Writing these pieces in light of the upcoming reunion, has allowed me to reflect back-favorably-on high school, a block of time that I tried to stifle for most of my adult life. I have also drawn a few conclusions as to why it was so challenging for me.
I have mentioned the nuns who taught us at St. Martha’s and how they were expelled from Cuba in 1962 by Fidel Castro. I liked them all but they were also native Spanish speakers teaching elementary school while getting English instruction “on the job.”
Without criticizing the limited resources of our fledgling parish, I focus only on the quality of education we got leading up to our time at Bishop Amat. Can you say, “Read de book and answer de questions at de end of de chapter?” I know you can-try it.
I felt my peers saw 6th grade
Mark when they looked at me.
Yes, I picked up some Spanish, but our classes were devoid of any kind of art or music, and we had one period of physical education per week. How reasonable was it to expect that our teachers were going to be very informed about our own country?
My point is the work was not challenging, straight A’s were automatic and it led to a rude awakening in high school. I went into freshman year expecting to continue in cruise-mode, and discovered the priests were not there to hand out A’s just because you wrote your spelling words ten times and did the math worksheets.
To me the academic orbit was
simply dizzying.
While objectively seeing that we were being well-prepared for higher education, subjectively it was tortuous. Stop me if you ever wondered in passing, while choking back frustration, how it was that none of your teachers ever seemed to realize that you got homework in at least three or four other classes. Sophomore year I had geometry, biology, Latin and English homework every night of my school life, with little respite on the weekend. Oh yeah, while working thirty hours a week.
As a kid who was thrust into the honors program [almost certainly] on the basis of my older brothers’ academic success, I hated it.
As an educator who spent sixteen years teaching middle schoolers, I think grouping kids by alleged ability is just wrong. I no more belonged in the honors group than I belonged on the gridiron. Too bad it wasn’t just as obvious to school officials. Might there have been others?
There is not enough cyber ink and paper for me to list all of the reasons why ability-grouping is bad. I will at least note that I missed out on getting to know most of my peers, both male and female, by being segregated in this manner. 
Who knew?
Academically, I was at rock bottom in math and science my first three years, disappointing my parents and frustrating me no end. I couldn’t help but think if I were not competing for grades with the top male students in the school, I might have had a fighting chance.
Instead, I anchored that learning curve, pun intended.
All things considered, though I was not a jock, a brainiac, a cheerleader, a doper, a loner, a troublemaker, a space cadet, a punchbag, a nerd, a surfer, a criminal, a fink, a dork or just plain twisted, I managed to make my way through the maze and the haze to graduation.
OK, I may have been a dork, but I preferred to think of it as being individualistic. Let’s face it, individualism is to being a dork, what being eccentric is to bat-shit crazy, no offense to those who are experiencing the perks of mental issues. My personal gift is bipolarism II, but then again, I have already posted more than a hundred pieces on this site to that effect.
I ain’t proud but I ain’t skeered either.
They knew. If anything, friends would ask me what we were ranked that week. If those kids ever saw their school win a championship, it was a one-year flash, unlike Amat, which perennially gave its students much to strut about. Whereas losing the 4-A football championship game by a single point to Blair was crushing, we had nothing to hang our heads about. At least we were there.
Besides, going out as 4-A champions in baseball, days before graduation, made up for it. Those who were at that last game must remember Bart’s cannon of an arm trying to gun down a base stealer, but finding his pitcher’s head, instead. Frank dropped like a log, but got up and went on to finish the game. This is not a diss on Bart; you don’t get to the championship game without the Pro from Dover behind the plate. It’s a shout-out to a battery which managed to not only overcome this mishap to score a 2-1 victory for the championship, but simultaneously present to us seniors a lasting metaphor as we left high school. When you get knocked down in life, stagger back to your feet, and kick butt.
It was certainly a most electrifying event at the moment, and served as an inspiration to us all. I think I can say with a 100% degree of accuracy, that each of us has been knocked down since then, and yet here we are, making plans for our reunion.
Do you feel as though you have gone ten rounds yet? Yeah, me too, but look at it this way, you either get back up or you don’t, and going to the reunion is as good a way as any to thumb your nose at the referee.
To me you are exceptional in many ways.
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