Character

I am a Fogey, Fuddy-duddy, Geezer, Dinosaur, Fossil, or literally, an old man. I entered high school in 1962. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another. To quote Charles Dickens, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” To paraphrase Hunter Thompson,  “Things were starting to get fucked up.” The idea that education should be politically correct, and nurturing was still unheard of. Corporal discipline meant to instill character in seemingly irredeemable teenage boys was encouraged as a necessary evil to check the surge of testosterone flooding our bodies.

For example, walking the hall one day I saw Mr. Sparks, the math teacher who was a decent fellow and what some might call an egghead, a rather quiet and erudite man. Out of character, he flailed his arms back and forth and up and down to punctuate an animated discussion with a burly senior class boy named Joe. Joe dwarfed Mr. Sparks who was tiny and light, like a ragged scarecrow picked at by crows and losing straw at weird points on his body. Think Dorthy’s travelling companion in Oz. On the other hand, Joe stood almost six feet tall with thick lips, light reddish hair, a ruddy complexion and weighed close to two hundred pounds. He was thickly muscled, smiled mischievously, and his eyes held a constant Irish twinkle. Think giant mutant leprechaun.

For an eighteen-year-old, the senior held a reputation like an ancient mythical warrior. It was said Joe got drunk one Saturday night at Lamey’s Grove—a popular dance hall for the rowdy under-legal-age drinking crowd—and when the security guards attempted to remove him, he whipped five of them like stray dogs. It was said he whipped two state troopers who stopped his car on the highway while in handcuffs and after drinking a keg of beer. It was said he feared no man or beast and had once bent a lug wrench with his hands when angry. This was the danger facing timid Mr. Sparks on the staircase when the bell rang, and we all rushed to change classrooms.

I wondered why the math teacher made an issue of Joe running up the stairs even if walking was all the principal allowed. The teacher stood on the landing between floors. He reached out and grabbed Joe’s left shirt sleeve as Joe, ignoring him, turned to leave. All in one motion, Joe whirled, shot out both hands against Mr. Sparks’ chest, lifting him off his feet and sending him backwards down a flight of steps. Luckily, the fellow bounced on his ass and off several students, buffering the violent descent.

Enter Clayton Weist, our high school principal. Mr. Weist—yes, I still call him Mister out of respect, even though he died many years ago. He witnessed the incident from across the hallway. In three long strides, he had hapless Joe by the shirt collar. Hauling him across the hardwood, he hurled Joe into his office and slammed the door. The frosted glass in the top half rattled and trembled but did not break. From that moment forward, the whole incident was on audio. I saw nothing, but the sounds coming from behind that door were self-explanatory. The thumping, clanging, bumping and banging, maybe even a whimper or two, had stopped all commotion in the hallway. We were supposed to be changing classrooms but stared at the closed door, mesmerized as if standing on a streetcorner observing a car wreck.

You see, Mr. Weist got his straight bearing and authoritative tone as a colonel in the army, becoming an educator only after retirement. Not only was he used to demanding obedience from guys much tougher than Joe, Mr. Weist was capable of earning the respect of guys much tougher than Joe. When I told my father about the incident, he just laughed and said, “You really have to be some kind of stupid to try Weisty’s patience. I remember when he was a student himself before he joined the army. He worked the oil fields in southern Illinois to earn money during the summer. Weisty wasn’t afraid of much, but he had a rabid fear of snakes. One of the older guys on the rig found a harmless blacksnake and threw it on him as a joke. He shook that snake off, took a deep breath, and smacked that guy across the head with an iron pipe. No words were spoken and no one played any more pranks on him that summer.”

I have no proof that any of the stories about Joe or our principal were true, but I do know what I saw. Joe left Mr. Weist visibly shaken. He always had a pale complexion like many redheads but leaving that office his face looked as if it had been dipped in bleach. Not only that, I heard that Mr. Sparks received a sincere apology.

Most stories, especially true ones, have a moral or a point to make. Mine is obvious, I think. We live in an era when all the hard years and hard work a person goes through to become a teacher earns no respect. Teachers get paid very little compared to the long hours they put in at school and at home doing their jobs. Their opinions don’t mean anything, even in their fields of expertise, to “helicopter” parents who hover at school board meetings and complain that their children are being made uncomfortable by learning FACTS that don’t coincide with personal opinions. A teacher has no options for disciplining a smart-ass teenager who disrupts class constantly without risking job termination or an assault charge.

I’m not making a case here for a return to corporal punishment. If Mr. Weist was to manhandle Joe these days, he’d be jailed for assault even if Joe deserved it. Also, it’s too easy for humans to abuse power instead of directing it toward a constructive end. I’m saying that learning anything requires a student is made uncomfortable sometimes. I’m wishing parents would help instill manners and consideration and the value of critical thinking at home instead of entitlement and privilege in their offspring. I know it’s difficult to raise children, especially during adolescence. I raised some myself.

But what’s more difficult is the result of doing it without instilling the value of being taught where we are at as a society and how we got here, exactly what most teachers are trained to do, especially in the field of humanities (i.e. history, literature, culture, art, philosophy, sociology, debate, etc.) because this is the education that makes a society work. If you think I’m wrong, read the newspaper headlines. How are we doing these days since parents begin fighting facts being taught? In some southern states, slavery cannot be spoken of in school. It must be called “The Atlantic Trade Triangle.” What really caused Custer’s last stand? What American foreign policy screw up led to the war in Vietnam? What noticeable scientific advancements came from ethnic minorities? How has corporate interest influenced our economic development? Why did the Founding Fathers express distrust of religion in government? Who deserves the right to vote and why? Has the Constitution always been correct (ex. Blacks were once considered only 3/5’s human by law)? Should we ban great works of literature because a phrase from the past in them may “trigger” our precious babies?  Every one of these questions, among many other delicate ones, is important to all our citizens in understanding ways to make society better for all of us. That has always been a major goal of public education.

This type of teaching and learning can’t be done without some level of discipline and some respect for the people who have chosen to sacrifice their time and energy doing it. Parents can’t abdicate this responsibility at home, require it from professionals, and then complain when they do it. When we do, we instill the idea in our children that their own opinions and bias and prejudicial attitudes, which they learn from us, will always outweigh facts. It will also make life harder for them when they enter a world where no one else cares what they think, but only what they have learned.