What I Learned in School
By Judy Oppenheimer
I. Roy Rogers left his wife for another woman when she was dying of cancer.
Mrs. Nestle, my third grade teacher, gave us this information one day, and I doubt any of us ever forgot it, even though we were only 8 years old at the time. Where she came by it I haven’t a clue; she left that out of the story, along with why she thought we needed to hear it in the first place. All I can think, after having spent a certain amount of time puzzling over it through the years, is that she wanted us to be inoculated against hero worship. Or perhaps be prepared for the celebrity mania which would descend on the land a number of decades later? Whatever, it certainly is the main thing I remember about third grade, though we also did a section on birds I quite enjoyed, which led to me painting a giant picture of a woodpecker I still have — my single artistic achievement. Since I had never had much interest in Roy Rogers anyway, Mrs. Nestle’s story wasn’t particularly upsetting to me. Nor, at the time, did I wonder about its appropriateness as instruction — by age 8 I had come to realize that adults often did things that made no sense whatsoever.
II. People can have miscarriages in unusual places.
Jimmy Brandon was responsible for passing this nugget on, when he got up at show and tell one day and regaled our entire fifth grade class with the story of his mother’s experience. She had been visiting at school, possibly for a PTA meeting, when she felt a need to go to the bathroom. There, in one of the stalls, she proceeded to have a miscarriage.
We were all riveted by this tale, including our teacher, Mr. Webster, who had to have realized too late where it was headed, and decided that letting it spin out was probably the better part of valor, since doing anything else at that point was out of the question. I saw nothing strange in this choice of story at the time myself — face it, it was more interesting than anyone else’s and in fact remains the only thing I remember about that entire year. But I did wonder some years later whether anyone had retold it at home or if Jimmy himself had ever let his mother know what he’d shared with us.
III. No army is popular on another nation’s soil.
I learned this in Mr Houghton’s 9th grade English class, because he repeated it so often it was engraved on our brains. Mr Houghton may have been hired to teach English but his heart was still with the army he had served in his youth; it was clear nothing since had made much of an impact. This made it almost ridiculously easy to steer him away from the study of grammar — even a half-hearted question about the military would suffice.
Sadly,I remember none of his stories, since I tuned out the minute Mr. Houghton, wearing a smile of pure nostalgia, occasionally coughing to hide a manly break in his voice, launched into one of his tales, though to be honest, I tuned out the minute he began talking about grammar too. What this means though is that Mr. Houghton had to have repeated this statement innumerable times. That’s the only way it could have slipped past my day dreams about the boy who sat two rows behind me to lodge in my head. God knows nothing else he said ever did.
But again, to be fair, nothing most of my other teachers said or did registered either; at least Mr. Houghton managed to get this point — his only point — across. Furthermore, that comment has been proven correct many times over, which can’t be the worst legacy a teacher could leave behind. Many of my teachers I’ve forgotten completely, but every time we announce a new strategic initiative, or land troops somewhere to get rid of a dictator, or to keep the peace, or facilitate a democratic process, or whatever other goddamn reason they come up with — I remember Mr. Houghton. Who may have been, as the Isaiah Berlin theory has it, a hedgehog — the kind of person who knows one big thing only — but who at least got it right.
IV. Hitler made the trains run on time.
This was a statement made in our 11th grade social studies class, by a visiting teacher who was, not surprisingly, of German origin, and who clearly still had a great deal of respect and affection for the former Fuhrer.
Mr. Book, our social studies teacher, was determined to expose us to various races and creeds. A worthy aim, perhaps, but he went about it a little haphazardly. He brought in a priest, who attempted to warm up the audience with a racist joke (integration took its own sweet time getting underway in Northern Virginia; in 1959, our high school was still lily white). Another time he directed me to stand in front of the class so they could see for themselves that Jews didn’t look all that different. I was instructed to turn around, slowly, so they could get a good look at me from all sides. Afterwards one determined classmate took to following me down the hall, waving the New Testament; I also received a few earnest invitations to come to church, which I declined.
V. Oliver Wendell Holmes didn’t know what he was talking about.
No one ever said that in class directly. But Mrs. Rodin, my 12th grade English teacher, certainly got the message over quite clearly.
Justice Holmes was the source of the famous line — that the first amendment meant “freedom for the speech we hate.”
I didn’t know that quote as a 17 year old, but I certainly believed wholeheartedly, even then, in the concept. So when we were asked to hand in an essay for the annual “I speak for democracy” contest, that was what I chose to write about.
George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, had put down roots in Arlington, Virginia back then (he was later assassinated by a member of his group). He was a master public relations expert, even going so far as to deliver anti-Semitic pamphlets door to door. In my paper, I argued that one of the foundations of American democracy was freedom of speech — the very freedom that gave Rockwell the right to publish his opinions, offensive as they were.
I was quite proud of my paper, actually. It won no prizes, but it did have a powerful effect on at least one person: Mrs. Rodin. A nervous, frenzied woman at the best of times, my paper sent her straight over the edge. Crushing the pages in her hand, she all but foamed at the mouth.
“This is not what democracy is about,” she screeched, her five-foot-tall frame shaking in fury. “He is against everything democracy is for!”
I remember simply waiting for her to finish, knowing she had missed the point entirely, and that trying to explain would be pointless. It was June, my public schooling was nearly at an end, and it seemed an apt finishing point.
From July, 2012
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