Stories

There are some things which save your life. Good teachers are often one of them.

Initially against my wishes, from the second grade through the sixth, the public school system put me into a program called "The Ungraded". It was for the gifted, the retarded, the creative, and the problem kids. The theory being we would all help one another get through whatever it was we were held back by. It was most definitely where I belonged. I didn’t make many good friends, but it was a more open atmosphere for learning and the students were less focused on conformity. It encouraged self-reliance and in the middle school years we went camping every two weeks, winter or summer.

In the Elementary school I first had a tall female Chinese teacher who didn’t quite reach me, then a Japanese teacher named Mr. Fuji. Many things about his Japanese influence and creative energies stuck with me forever. A typical day in his classroom might start something like this: at that time every person in the room had a mouse, which we used for experiments dubbed the Mouse Olympics. Early in the morning while most of the students are busy measuring, recording and comparing the sport results from their teams of mice, Eric who was the most cognitively challenged student in the class held his mouse too tight and it died in his hands to his grief and horror, and the disbelief and outrage of the rest of the class.

Mr. Fuji immediately takes the tiny crumpled bundle, stained with the sweat of Eric’s hands, and sits down at the central table with it in plain sight before everybody on the tabletop.

"It’s time for Biology and Anatomy" Mr. Fuji says and taking out a scalpel slits the little body from head to tail. We gasp and gather closer for a better look at the carnage. He expertly slices the skin from the muscles and pins it down all around to the tabletop. He shows us all the muscles and how they work when the limbs are moved. Even Eric is enthralled and speechless. Next he separates the organs and digresses into a long discussion about digestion. This goes on a brief tangent into chemistry for the older students. While he’s talking about enzymes and acid, Mr. Fuji is sewing the hide up stuffed with cotton, and at the end of the lesson he returns the stuffed mouse to Eric and tells him that he can squeeze it all he wants now. We all squeeze Eric and break for recess.

In the fourth grade a funny thing happened to me; I was working ahead into high school algebra and became stuck. Our class was so busy that I could not get the help I needed from the teacher, so I kept puzzling after the problem. Eventually I devised a way to always get the correct answer. Using this method I stayed at the top of the class in math through about the 9th grade then WHAM linear equations came along and I could not solve them. I failed freshman algebra . I took it again and failed it again for the same reason. I took it a third time and failed it again! Many years later in my 30's I tried and failed again! I took Algebra one last time and passed with straight A's, having had to learn everything over from scratch. When my son was in college he showed me some esoteric math which had equations similar to what I had worked out as a child. Unfortunately this series of episodes precluded me from pursuing further math or science classes.

In the fifth and sixth grades I had two amazing teachers Scott Edmonson and Susan Gibbs who gave me my first personal encouragement . This sustained me for years and years and helped me believe in myself, and began the concepts of caring about my schoolwork and my life. It felt like half our time was spent outdoors; playing a game in the snow called 'KillerBall', cross-country skiing and camping in snow caves. Bouldering, hiking, learning 'no trace' principles, and running races through the aspen groves. Indoors I was allowed to work past my grade level. We had a favorite game called 'Knowledge Bowl', and we spent hours recording our experiences in journals. I remember one camping trip; after slogging up a mountain all day with our packs, we had a large bonfire that night in a metal drum we had found in the forest. As we all sat back and put our tired cold feet near the fire, my nylon socks literally melted off my toes as I got them too near the hot metal.

On another occasion a few of us were selected for a special project because we were ahead in our work. We were given the dark storeroom in which to put together a presentation of the constellations in the night sky. Industriously we covered the many bookshelves with black paper, then discovered that this made 'tunnels' along the bare shelves. Over the next few weeks we dumped more books into the corners in order to build more tunnels, which we would whiz along on our stomachs in utter blackness with the lights off; usually with one of us chasing the other. Forgotten was our presentation! Eventually our wild shrieks alerted the faculty that something was amiss with the project and we were caught.

The public school system at that time also had a wonderful music program and I started playing flute in the 5th grade. Mr. Klutchko diligently tutored me through the summers and I played competitively through High School, taking home many first place prizes.

Authored By Jess Bates
Aspen CO                      

Reproduction allowed with attribution

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