My Public School Journey More Than 60 Years Ago
Attending Public Schools in Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA
(A Winter Picture of Baltimore City College for Boys where I attended 10th grade)
[Note: On August 23rd I posted an article on the death of the public school. Here is a link to that article immediately below this paragraph. It caused me to think about my life in public school. The article posted below the link from yesterday is my remembrance of the trials and tribulations of public school. Page down to see my remembrance. I invite you to comment and share you public or private school story.]
My Public School Journey More than 60 Years Ago
I am a product of public schools in Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA.
At least I was from grades one through twelve. Prior to grade one I attended a church preschool and kindergarten. After 12th grade I attended a church-related college, and then a denominational seminary.
I received a great education in public schools. The cultural and behavioral climate I experienced was significantly milder than in current days, but a lot has changed. Also, a lot of students who would represent a calming effect in public schools are now in semi-public or private schools or being home schooled.
That also means their parents who would be a constant voice for civility in public schools are no longer present to advocate for this. These same parents may also be a great source of school fundraisers and volunteerism.
The absence of these parents as advocates in the public school system negatively impacts the quality of public schools. It may be that public schools are perceived to be worse because these parents and their children are no longer present.
I do not know this as a fact, but my perspective today makes this seem logical.
If one of the goals of charter schools, school choice, and private schools is to protect students from diversity and perceived evils—by whatever definition people choose to use—then maybe public schools were not the best for everyone.
If the goal of public schools is preparing students for the real world, allow for interaction with people who have differing viewpoints and perspectives, and to learn about things from which I would have been mistakenly protected in non-public schools, then public schools were the best for me.
If there were banned books in public school when I attended, I did not know about them. There were certain books in restricted areas of the library you could not check out until you were in a certain grade. Many of these related to sex education.
Public School Integration
Grades one through three I only had white middle class classmates in a neighborhood school. Grades four through nine had only a few non-Anglo-American students. One was a Chinese boy—Kenny—who was one of my best friends in school. We had no interaction outside of school.
This school was a combination elementary and junior high school in an area primarily composed of upper income family neighborhoods. There were exceptions to this elitist zoning. My family was one of those. We were just a solid middle-class family without upper income lifestyles.
High school was different—both in Baltimore where I attended 10th grade and suburban Philadelphia where I attended 11th and 12th grades. Both schools were significantly integrated.
In Baltimore the public male-only high school was very segmented by socioeconomics and race. The high school was on a hill with various sets of steps leading up to it. Arriving at school meant dodging the guys playing dice on the steps and to run the gauntlet of the people smoking and blocking the school entrances.
When walking down the hall during the day, the segmentation by socioeconomic class—which again often meant race—was obvious. However, the interactions experienced were either outside on the school steps or in the bathrooms.
Entering the subculture within the boy’s bathroom was an adventure. I tried not to stay long in the bathroom.
Diverse Teachers and Students
Public schools also had a diversity of teachers who were not part of my everyday life.
My sixth grade teacher was gay. He was seen around town and at the beach by students and their families with his partner expressing public affection for one another. This was the early 1960s. Conversations about LGBTQ people were giggles, whispers, and pointing.
My ninth grade teacher was a problem drinker and perhaps an alcoholic. She kept a whiskey bottle in a desk drawer. On the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated—November 22, 1963—she had to be helped to walk out of the school and catch a taxicab home.
Sometime in 9th grade I got into my first and only school yard fight. I lost. But a teacher saw the other boy start it and that I was just trying to defend myself.
I also only had one incident—again on the playground—that involved me being assigned to after school detention hall.
I did lose my front tooth on the playground during 4th grade, but that was an accident playing kickball.
My homeroom teacher in 10th grade was a Buddhist. My French teacher that year kept telling me I was too stupid to learn French. Languages were always a challenge for me. I took five different languages to see if I could learn one other than English. I never could.
In 10th grade I was in an advanced college preparatory class which had all our classes together. I was admitted as I was reasonably smart in every subject except non-English languages.
This preparatory class had 28 students. All except five were Jewish. On significant Jewish holidays only five of us came to school. On other Jewish holidays the Reformed Jews came to school, and we had ten to twelve those days. The Orthodox Jews were not present on less strict Jewish holidays, but the Conservative Jews were.
This was my first major encounter with Jewish students. The academic ability of many of these students intimidated me. Three had overall grade averages above 100 due to extra credit projects they did.
It was my worst year in school regarding grades. I recall the teachers graded on a curve and I was always behind the curve.
My best friend that year was a Jewish student—Jonathan—who sat beside me in several classes. He was extremely smart. He came in seventh in the nation in knowledge of the Old Testament among Jewish youth. He knew the Old Testament so much better than I did as a Baptist pastor’s son.
For 11th and 12th grades we were in suburban Philadelphia.
The diversity of this school allowed me to interact with many Catholic, Jewish, African American, and fundamentalist Christian students. These groups together composed over 80 percent of the school.
The encounter with fundamentalist Christians significantly impacted my feelings about the most conservative end of the Christian spectrum. Not in a good way. It was in the Bible Club I was part of with them where I first heard the word inerrancy. The way they said the word inerrancy and treated the Bible seemed pejorative rather than holy.
My Spanish teacher hated me and told me so. He told me one day in front of the class that the only thing he liked about me was a certain shirt I wore.
I unintentionally provoked all non-English language teachers because I just could not seem to hear, understand, and speak the language they taught.
When it came time for me to take the driving part of driver’s education, I showed up at the meeting place with the driver’s education teacher. The other two students in our group were really cute girls. I would have loved to be in the class with them for eight weeks!
The driver’s ed teacher had a reputation of liking cute high school girls more than he should.
When I showed up, he said I was not on his list and that I should go back to my regular class. He would call for me later in the year. He never did.
After high school graduation, my father went to the school to check on why I had not gotten the driving part of driver’s ed as that would lower my car insurance rate. The school records indicated that I attended the driving part and got an “A”.
Private School or Public School?
Before I entered high school where I traveled on city transit buses for over an hour each way to get to and from the downtown high school for boys, my parents offered to place me in a private school. I declined.
If I had the chance to do it over again, would I have accepted?
No.
The overall richness of experiences and the encountering of great diversity has served me well throughout my life.
Question: What is your public or private school story? Leave a comment.