MARRIED... Winter woes (Part 49e)

School...
I got really excited about investigating the lead that my father’s friend had given me on my quick trip to the city. The professor of my Public Finance course was really helpful in that he got me an appointment to see the head of the Political Science department. Although a staunch Democrat, he pointed me towards some very “interesting” tidbits about the past administration that were helpful for my term paper. I was enjoying this course more than any other I’d taken.

The Contemporary Literature course was going as had been “advertised”. The reading assignments were almost unmanageable. The Professor was known as “The Hook”. In the campus jargon at the time a C grade was known as a “hook”. This Prof graded into a grid. By that I mean he would give only one “A”, and (usually) only one “F”. Then he would give out three “B’s” and three “D’s”. Everything else was a C, or, a “hook“. All his tests were essay type which gave him much discretionary latitude. It hadn’t taken long for me to fall into the ”hook“ area. That was fine with me because I couldn’t afford anything less and still expect to graduate with my class.

The only real problem I had was one of the Economic courses that I’d been told I had to take as a condition of being allowed back into the department as my major. It wasn’t the course but the instructor. He was part of a University exchange program with, of all places, China. He could hardly understand or speak English. The subject was Economics of Underdeveloped Nations and the college thought it would be a good course for him to teach. He may have been knowledgeable on the topic but, because of the language barrier, he couldn’t it convey to the class. It wasn’t just me. One of the other students was in line for the school prize in Economics and he got a grade in the 60’s on the first test. (I think mine was in the 40’s) When the class started comparing grades it was readily evident that we all had a problem. The guy who was in line for the prize ended up being the spokesperson who approached the instructor asking if it was possible for him to ”mark on the curve“. It’s funny now but it wasn’t at the time as he took each word separately and tried to interpret it. He couldn’t. Not even with examples on the blackboard did he have a clue. That was a concern but it was still fairly early in the semester.

My relationship with Dr F led me to be asked to work as a ”mentor“ in his pilot educable program. When getting the OK from the State Education department he also got permission to use non certified (by the State) instructors. But one of the conditions was that all of the kids in the program be tutored in reading, writing and basic arithmetic. Dr F asked me and four others taking courses in the Education department to fill that roll. The students were required to take three hours a week in what were called the ”remedials“ and each of us would tutor one day a week. It was actually fun. Joanne was one of my students and, on a comparative basis, the best of the bunch. She was taking a course in Home Economics and one in Horticulture. Because of having had both her pie business as well as the plant business, she had been forced by her mother to do some basic math. She was still slow but at least had had grasped the basics. Her reading was at the 6th grade level which allowed her to read a newspaper and basic instructions. With her as the best, the worst had to be Freddy who was taking courses in both the automotive field and along with Joanne, in Horticulture. I really liked him. He seemed to be a nice kid but he had absolutely no interest (or ability) in doing the remedial work. It was very frustrating to me as I had been told that he was an outstanding student in both the areas he was working in. I along with a couple of other ”mentors“ spoke to Dr F about him and he said he’d try and follow up on him.

The State Education Department sent a representative to audit the program after we were about two months into it. The lady was almost a cartoon character for an old maid school teacher. Long story short, Freddy was brought to her attention and she met with him, one on one. She told Dr F that she thought he had dyslexia. Dr F knew what it was but I nor any of the the other mentors had ever even heard the word. After conferring with Freddy’s parents he was tested and they found that when he looked at printed words he saw them exactly backwards from what we saw. As Dr F explained it to us it was almost impossible for Freddy to read. But, the problem didn’t interfere with his ability to use logic and to learn by watching others. In both the automotive and Horticulture subjects he was taking he was being shown how to do the work and then given the time to do it himself. It was an interesting and memorable experience.

To be continued...