High School Anxiety

March 28, 1999, Grand Forks N.D.

Dear classmates and friends,

A funny thing happened the other day while I was waiting in line at school conferences to talk to Emily’s algebra teacher. I realized that 25 years is not long enough to get over a really bad case of math anxiety.

I’ve disliked math since first grade. Addition was fine, subtraction was tolerable, but from multiplication tables on, everything was pretty much downhill. In high school I took business math, bookkeeping, algebra and geometry. Business math and bookkeeping were hard for me but at least they had a clear purpose in the real world. Algebra and geometry, on the other hand, seemed like a total waste of time.

And for me they probably were. I cannot remember one instance since Algebra I class at SDSU when I have used algebra or even thought about it. Nor do I remember who taught algebra at EHS. I do remember who taught geometry, however, and I think the only reason I passed (with a C) was that he knew less about geometry than I did.

We had some really good teachers at Eureka High School. I remember enjoying many of my English/literature teachers, including Mrs. Kitzler and Mr. and Mrs. Holmes. Earl Martell, our junior high science teacher, now an administrator in the Aberdeen schools, was outstanding. He was tough but fair, a good lecturer who brought the exciting scientific events of the day into the classroom. I remember the models of the Gemini and Apollo space ships that were made and of watching the space launches on TV.

But there was one thing in particular about Mr. Martell that I have never forgotten. A few times he lost his temper with us and yelled at us when we didn’t deserve it. What teacher hasn’t done that a time or two?

The difference with Mr. Martell was that he apologized to us for it. I can’t remember another adult in the course of my childhood or adolescence who ever apologized to me.

Some of our teachers were real characters. Mr. Greco, our sophomore biology teacher, who last time I checked was still teaching at Eureka, used to make us eat chocolate-covered ants. He was always telling stories, and I believe he made most of them up. In about 1970 he told us a story of how he had taken some students, including my brother, Gerry, on a school trip about five or six years earlier. Mr. Greco said he and

Gerry and the other students disagreed about how long those intermittent yellow stripes on the highway were. So they decided to settle the matter by having some of the students get out of the car and lay on the highway next to the stripes to measure them.

OK, fast forward to about 1994 when Gerry’s son, Clayton Haupt, was Mr. Greco’s student. One day when I was in Eureka Clayton asked if Mr. Greco’s story was true about how he had taken ME and some other kids on a school trip when we had gotten into an argument about the length of the yellow stripes. "Is it true you laid on the highway to measure how long the stripes were?" Clayton asked. I wonder who Mr. Greco is telling that story about now.

I spent a lot of time in high school with Mrs. Ackerman, who taught home economics. She was our FHA advisor and I was a state FHA officer. She and I took many long car trips together in which she shared so much with me. She talked to me like an adult and treated me with warmth, respect and humor. I’ll never forget how surprised I was (not too mention embarrassed) when she told me she knew her nickname around EHS was "Sterile Merrill"!

Nor do we forget the teachers who mistreated us. One day in junior high I was standing at a certain teacher’s desk asking him a question when suddenly he got up, started yelling at me and then pushed me so hard from behind - twice - that I flew across the room. To this day I have no idea why he did that. That was the day I found out what people meant when they said, "I just wanted to fall through the floor."

One of my high school teachers accused me of vandalizing his house on Halloween. Since I had not even left the house on Halloween, I invited him to call my father and discuss the matter with him. The teacher said, "Oh," and walked away. He never apologized either.

One of our band directors was also well known for his aggressive motivational techniques, including pushing, shoving and berating. I only lasted about three weeks in band. But one of our contemporaries who

played all through school claimed that the skin on the back of his neck used to break out because this band director stood behind him in practice and yelled until the spit flew. All of these things happened more than 25 years ago, so perhaps it’s time I got over it. I certainly hope our teachers have forgotten all of

the stupid things I did in school. Still, I know these experiences helped shape the people we are today, for good or for ill. I hope it was mainly for good.

Your friend, Paulette