THE ROCKAWAY I KNEW
By Matthew Bashie

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: WORKING MY WAY DOWN THE EDUCATIONAL LADDER

"Lets see," the teacher murmured outloud as he pondered over and checked his rollbook roster. "Whose turn is it today to make his presentation? Yes! Today we will hear from Matthew Bashie who will enlighten us as to the subject of Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone. Are you ready to deliver the results of your extensive research on that topic Mr. Bashie?" My turn! Can't I just find a nice deep hole to crawl into? Am I going to have a heart attack? Is that the sound of my knees knocking together? Why are all these kids grinning at me? Wouldn't this be the perfect time for a fire drill??

For some strange reason, educators have long considered written and oral dissertations to be an integral requirement for learning. I have even experienced in some of my own advanced university classes the sad reality that these two types of submitting might even become the substance for the entire class. One initial two-hour college session whereby the seasoned professor splits the class up into groups of two or three and then assigns pertinent topics. For the rest of the semester, each group gives a presentation - the professor comfortably rooted in the back of the room assigns grades based upon performances. Nice work if you can get it!

Although I myself have never had much of a problem with the basic concept of preparing some sort of written report to be submitted for grading, the value of receiving an oral presentation from a member of my peer group I find highly questionable. To be blunt, I just don't listen while a classmate is presenting; frankly, I never did. I'm just happy it's someone else standing in front of the room and "flapping his or her gums," and not me. Of course, it is a lot easier on the teacher; less work to do at home and fewer papers to grade, record, and return. With an oral, upon completion the teacher just announces a grade, the student can accept that mark or can argue out a point or elaborate on a concept or an idea -then the mark is recorded right into the rollbook. One, two, three. As easy as pie!

On simple quizzes or tests, often times after the collection of papers, many of my own Far Rockaway High School teachers would then "hand the pack" over to a student assistant to "take home and grade." I have to admit that I am not comfortable with the concept of one of my classmates scoring or sitting in judgement on my work. Later on in my own career, when I had occasion to hold class at the high school, I almost always graded the papers myself- only on one or two occasions did I allow a student to perform that task for me. I did permit superior students (on a few rare occasions) to prepare a classroom test as a special reward for their excellence. Of course the student drafting an exam would be excused from taking that particular test. These were truly special and unusual circumstances. For the most part, I got the pay, so I did the work.

I once had the unfortunate experience of taking a college course in Geography - a required undergraduate subject, definitely not my strongest area. The professor in charge held firm to the belief that "nothing an undergrad writes is worth the reading" so the entire class was test-oriented. A different chapter in the text was assigned each week. When class convened we were tested on the subject matter for that session. The instructor sat at his desk in the front of the room and read outloud some fifty questions pertaining to the topic at hand; we were expected to write our answers down on a sheet of paper. At the completion of each exam, a student monitor collected, shuffled, and redistributed the sheets amongst the class members - we were expected to grade our neighbor's exam. The professor then reread each question providing the appropriate answer - two points for each correct response. At the end of this charade, roll was

called and someone would yell out each score. For example: "Herbert Anderson?" An anonymous response: "84" - and so on. Of course if the student was absent, there would be no response to that name. Clever? Anyway, I give sincere thanks to the graciousness of total strangers in that classroom for my final grade of a "B+" — but of course I gave the others in that room the same consideration and "excellence of performance." Shades of a sham!

In high school, naive and looking to save time, trouble, and effort - to cut corners, knowing how much "smarter" we were than our instructors, a variety of methods to gain the most by way of doing the least - here are but a few of some interesting short-cuts I observed.

One of my fellow classmates was assigned the topic of the United Nations -a comparatively new organization in year 1959. Under the usual time constraints (meaning: he put the assignment off until last minute) this guy eventually found himself in the public library on Mott Avenue where he discovered they had only one book on the topic. He checked out the book - for a 28-day period in those days. He copied "word for word" from several of the chapters, then fearing the instructor might avail himself of that same book, the student decided not to return the volume back to the library until after the end of the semester. He figured that over-due charges of two cents per day were a rather inexpensive price to pay for a high school report. Naturally, within the passage of a few months he lost track of the book and by the time the library sent him notice of his debt he had to admit that the tome was long gone. He ended up paying over ten dollars - the purchase price for a decade-old history book.

Another of my classmates copied directly out of the Encyclopedia Brittanica for a science report. The teacher, being aware of the limitations of the expertise of this young lady was not enthralled by the top-quality of the writing on that essay - obviously not an original work. At one point during a class discussion, he returned the graded assignments back to class members and called upon the girl to read a section of what she had submitted. She attempted to do so, having a great deal of difficulty pronouncing some of "her own" words and when she was asked to explain some of her ideas, she was forced to admit that she didn't have a clue. Embarrassing, but it left a message for all of us. Switch to World Book??

The Far Rockaway High School Library also provided a special service. They sold individual magazine pictures at a nickle a pop. This was well before the age of the copy machine and staff members made it a practice to cut photos out of magazines and newspapers - to provide those clippings to students for the purpose of augmenting assignments in the hope of embellishing grades. Unquestionably some of the teachers accepted this as initiative while others awarded this practice no additional value. Some of the teachers even warned students in advance that the mark would be awarded strictly based upon the writings in the report. Yet other students availed themselves of "page protectors" - available at local stationary stores - also conveniently on sale at the G.O. Store for a nickle apiece. These heavy-plastic sheets (separated internally by a sheet of black construction paper) gave student reports a clean and crisp (and professional) look but made it rather difficult for instructors to indicate errors in spelling and grammar - or to write appropriate comments in side margins. Some of the teachers ended up banning these protectors completely. How inconsiderate. Hey! Every little bit helps!!

If you wish to contact me at any time, feel free to do so through this web site. matt@rockawaymemories.com

I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M. B.