptied the bottles in one studio and I saw no more almost the entire night. I came as official photographer.

The band began to play and the crowds filled in around us. We (I say we as an unofficial member and photographer.) marched out of the alley and into the main street. The atmosphere was festive. People waved and danced around us. Other just watched or visited the studios on the street. Impromptu spectators became marchers, suddenly a sofa with children is following. Then the snowman leads the parade. Strains of Watermellon man, then "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Late in the evening a jam session started on the corner. I was invited to play the base drum. I played to Miles and Coltrain. A great session- for about an hour. I played so hard I made one of my knuckles bleed- bad technique. I took lots of photos and will leave a link here soon. I will add more to this blog as it was a long fun night.

A Student Comment

After first period one of my Freshman came up to me and said, "Mr. Lynch, I think that we are not doing enough writing in this class. Today we spent one hour going through one chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird." I thanked him. Then for the rest of the day that little comment haunted me. Perhaps I am not giving him enough writing. I should certainly say, that he is not getting enough writing in my class. I suppose that for a comment like this to affect me so much, may say more good things about my teaching than bad. I always question myself. Am I doing enough for my students. Then I look at how little time I have. Now, 110 English students and 30 World History students. I am still grading essays that I assigned three weeks ago. And I vowed to myself that I would not assign another essay or major piece of writing until all of the others were graded.

I generally spend from 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM or 6 working- with a half hour break for lunch. Then I come in for at least 3 hours every Sunday to make up work at school. This past batch of papers were especially difficult. I thought that I had prepared them in every way to produce a good piece of writing. They met in groups to discuss concepts then do a presentation on the subject. Hence they will be well prepared to write an essay on the subject. Unfortunately the preparation seemed to do little good.

I constantly question myself about my teaching effectiveness. One to one teaching is easy. But as the numbers increase a teacher must make compromises. So by the time the class sizes are up to 30, the class become something of a factory setting. The teacher orchestrates the group to do common exercises. The teacher engages in discussion and get maybe 50% to engage. Students gauge their own worth in the class by the number of points the can accumulate in the class by a series of test. This focus on points has been the bane of my teaching career.

I have one class this year where I can experiment, although I consider controlled experimentation in education a good idea. In my history class I decided to divide it into three parts: basic knowledge and information, important ideas and the story of history. I do not have enough time to go into detail now, but I promise one blog to explain my techniques.

So for my unsatisfied student I am working on intensifying my writing curriculum. And in fact students need improvement in writing badly. I do some grammar exercises every day and have worked. It is already Monday. I will begin today with a new writing exercise. Let's see if it helps.

Invisible Ink

One of my students just told me that his essay wasn't handed in because his friend gave him invisible ink as a joke. What you would you tell him?

Yesterday this happened to me. I told him that in my twenty years of teaching that I had never had an excuse like that. But I decided to leave it up to my Facebook friends. Here are their comments.

1. that's a good one, I would ask to borrow it so you could give him an A for effort.
2. well, sometimes if you iron paper with invisible ink on it, it will develop....
3. I would tell him " go get a job ! ". Hi Ed, how do you do ?
4. give him style points.
5. Invisible or not, it was not handed in, so it is late and graded as such. I'm sure you receive papers that have visible ink and would be better if they said nothing at all.
6. Tell him that's a funny coincidence because right here in the grade book you gave him full credit but that must have been in invisible ink as well. Huh, funny thing.
7. Hahaha . . . nice one!
8. More believable if his dog ate it!
9. I like the Truckee's one eheh .. great idea !! How are you all btw??
10. I second Truckee's idea. Muy bien!
11. Truckee has the response that's best.
12. Ed ask him where I can get more invisible ink. I ran out of it and I need more for my office. My boss always falls for the invisible ink excuse.

Internet Preparation

I found out by the final test that I gave on the Novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card that only about one third of my students knew the book well. One third had read it to some degree and one third had not read it at all. I am attempting to remedy that situation with the next book.

I am teaching Lord of the Flies probably only the second time in my 20 years of teaching. It becomes a day by day affair. To gently prod my students to read I test them on a chapter per day. To find that chapter I go to Google. Type in "Lord of Flies Chapter 5 quiz" and see what I come up with. Fortunately there are a plethora of tech savvy teachers out there who post their tests on line. Often they post without answers. So I must take the tests as well as the students before I hand it out to them.

So this past period my preparation time I have wildly searched the Internet for simple tests, chapter by chapter that I can give my students. I also look for lesson ideas, especially ways to do group work where the students will actually learn something. I have found over the years that such work must be carefully planned or the stronger student always does most of the work.

Last night I watched a movie with Truckee, Entre Mures (Inside the walls) or The Class as it has been translated. A Cannes award winner presents a multicultural class in France and the trials of one French teacher in his class. I could not help but be critical of his teaching technique, at the same time found the presentation realistic. He would stand in front of the class and throw out questions about grammar. The would exchange wry comments with each other. Some students would ask sincere questions and get thoughtful answers from the teacher. Some would banter lightly, ask absurd questions or bait the teacher. One student says, "I heard around campus that you are gay. There is nothing wrong with being gay. Is that true?" Then the teacher verbally dances around the question. Finally the teacher says that he is not gay. I found it hard not to take the teacher point of view as well as be very critical of him the whole time.

Avocations and Hobbies

Saturday, my son and I went to see three speakers at the Schultz Cartoon Museum in Santa Rosa. One was the author of the syndicated cartoon Mutz, one a collaborator at Pixar Studios and one a published author of fiction. They compared their style in creating fictional characters in each ones media. It brought me back to my creative endeavors. My remaining creative endeavor is right here as I write, but I only consider it an outlet. Most of the central outlets of my life I have set aside, because of this cruel years overwhelming duties.

I anticipate the day where I can throw myself into my many hobbies and interests again. Part of the problem is my own lack of discipline, but nothing helps more than having large chunks of time. I have dropped my Italian class because I am just too tired after school to sit through a class. Perhaps if it were more active conversation, I would have stayed.

I authored a cartoon diary for about ten years, until, probably because of overwhelming workloads, I stopped. It does not take a great deal of time to draw a cartoon. I've been drawing them for more than 25 years. It does take some quiet time for the ideas to filter in. I ordinarily take an event from my daily life and twist it a bit. I have collected about 10 books full of cartoons over the years and have thought about publishing some of them, but I would rather start fresh. So an easy way to start I thought may be to make characatures of my students. Why not. They are sitting right here- fresh and ready to go.

Then my serious art I set aside- well serious is not the proper word, but when I work, I work in a more intense way that any other thing that I do. I studied with a great artist in Oakland almost fifteen years ago. He captured a style that made my knees weak. My father, an amateur artist, raised me going to museums and loving the artists of the Renaissance. Something in David's drawing style reminded me of the sensitivity of Da Vinci's and Rafael. I learned that this style was classical realism. I studied with David Hardy once a week for about three years. Then I would try to take advantage of a week or two's workshops in Taos, New Mexico, Florence, Italy and Toronto Canada. But my practice of realistic painting was always dependent on the workshops that I took during the summer.

And music... Since I started playing the guitar at age fifteen, music had been my easy escape. I am blessed with a good voice and a great love for music. I have played and dabbled in many musical instruments, but guitar remains my great love. At present I am studying and practicing what people refer to as Gypsy Jazz or Django style. My son and musician, Joey, says to me, "Dad, you need to be practicing those arpeggios." And indeed I must, but I do not put in the hours of time necessary to become really good. I took a summer jazz improvisation class two years ago and daily had to practice two to three hours a day just to keep up. I retain some of the skills and knowledge but am extremely rusty on the instrument. I have a wish to record some tunes and play with other- but all are now in the background while I work this demanding job- but just for six more months.

So let us see if at least I can begin with a few characatures to liven this blog.

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.