It’s that time of the year again as holidays approach and craft fairs begin in earnest.  This Saturday from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm I’ll be sitting in my ‘mini-book store’ booth at the Herman High School gymnasium.   I was a biology teacher in that building for eleven years (1980-1991).  However the title of this blog is a little misleading as I was never involved in any crimes during those years.  I came close several times but was always able to refrain myself and no bodily injuries, shattered blackboards or chalk covered erasers bouncing off a student’s head  ever took place!

However there are still those memories.  Some make me smile and some don’t.  I ended up in Herman after the Wheaton School went through a down sizing process and my position was cut to .8 for the upcoming school year.  That was a disastrous blow to my wife Kathie, myself and our three kids!  How could we survive financially?  Little did I know Herman High School, seventeen miles to the east of us, was going through that school year without a biology teacher.  That spring the two schools got together and decided to share me with both schools much to my relief and my families’.

I had been teaching in the Wheaton School system for 13 years and was very comfortable and successful  so the thought of starting over in a second school caused me some stress.  I needn’t have worried however.  I remember those first days in the Herman School like they were yesterday.  Teaching had taught me that each class in a school has its own personality.  It didn’t take me long to discover that each school also has its own personality.  Herman students were serious students…..the majority anyway.  As I was taking roll that first day and the classroom was bursting at the seams with students I observed something that I considered very unusual.  Almost all the students had a notebook open ready for notes and a pencil in hand poised for writing!  I was impressed!

As I prepare to return to the Herman school this weekend and try to interest craft fair attenders in my books I began to reminisce about some of the experiences I enjoyed in that old wooden building.  My present physical condition and mobility level are partly responsible to the 13 years of climbing the many steps to my classroom each day.   I never counted how many steps there were to the top floor of the school but it was always a workout as I was carrying a briefcase and often a box of specimens or hands-on articles for class.  My room was at the far end of the building with no fire escape close by.  The large classroom windows were mostly filled with thick blocks of clear glass except for a three foot by three foot section in the middle that could be opened for air circulation.  I would ponder from time to time what I would do if, heaven forbid, the school caught on fire and we were trapped in the classroom.  Would I bravely help each student through the small glass opening and urge them to fall to the sidewalk thirty feet below as the flames and smoke seeped under the classroom door?  Or would I demonstrate the correct way to dive through the window and if I survived cheer them to do the same as I stood on the ground below?  Thank goodness I never had to make that decision!  (Sometimes I have been known to have an overactive imagination!) 🙂

The first year at Herman I taught for only a half a year.  I began after the first of the year and taught both the junior and sophomore classes.  I remember trying to decide what topics to cover and what ones to leave out as there wouldn’t have been time to teach the complete course.

During that winter I suffered one of my many embarrassing moments as a teacher, however, this one occurred in front of the whole student body.  Being the new teacher I was called down to the gym floor during a pepfest to be welcomed to the school in a very strange way.  The cheerleaders had me lie down on the gym floor on my back and they explained that they were going to become a centipede.  They lined up behind each other and each girl put her hands on the girl’s shoulders in front of her and the centipede proceeded to hop over me as I am staring up at their underpants which nicely matched their cheerleading skirts.  But where else was I supposed to look?  The second time the centipede hopped over me I was doused with a bucket of water on my face!  The head cheerleader announced loudly to the students, “Oops the ‘centi’ peed.  That was considered the humor of the 80’s and I actually thought it was pretty funny.  It has been thirty-six years since that pepfest and I have never been able to eliminate the vision of those hopping underpants passing over me and I don’t imagine I ever will! 🙂

I had another bad water experience one year on the last day of school at Herman High.  The principal had assigned each of us to various locations in the school to stand as students were being dismissed.  It would help to maintain order since students always got a little ‘hyped’ up on the last day of school.  I was standing on the landing of the stairwell coming from the upper floor when I looked up and a water balloon was headed straight for my face.  I had no time to react and it was a direct hit!  I have never had my glasses washed in such an unusual manner before or since!  I can still see the smirks and hear the giggles of the students as they passed by my water soaked body.  I imagine for years I’ve been the topic of conversation around those summer campfires as past students try to best each other with ‘teacher torture’ stories. 🙂

Herman and Wheaton were fierce rivals when it came to athletics.  On the day of the big game or match Wheaton teachers and students wore red and black colors while Herman teachers and students wore orange and black.  I didn’t plan on changing clothes on the drive to Herman so some days I would be wearing a red shirt or sweater which annoyed most of my Herman biology students.  One year the volleyball teams from Herman and Wheaton met in district play so I settled matters by wearing a red shirt and an orange tie!  Cell phones had not been invented yet so there is no picture to prove that I dressed in such a non-stylish manner.

I showed a lot of slides during class.  Most were pictures I had taken that illustrated some biological concept.  One class period I was discussing the slides as they were being projected onto a screen in front of the classroom.  I noticed the students were being extremely attentive.  I realized why when I changed slides and a picture appeared that I had never seen before.  It was a picture of three girls posing and the students roared with laughter because those three girls were sitting in the classroom with big smirks on their faces. They had snuck a slide of themselves into the slide carousal when I wasn’t looking.  I pretended not to be surprised and made up a story about the picture that went with the topic we were discussing.  But then I had to laugh heartily too. 🙂  I always enjoyed laughing with my students.

I will never forget the day my 7th grade life science students decided not to talk.  A silent 7th grader is almost unheard of and it happened like this.  When we studied photosynthesis I stressed how all life depended on green plants for survival.  I would challenge the students to come up with a way we could get food without depending on green plants.  I would invite them to come to the blackboard and diagram or describe how we could survive without photosynthesis.  I enjoyed it as the students brainstormed how to accomplish such a task.  I had done this same activity for years with all my 7th grade classes and it was a fun way to remind students of the necessity of  photosynthesis.  I began the process with the soon to be  ‘ non-talkers’.  Several students came forward and described their ideas and I would point out the flaws in their proposals.   I was having fun as usual but soon it became evident that the students weren’t.  I first became aware of this when I heard someone whisper, “Don’t talk!.”  The word spread quickly in the little ‘peer pressure’ filled room and soon I couldn’t get a word out of any of them.  That was on a Friday and I spent the whole weekend deciding what I should have done differently and what I needed to do next.  On Monday I chewed them out for behaving in such an immature manner and let it go at that.  But I don’t think they ever quite forgave me because on the last day of school one of the class ‘ring leaders’ sitting in back of the room stood and came walking toward me.  He was carrying a can of coke but as he walked he was shaking the can back and forth.  Arriving at my desk he handed me the coke with a smirk on his face as the rest of the class looked on.  I returned the smirk and thanked him for the coke.  No way was I going to open that can of coke in front of them so I waited until school was dismissed.  Later on that afternoon as I sat at my desk figuring out report card grades I cracked open that coke and raised it in a toast, “Here’s to you, you silent 7th graders.  May we both enjoy our summers…..we both earned it!”

There was always a certain tension among some of the students with me also being a Wheaton teacher.  I think many of them feared the Herman school would someday be swallowed up by the Wheaton district  and they would be forced to attend school in Wheaton (their athletic rival).  One fall homecoming I thought that fear might be lessening when the student council chose me to become a part of homecoming week as they dedicated Tuesday to be “dress like Mr. Larson Day”.   Mrs. Oachs met me in the hall as I arrived that afternoon and she had a tuxedo jacket, tails and all for me to wear.  Then she proceeded to escort me to my room which was full of “Mr. Larson look a likes”.  Until then I never realized I dressed in such a bizarre manner! 🙂  I still think that little seventh grader that depicted me with nerd tape on my glasses was way off base because I’m sure I would have never made that a part of my dress code! 🙂

It would be fun to be able to visit with all of the students that I was blessed to work with during those eleven years.  Think of all the memories that we could remind each other of……some good and some maybe not so good.  And it would be interesting to see where each of their lives have taken them.  Who knows, Saturday’s craft fair might provide that opportunity.   I hope so and, hey, we could all climb those stairs one more time for old times sake! 🙂

Until next time.