Chapter 1  The Early Years

1.An Educator's Life

Chapter 1  The Early Years

Chapter 2 Not all College Students Are Created Equal

Chapter 3  Dan Quayle and I Avoid the Draft

Chapter 4 Teaching at NEAI Requires Hours of Preparation

Chapter 5  Applying to Graduate School

Chapter 6  Graduate School Flew By and I Return to NEAI

Chapter 7  Leaving Teaching for the World of Work 

2. A Worker's Life

Chapter 1 As Kids We Worked a Lot
21st Century Learning Products

3. Retirement

 Chronology

e-mail Walter at antonw@ix.netcom.com  with comments, suggestions and additions.
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Dennis lived up the street from my parents' home. His father was a laborer, his mother a domestic. The family of six lived in a small not well taken care of rented house.  A tragedy hit when Bobby, the oldest, accidently hung  himself.  His mother, Mrs. B, as she would later become effectually known by our gang of four, was devastated. After time under mental care and separated from the family, she eventually was able to cope with life's greatest tragedy.  Mr. B. was the easiest tempered male ever created.  The family economic situation dramatically improved and Mr. B built his family a home which seemed to get bigger and bigger over the many years  I would visit my second family.

Dennis left school at sixteen, became a parrot trooper and  landed in a fish pond during the Dominican Intervention. He began his economic life as a truck driver for Marshfield Sand and  Gravel.  Working weekends for his dad as a mason's helper, Dennis learned the masonry business and eventually started doing his own jobs. Over the years he built a small, successful business. Possessing a very high interpersonal intelligence, Dennis would become our gang of four wealthiest members. Retiring early, Dennis and his $30,000  Harley now tour all over the country. His wife takes care of the homestead, and his son runs Bent and Son.

Economically, Kingston's Turlock families were a mixed bag with some doing very well and some not so well. Education played  almost no role in making their lives better. Income standard deviation was high!

Gray's Beech

Pete's Drive-in Had the Best Cheeseburgers and Clams!

Paul Hachey Was the Best!

1. • In April of 1951, a humpback whale washed ashore at Gray's Beach in Kingston. It was one of the notable strandings during that period. This incident attracted considerable attention from local residents and the media. Waler had just turned 7 and mom would not let him go see the whale.

Dennis lived up the street from my parents' home. His father was a laborer, his mother a domestic. The family of six lived in a small not well taken care of rented house.  A tragedy hit when Bobby, the oldest, accidently hung  himself.  His mother, Mrs. B, as she would later become effectually known by our gang of four, was devastated. After time under mental care and separated from the family, she eventually was able to cope with life's greatest tragedy.  Mr. B. was the easiest tempered male ever created.  The family economic situation dramatically improved and Mr. B built his family a home which seemed to get bigger and bigger over the many years  I would visit my second family.

Dennis left school at sixteen, became a parrot trooper and  landed in a fish pond during the Dominican Intervention. He began his economic life as a truck driver for Marshfield Sand and  Gravel.  Working weekends for his dad as a mason's helper, Dennis learned the masonry business and eventually started doing his own jobs. Over the years he built a small, successful business. Possessing a very high interpersonal intelligence, Dennis would become our gang of four wealthiest members. Retiring early, Dennis and his $30,000  Harley now tour all over the country. His wife takes care of the homestead, and his son runs Bent and Son.

Economically, Kingston's Turlock families were a mixed bag with some doing very well and some not so well. Education played  almost no role in making their lives better. Income standard deviation was high!

My fifth grade teacher Miss. True was young, attractive, and a great softball pitcher. One day I hit a softball right off her chest. Me, I was stunned, she threw me out by a mile.

Two thing of note: 1) Class size of 38 worked in 1954, why not today?
2) Not one discipline problem. Was this unusual?  E-mail Walter with comments and suggestions.

I found elementary school academically difficult. Good grades in arithmetic, average grades  in science and history, and poor grades in reading, spelling, and language. Reading out loud was my biggest worry and spelling a close second. I couldn’t pronounce many of the words when reading to my group and hated the awkward seconds it took for a group member to help. As for spelling, forget it. I always missed the first word and sat down. I wonder if just sitting while the game continued affected me. Thankfully, my national reading comprehension scores were about two years above grade and I realized, even then, I might have been dumb, (as in verbally challenged), but I wasn't stupid.

My academic life started to change in the sixth grade as my teacher, Mr. Barrows, didn’t treat me as an average student. A first year teacher with a terrible temper, he assigned me the task of taking the class lunch money to the principal's office where I  counted it and replaced it with the appropriate number of 25 cent lunch tickets. Eventually I did this for the entire school? He also got me involved with our school paper and in one of our sixth grade plays. I played Tom Sawyer’s adversary and we got into scuffle. Paul Maini, who played Tom Sawyer, was already our class golden boy. We got to scuffle on stage and because I outweighed Paul, I had to let him win. It was the last time I would win as Paul was and would be one of those special people.

I often helped Mr. Barrows after school and he would give me a ride home. Mrs. Polland was always with us. Was something going on?  Interesting thought for an eleven-year old.

Elementary school finally came to an end. It represented half my life. There was no graduation.  Mr. Barrows recommended me for section 7A1. There was another A section, and a total of 5 B and C sections. When entering the ninth grad, almost all B and C section students chose the general, commercial or vocational curriculums. My friend Rui Santos was lazy and took the General curriculum. Upon graduation, his father thought work in a factory was appropriate. Suddenly, Rui became ambitious and after a wasting semester attending a not very competitive for-profit prep school, he attended Cape Cod Community College. Rui earned a Bachelors' in History and a Masters' in Education from the University of Rhode Island.  After thirty-five years of teaching, Rui and his high school bride Joanne are enjoying  retirement.

Later I would realize that mathematics was my special academic intelligence and help was available from people with special verbal intelligence and other things I couldn’t do very well. Things like French, which I attempted to learn as a high school freshman. My older brother Stanley was in class for a second try and our neighbor Peter was in for a third try. Neither lasted a week. My French grade of D took much more time than my B grades in Algebra. The course was not a complete loss as I sat next to Pat, a most beautiful sophomore who I pined over until she graduated. She, it turns out, was a National Merit Scholar! Maybe some rubbed off? Pat became a teacher.

These experience and others resulted in my theory on Education in a World of Multiple Intelligence. It is part of my Quick Notes Philosophy. This philosophy begins with my thoughts on the layout and content used in my books written using Quick Notes Learning System. It also contained my thoughts on applying Multiple Intelligences to the educational process. Quick Notes Learning System Internet books are free. My adult evening college students bought the paper copies. Others bought them so all first printing copies were sold. About 700 paper copies are left from the third printing of the statistics. Interested, E-mail Walter.

One evening about fifteen years ago in a statistics class an attractive young women wearing a Red Sox cap came up at break from the last row to thank me for helping her realize that her special intelligence was writing and that having trouble with courses requiring mathematics did not make her “stupid.“ No, astute enough to read  my philosophy at the front of her book and knowing enough to thank me made her anything but stupid or average!

Four class members attended Sunday School. Years later Alan and I would be asked to take a week off because of late arrivals; we never returned.

Walter dressed up like a Polak while Rui and Alan were the Two Amigos

Kingston Elementary Faculty 1940-50

People Change?

Seventh grade brought many new friends at Silver Lake Regional High School. It serviced 5 towns that would produce a graduating class of over 140 students. Miss Goldman was my English teacher and as usual, I earned  C's and D's. Young and attractive, she often talked about her local corrections officer boyfriend, her family place on Cape Cod, and that she had recently graduated from LSU with a master’s degree. Twenty years later, after I interviewed for a mathematic teaching position at Silver Lake, we talked in the faculty lounge. Attractive as ever, she seemed amazed about how much of her personal life she had communicated to our class. I guess what teachers communicate to their students changes over time? Most experienced teachers complain that students have changed, maybe its teacher who change.  Miss Goldman never married and eventually became chairperson of Silver Lake’s junior high English Department. Is she with us?

Melvin Cherry was well-behaved in elementary school. In junior high he was out of control. While racing down a school corridor chasing Karen Everson, who was not yet the beauty she would become, Melvin crashed into my former forth grad teacher Mrs. Loutz, who was now a guidance counselor. The result was not good. Her hip was broken. She aged substantially during her long covalence. Melvin was shipped off to private school and I imagine Karen grew up more quickly. What ever happened to our junior high version of Bonnie and Clyde?

Always slow to develop, I didn’t become a disciplinary terror until in ninth or tenth grade. Nothing serious, just behavior that earned me many two-hour detentions. One beautiful late November day, sitting in detention, I decided to stop said behavior and I did! I had only two more disciplinary problems.

A yardstick fencing dual with friend Ben Barclay resulted in detention. The action would have been overlooked had Ben’s father not been a teacher. The arresting officer, a substitute teacher named Mr. Gassett, consulted with Mr. Barclay and a detention was handed out. For the next few months I had to put up with Mr. Barclay’s sarcasms. Ben probably had to put up with much more. The other offense occurred an hour after the end of school. My sin was sitting in a car parked on school property smoking a cigarette.  A dedicated teacher saw me and the result was a one day suspension. To me it was a day off. My report cards indicate that days off were the norm.

Upon graduation Ben went to U. Mass Amherst, really didn't want to be there, flunked out, and spent four beneficial years working in  Air Force medical supply management. Having made the world safe, Ben returned to U. Mass,  graduated, worked for a company or two, went to work for a business supply wholesaler, and then with wife Susan, opened Barclay's Business Products. Recently retired, their biggest problem is deciding which of next year's cruises should be extended, choosing a retirement location, and deciding whether they should also keep their current Hingham, Massachusetts home.

While my behavior improved, I didn’t become Little Lord Fauntleroy. Michael McGlone and I just couldn’t stop talking in our history class. Mike, who would become our senior class president, was a very jovial slacker. He is a good example of why my school grades were so average. Why? I discovered he had a photographic memory when he was the student star of a school assembly featuring a memory expert. A bunch of us volunteered to participate in a memory contest. Why I volunteered to go up on the stage is beyond me. "Stupid is as stupid does!" We were given a few seconds to memorize eight or nine numbers.  One at a time we were asked questions like state the numbers, what is the sixth number, state them backwards, state every other number. Very quickly, everyone but Michael sat down.  Mike was looking at the numbers so any question was quickly answered.  Amazing, how was I to compete with a photographic memory people like Michael in Mr. Frank's history class.

Many years of teaching accounting revealed that quite a few students have extremely good memories; they were in effect, taking open book tests. One such student could have embarrassed me, as if I could be embarrassed! Because of an emergency, I was asked to teach Intermediate Accounting II for Bentley College. Intermediate Accounting is by far the most difficult accounting subject to learn and to teach second semester, never having taught first semester, could have been a disaster. On a number of occasions, a photographic memory  student corrected me on what was usually a minor point. He would say "but on page 143 it says ..." The class would look back and sure enough, he was correct. Interestingly, the class figured out that his analytical ability was average and their teacher was good at explaining difficult concepts (the answer book helped!). Said student found applying basic accounting concepts to word problems difficult. He earned an A- but I gave him an A. Why cause problems. Bentley College had a comprehensive student evaluation system and I did very well in this class.  But Bentley was moving up the college  prestige ladder and MBA's teaching for them would become a thing of the past. Too bad, so sad, I could have used the money. Questions: does an outstanding memory hinder the development of analytical skills? Beyond the basics, should our educational system change from learning the answer to a teacher's questions to students investigating personal areas of interest, determining relevant questions, and then answering these questions?
Upon graduation, Mike went to Northeaster University in hopes of earning one of their outstanding engineering degrees. He didn’t last long, married his high school sweetheart Chickee and went to work for his father's moderately successfully surveying company. Mike and Chickee attended the first few 1962 class reunions and then stopped attending.

I visited with them in the mid-nineties. Both were recovering from bypass surgery. This was of interest because Mike’s mother and some of his siblings were of poor health, something I learned while visiting a number of times at their small, summer camp like family home. Mike was using public funds to attend college part time in hopes of earning a teaching degree. About ten years later, Mike attended our 45th class reunion. I was very sorry to hear that Chickee had passed, not much else had changed. Later Northeastern University sold an MBA degree to me and many engineers working on "route 128."  After year one of a three year program, they increased tuition by fifty percent. Few students cared because they had company reimbursed tuition. For me, it was price gouging.  I was trying to pay off a college loans at $53 per month,  a 1967 red triumph car loan at $64 per month and the increase in Northeastern monthly bill to $120 was noticed.

A disaster resulted from my gab fest with Michael. We would be separated and I was  awarded Mr. Parks, who was legendary for his homework, authoritarianism, and Mr. Barclay's good friend. I walked into my new class and saw very bright students like Alton, Dana, and Daria who had pushed me to the bottom of my elementary school classes and my junior high classes. I realized academic profiling was alive and well and I was in trouble.

Mr. Parks made two statements guaranteeing I would not be a problem. “ We do one oral reports in this class and yours is tomorrow. We do four written book report per year in this class and the first of your four is due next Friday."  The fact it was the beginning of second term did not seem to matter as the boss does not have to understand and or apply proportional analysis. I was in Deep Do-Do or D-Cubed for short. Made it through, earned a B or B-. I can't remember if it was Mr. Parks who required  me to read 1944, but if it was, thanks!  I wonder if assigning me to Mr. Parks was random, or another attempt to help me grow up.  Is Mr. Parks with us?

Mr. Parks was not the only superior teacher to walk the halls of Silver Lake.  Mr. Heufelder was a photo copy of Mr. Parks.  A war veteran, who we thought must have fought for the Germans, he had a wooden leg that squeaked as he patrolled our chemistry class.  His loud voice scared almost everyone except John Delano and me. We went crazy trying not to laugh at his squeaky leg.

I studied more than usually in chemistry because my younger sister Alma was in Mr. Heufelder's advanced placement chemistry class. I got an A- term one,  lower than Alma's grade, but enough to continue my belief that my forth grade teacher Mrs. Loutz was incorrect. Mr. Heufelder gave us a long and difficult Christmas vacation problem assignment. I copied Alma’s. This made my  B or B- grade goal easier to achieve. Is Mr. Heufelder still with us ?

Note the days off.  I was not sickly, just didn't like school. Anyone who tries to compete
in an arena where they are average is not maximizing the return on their time investment.
Our flat world is very competition; academically average students need to find their special intelligence.
Hopefully I did?

Two Amigos, Both looking good

Silver Lake had many fine teachers and

Mr. Randal, my Geometry teacher,  was another superior teacher, but without the stick.
In his forties, short and with little hair plus a mustache, he had a loud but friendly voice.
He would shout no spooning or sparking allowed whenever someone was talking.
Each class started with arithmetic gymnastics. He would state a number like 2 and follow it with times 2, squared, minus 4, squared, plus 6, divided by 3 equals. I would immediately say fifty, He would smile. Finally I could win an academic game. When someone gave an incorrect answer, he would look for another answer and usually get one very quickly. One of the times I gave an incorrect answer, no one in the class had the correct answer. He didn’t give an answer. Maybe he got lost.

There were others. Mr. Frank was a very good World History teacher. I outlined the
entire book and got a B. Maybe my brain cells were waiting for more important things
to do. One day the classroom intercom speaker made a loud, sharp squeal and Mr. Frank loudly asked, “what’s that“. My immediate responded it was someone sliding down a razor blade banister. He found that amusing. Fifteen years later, while looking for that illusive mathematics teaching job, I visited with Mr. Frank, a teacher at Melrose High School. We had an I interesting talk. My Silver Lake gym teacher Mr. Kellilea was coaching basketball for Melrose High. It was his third stop on a most successful high school coaching career. He ended up working in the NBA.  Both men liked their sauce. Mr. Frank never married. Mr. Kellilea, who was also a smoker, died all too early from a heart attack.

The last day of my sophomore year became an important day of my academic career. Sitting in homeroom before the final day of school, a friend said “Walter, you made the honor roll.” I had not bothered to look because I had never made the honor role. Never! Ever! I look up, didn’t see my name and replied you're crazy! He said no and pointed to the other blackboard. He was right; somehow I managed to make the yearly honor roll while not making it for any of the four terms. Why was this important? I never made the honor roll again. English killed me in high school, calculus at 8 am was my downfall in college, and the world’s worst teacher caused a problem in graduate school.

No one has ever proven a strong correlation between grades and income. SAT tests, yes. Graduating from a prestigious school, yes.

and Real Fine Students

Paul was one of Silver Lake's best athletes. A star football player, he was also a good baseball player.  According to Howard Gardner, Paul's  Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence was high. His Interpersonal Intelligence was off the charts. It made Paul one of those unique, special people. Together with Pam, his bride of many years raised three wonderful children who produced many grandchildren. This intelligence helped him succeed at a unionized manufacturing job where he became a foreman and provided very well for his family. With the kids grown and producing children who would adore Grandpa Paul, Paul found himself trying to convince his unionized crew to accept a major work place change. They wouldn't, the company moved, Paul decided not to follow, and unemployed resulted. High interpersonal intelligence help Paul find a new job with  many golfing perks. Why, because the owner really liked Paul. Academically average, Paul would have made a great elementary school physical education teacher, especially since he did not have any of the alpha male personality traits that sometimes make athletes poor physical education teachers.  But all elementary school teachers must have above average  academic intelligence.  Society's loss. Society tries to destroy the spirit of academically average males who are not interested in academics. Would Paul have succeeded in today's testing environment? Does a bear poop in the woods?

A few years after graduation, Paul became very good friends John Montosi. Years later Paul organized an overnight golf weekend in central Maine. I attended and got to know Mr. Montosi well over the ten or  so years we played in the tournament. He revealed a strong Alpha male personality which given his average height, made his outstanding success as high school basketball player and college and football understandable.

Alton started being physically aggressive toward me with paunches on the shoulder, pinching, and other dominating behavior. My summer boss Paul was a pincher and I hated it. But I needed Paul's paycheck, Alton's aggression, not so much.  Finally he did it in front of a few other cafeteria monitors, I got really angry and I insisted we  have it out in the gym. Football coach Montosi gave us some really big boxing gloves, had his current gym class form a circular boxing ring, and said knock the other guy out of the ring. Two out of three wins. I'm sure that Mr. Montosi recognized Alton as a school tennis team player, it is unknown whether he remembered me as one of the chubby kids who was not coordinated enough, and not strong enough, to clime the ropes in his gyp class. It was obvious that Mr. Montosi thought that Alton, the more athletic, would win. But I was mad, Alton was not mad, and I easily won round one. Alton was now more upset so it took a while, but I won round two. Coach Mortise very, very quickly said three out of five, but it was over. I was no longer upset and had known before fighting that no matter what happened, I couldn't loose. Alton would stop, that was my goal. I don't do suckers bets by allowing pressing of equal value!

Alton married classmate June, who was also in Mr. Park's history class. He took some accounting classes at Bentley College, and eventually decided to make his fortune by sub-contracting the construction of large homes. June became a manager for a major upscale department store. After building his own dream home, Alton decided to retire very early and move to Cape Cod. Retirement didn't last long and he became a manager for the Christmas Tree Company.

I definitely needed a comb over.

Dennis, Dennis, Dwight and I
visited just before it closed.

College, “you don’t have to go, but you must have the option”

My father Henry never said I should go to college. In fact, given his attitude that college was
for academically superior people, he might have thought I was a poor investment. He insisted I study because people should have options, keep all doors open. It was study or put up with a lot of Henry and I was tired of listening to my brothers put up with Henry.  It was easier to study. My history of poor grades kept expectations low and my studying was minimal.

Dad suggested I take College Boards my junior year. Ben and some other friends went to bed early on the night before the test. Me, I went to the Friday night Pembroke dance. Pat would be there! In those days SAT scores were posted on the Guidance Departments bulletin board. People were surprised that I scored over 1,000, the magic number for being able to handle college level work.  And this was only my junior year! More than one student and teacher mentioned my good scores.  In 1965, SAT test takers were mostly the academically oriented college-prep students. The average score was about 1,000.  As time passed many more academically average students took the test and the average score dropped. Like any good marketing company, the SAT people rescaled the test so that 1,000 was again average and more gradates were, by definition, academically prepared for college! The magic of marketing. Remedial help costing much money spent with the College Board people would help  a child earn better scores. By the 1980's, because of increased supply, average college graduate income had begun to stagnate, and then to decrease. Over supply was the problem. It continues today. A flat world will make it worse. Too bad, so sad, Mrs. Loutz was correct after all, just early

In January of 1913. I watched a C-Span Book Notes book signing where a women showed extreme exuberance when the author mention an increase in the marginal income tax rate to seventy-five percent. She didn't realize that if allowed to continue, talented medical doctors, scientist, innovators, and others would leave France and the tax revenue would be .75 times zero. She reacted the same way to a large increase in the education budget even though data is emerging that France has a very poor education system. People thinking government can use education to solve income inequality problems while  completing disregarding Ayn Rand's ideas concerning economic productivity are doing so at society's peril.

I was not surprised by my relatively high SAT scores. Did Henry know I would do well?. In elementary school my national test scores were always about two years above grade. Dad knew these scores.

My Geometry class took the National Geometry Test near the end of my sophomore year.
I scored in the 80th percentile. Assuming the test cohort consisted of students in the top quarter
of their school population, my 80th percentile converts to 95th percentile of the entire school population. Interestingly, my 1966 Graduate Record Exam test score in business was the 80th percentile and my 1970 Graduate Record Exam math and verbal test scores were each at the 80th percentile. I was pleased with the math score because I was competition against science, math, and engineering graduate. It is scary to think that someone with my ability score so high on the verbal test.
 

Question, has our flat world  decreased the economic return from investing in college for all but our brightest, most ambitious young people. Should federal aid now given to the very average students be instead added to that given to our best and brightest students?  

And Now the Rest of the Story

My positive experience with testing is important because it communicated I was testing two years above grade both mathematically and verbally. To me this meant that I was doing well and whatever my teachers were measuring was not important. I do not know the how much my father's statement that being average was OK but I didn't feel average and over the years the grade level tests indicated to me I above average, even in geometry where most of the test takers were above average c college-prep kids. Testing all kids are college-prep and testing accomplishing the opposite by making kids with average and above average grades feel inferior. Maybe they should be compared with kids in their grade, their school, even their state but not some learning level determined by the academics of the world. Maybe these academics are the same are today's version of my second, third and fourth grade teachers! see The_Story_of_Joan

Go to chapter 2 Not all College Students are Created Equal

3rd Grade
before the educational industrial complex

before the educational industrial complex

Walter at 72