Back to School & Laurel Hill

Back to School & Laurel Hill

U of O Campus

By the fall of 1974 and I was living in Eugene. I enrolled at the University of Oregon and I was renting a room in a house on Hilyard Street with Four others. I had the GI bill but it did not cover all my college expenses. I applied for and received financial aid. The aid came in the form of a student loan bundled with a work-study job. There were a variety of jobs to select from and I chose a job working in a home for adults who were not able to fully care for themselves. I thought I would be useful by directly helping people. I was hoping it would be a rewarding experience. Before I began to work there I was required to attend a one-on-one meeting with the head honcho. At the meeting he explained that this job is not for everyone, in fact, it is not for most. He stressed that this kind of work takes a certain kind of person and there would be a good chance I would not be that kind of person. It was nothing about me, it was just the way it was. He wanted me to be aware of this before I started and explained that if it did not work out for me I should not feel bad about it but most importantly, I needed to be honest with myself and with him. He emphasized that there would be no shame or bad feelings if it was not for me. I worked a week, well parts of 3 days in the first week. The duties included helping the residents get up, dressed, and around from place to place. I also had to help them bathe and other bathroom tasks. Turned out I was not very good at it. I'm not a real smiley type person and I was not very good at making conversation. I could physically do the work but I just did not feel engaged and in fact found much of the work to be uncomfortable. After a week or so I realized that I was dreading going to work. I gave it another day but realized I had to confess my failings. So at the next prearranged regular meeting with the director I let him know I was struggling. He said he understood, thanked me for trying, and for being honest. Again, he said that I should not feel bad but I couldn't help it, I did.

At the University I signed up for five classes. I was more concerned with taking classes that were interesting to me rather than worrying about requirements for graduating as I figured I had plenty of time for that. It had been a year since I was last taking classes and I wanted to enjoy my first semester back. The five classes I chose were Social and Political Philosophy, International Folk Dancing, John Fahey Guitar, another Calculus course (yes Calculus again, I am not easily discouraged), and something called Practical Escape. The title “Practical Escape” sounded like it was something created just for me. It was a program where you could secure a position in the working world related to your major for which you would receive credits based on the hours worked, meaning I would be receiving college credit instead of pay for working. Yes, that right, I paid good money (tuition) to sign up for a program in which I had to find a job where I could work for free. (Well they say one's born every minute - so much for being a “slick” New Yorker.) The idea was to provide students an opportunity to get direct experience in the field they were hoping to enter while still attending school. I was hoping to be a teacher so I looked around for a position where I could work in the classroom, similar to a teacher's aide. I hoped that I might be a sort of student teacher under the guidance of the class's real teacher to get a sense of what being a teacher would really be like. I found a teacher at Laurel Hill Elementary to take me. Her name was Angie.

Angie was teaching a blended class of 4^th and 5^th graders. My first day, after introductions, Angie asked what my strongest subject was. I told her Math and she then asked me if I'd like to take five boys to another room and give them a Math lesson. I said “Sure!” It was a small room off to the side of the main classroom. Once in the room I had the boys find a seat and I started to give the lesson but they started to act up, all five! On one wall in the room was a bunch of shelves that held books, supplies and some other miscellaneous items. The second I started one of the boys got up and started going through some of the stuff on the shelves. I asked him to sit back down but he ignored me and so I moved closer to him to make eye contact. As I did, two other boys got up and started fooling around. Then the other two joined in and now I had all five boys up out of their seats goofing off, acting as if I wasn't even there. I tried insisting they return to their seats but as you would expect that had little effect. A slight feeling of panic began to swell up inside me. Realizing I needed to establish some control, I started with the boy who first got up. I engaged with him one on one. Trying to find something he might respond to I asked him a general, non-school, question like what was his favorite sport. Anyway I found something he was interested in talking about. Once I was able to get him talking with me I expanded the conversation to include another boy, and then a third joined in and soon I had all five involved in the conversation. I let the conversation go on for a little bit and along the way shared some of my own feelings. Finally I reminded them that we were supposed to be working on a math lesson and we should at least spend a little time on it or we all might be in trouble. Everyone now was sitting down so I got up and started in on the lesson. And then? Angie came in and said it was time for lunch. At the time I thought thank goodness she hadn't show up before. At least it now gave the appearance that I was doing what I'd been tasked with. As we took the kids to lunch Angie asked me how it went. I told her: “Well, the truth is it took just about all the time you gave me to figure out how to get them to settle down and pay attention to what I was supposed to teach them.” She replied “Good, that's what I was hoping for. I wanted to see if you could do that.” So it was not really a lesson for the boys but a lesson for me. Angie wanted to see how I would do with some of her more challenging students.

Angie and I worked well together and became friends. We thought a lot alike. Angie had great ideas. Unfortunately, the principal of Laurel Hill failed to see many of them as great or even good. We frequently found ourselves meeting with him explaining just what was so great about the most recent idea. His focus was keep the kids in the classroom and keep them quiet without disruptions. Many of our ideas did not fit into the traditional “kids stay in their seats and quietly listen to the teacher lecturing up in the front” mold. Angie really cared about the kids and they in turn really liked her. Somehow the kids ended up liking me too.

I really enjoyed working in the classroom with the kids. To my surprise I learned that I was better at teaching subjects that I had struggled with when I was a kid than those that I had been naturally good at. I remember one session in particular where I was trying to explain how multiplication worked to a student in the class and just could not get them to understand it no matter how I explained it. The problem was it came so naturally to me that I could not see the issue. English or even better Spelling I totally understood all the issues. I was much more effective helping students in those areas. Of course if I had been teaching at a higher level or even students who were good at math I'd have been fine. But the students who “got” it really didn't need my help, just the ones who were struggling. Give me someone who just can't see how two times three equals six I'm limited, but get me someone who is having trouble spelling the word “before” and I'm your guy. I was signed up for 3 credits of Practical Escape which meant that I needed to spend at least six hours a week in the classroom but I ended up doing more than that.

I needed a new work-study job and there was not much of a selection left. I took one cleaning the offices of the school's professors. It was a night time position. It was easy enough even though some of those professors were downright slobs. Many of them seemed to have trouble getting their cigarette ashes in the ashtrays. They left papers, books, soda cans and food all over and by all over I mean desk, shelves, window sills and the floor. No area of the office escaped unscathed. I found myself thinking badly of some of them. I mean didn't they grow up with a Mom? No one who ever saw my office would ever have accused me of being neat but I didn't trash my office on a regular basis. I realized that I really did not want to know this about a person I may be taking a class from. I didn't quit right away, but I was once again on the hunt for a different job.

As it happened Laurel Hill had an after school program with an opening. The position's title was Assistant Director of the Continuing Education Program. Angie mentioned it to me and I inquired about it. I found that the school was open to hiring a student from the University through the work study program. I immediately applied. The school already knew me and with a recommendation from Angie and another teacher I got the position. I quit the office cleaning job. The job title was bigger than the job as the duties primarily involved the following: Opening the building, the classrooms, and the gym - Setting up for and monitoring the activities while helping out where needed - Closing up the building at the end of the evening or day. Classes and activities were held in the evenings and on Saturdays. I was generally pretty busy at the beginning and at closing but things were generally fairly slow the rest of the time.

I now had my Practical Escape hours at Laurel Hill and also my part time work study job there. Although I was now a full time student, I was spending over 20 hours a week at Laurel Hill, more hours than I was spending on the Oregon campus!