HVCC, Physics, and The Boys Club

HVCC, Physics, and The Boys Club

Boys and Girls Club in Troy, NY

Life was good. I was out of the Air Force and now living in Watervliet in the Albany area of New York. Dottie had moved up from Long Island after Labor Day and enrolled in the Public Administration Masters Program at SUNY, Albany. I was attending Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) in Troy. I was enjoying being back in school and happy to to be learning things of my own choosing. I had never been a particularly good student. I got OK grades but never fully applied myself. I would learn things that were of interest to me quickly but the rest I tended to do just enough to get by. I was never motivated to get good grades. I was a solid "B" student in High School mostly because that's what it took to appease my parents. Now I was ready to start learning and be part of an environment that encouraged this. The military was wary of and discouraged you from thinking for yourself. Both in basic training and during my year of training in Biloxi I was at times questioned and even ridiculed by some of the sergeants for reading in my spare time. Now I was free to pursue my own interests without repercussions.

HVCC awarded me a student loan of $500 and a work-study job. The work-study job was working as a counselor at a local Boys Club in Troy. I worked at the Boys Club on the north end of town. It's now a Boys and Girls Club but it's still in the same building at 7^th Ave and State St. I worked there two weekday afternoons and on Saturdays. The club was located in a lower working class neighborhood. The kids at this club were generally under privileged but they weren't inner-city kids. The kids in the club I worked in would challenge you, but when push came to shove they would back down. From my experience visiting the inner city downtown club this would not always the case with some of the kids there. Many of our kids were dropped off first thing in the morning, and sometimes even before that. Then they would be picked up at or after closing. Many of these kids came from dysfunctional or troubled homes.

I thoroughly enjoyed working at the Boys Club. I liked working with kids. It was here that I learned that I was much better with kids below the high school level. This was a valuable thing for me to learn as I was planning on going into teaching. For some reason I had unreasonable expectations of kids in the upper grades. They were bigger and looked more adult like and I guess I just expected them to act a little more adult like. When they didn't, I failed to have the same patience and understanding I seemed to have with the younger kids.

At HVCC I took six classes: Sociology, Philosophy, Calculus, Physics, English Lit, Afro-American History. I got five A's and one C in Physics. Originally that C was a D+. The instructor was one of those nerdie but brilliant guys. He was mega smart but not really good at imparting knowledge in a way that those not at his level could understand, and none of us were at his level. I worked super hard in his class. The labs were difficult but I managed to get mostly B+'s and a few times better. I got a B- on the mid term. Few in the class did as well. Then came the final. We were told we needed to pass the final in order to pass the class and accordingly, if we passed the final we would pass the class regardless of our grade up to that point. Only about half the class was passing going into the final, I was probably in the top 3 or 4. The final was one question. The idea was to set up a model train in a room. We were given all the details about the room size, the train, and the train tracks. We needed to figure out the angle of the tracks and the size of the curve that would allow the train to go around a curve in the corner of the room as fast as possible and still stay on the tracks. We were to show our calculations and explain the physics principles we were using. We all went “Huh?” The professor tried to explain further and then told us just to do the best we could. I didn't know where to begin but after about ten or so minutes of just staring at the problem I worked on the math and tried to come up with some sort of answer. I got a D, hence the D+ for the class. I think there were only 5 people in the class who got a grade higher than D on the exam.

I may not have been good at Physics but I was good at problem solving. The next term I didn't sign up for the second semester of that Physics class but rather signed up for a completely different science class. I was walking down the hall on the way to my new science class when my physics teacher caught me and asked if I could come to his office after my class. I did. He was upset because he did not get a lot people to sign up for his class. He said he could not understand why I didn't when I was one of his best students, He asked me to please reconsider. I explained to him that I had worked far harder on his class than on any of my others. I had struggled to be at the "B" level which ended up being for naught when I failed to get a at least a “C” on a final exam. He proceeded to tell me I did well and I actually passed albeit with a D+. He felt I was sure to do better this semester. I thought, but didn't say, “I sure will because I'm not taking your freakin' impossible class”. I told him that the problem was that if only a few were able to actually pass his class with at least a C, people would be disinclined to enroll since this was a two year school and the majority of students here hope to transfer to a four year college. Anything below a "C" does not transfer. To me, and others too, I had just spent a lot of time doing something that would end up being of no use for me. That was not completely true as I did learn some things in his class, one of which was stay away from physics classes. He listened and then asked me again to reconsider joining his class. I elected not to but when I went to transfer to a four year school I noticed my physics grade had been upped to a "C". I appreciated it. He didn't have to do that. I took it as an indication that he appreciated what I shared with him.

Meanwhile, I was enjoying my time at the Boys Club. I got along well with the staff and the boys. I was getting to know a number of the boys pretty well. There was this one boy who was always annoying, a bit obnoxious, and seemed to like to defy me. If I asked him to stop doing something he would ignore me. I would have to walk over to him and confront him directly. It wasn't just me he did this with. He was the kind of kid that when he entered the room you might find an excuse to move on to another part of the building. He was at the club almost every day. One of his tactics, with me at least, was when he saw me he would usually come over and punch me. He was small so it didn't really hurt but it was annoying, and it was certainly enough to get my attention. One day I was in the locker room talking with a couple of the boys when he came in. I greeted him and he sat down right next to me hitting me on my leg. I looked at him and I asked him why he always gives the counselors a hard time and never listens. He just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know. One of the kids I had been talking to told me that I should have him take his shirt off. I asked why and he replied his father beats him. He had welts on his back. Whoa, suddenly I had a whole new appreciation for this kid. I finally got it through my thick head that he was just looking for some attention. I started paying more attention to him and made sure to regularly look for him and ask him how he was doing whenever I got to the Club. He in turn stopped hitting me and started listening to me. He became one of my favorite kids. I think about him every once in awhile. I can still see those welts. I had spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself for having to spend three years in the military and had recently felt unlucky because I received a poor grade in a class. This was a little reminder to me of how privileged and easy my life really was. I have had a loving, non-violent, supportive family. Having been raised in this kind of environment is such a huge advantage. One I frequently fail to fully appreciate.