As a kid, I always liked school. I was a good student, had lots of nice friends and most of the teachers were quite good. But there was one thing that never failed to stir up my normally dormant rebellious genes — the assignment of special projects.
Every so often a teacher would decide what we had learned in class wasn’t sufficient and, to get a good grade, it was necessary to do an extra project on an assigned subject.
The first time was in the sixth grade. We were studying South America and the teacher decided the whole classroom would take part in a project.
On a 6-foot-long table, she spread brown paper and said we were going to create a map of the continent. Soon there was a colorful depiction of the land mass complete with little model figures of people, ships and oil rigs.
But I had added nothing: my interest in South America was near zero. Sure, the Incas were interesting and Machu Picchu was a cool place but that was about it.
The teacher (more about her later) called me to her desk and pointed out my lack of involvement.
“You didn’t say it was mandatory to work on the map,” I said to her. She looked at me with an exasperated expression and was likely thinking, “This kid is going to grow up to be a lawyer.”
I grudgingly agreed to contribute and wound up painting the Pacific Ocean, along the coast of Peru.
Fast-forward a few years to ninth grade. Our English class was studying Greek mythology and the teacher said we all had to make a notebook showing how those myths still existed in our society. Despite my natural reluctance, there was no choice.
On the last possible day, I searched through old magazines that were lying around the house. Many companies used mythological symbols in their ads. For instance, Mobil Oil used the flying horse and FTD had the wing-footed Mercury as a symbol.
Soon I had a decent number of ads cut out. However, I wanted a picture of Zeus. Somewhere I found an uncaptioned representation of an extremely divine-like being. I cut it out, labeled it “Zeus” and put it on the cover of my notebook.
Later, I learned the figure was Michelangelo’s depiction of God from the ceiling of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. If the teacher knew that, she never said anything to me and I got my good grade.
That same year, I had trouble with the music teacher. Once a week we had chorus. We would troop into the auditorium and the teacher would be at the piano to talk about music and get us to sing songs.
I love music but I have something like negative musical ability. I am bereft of a sense of rhythm and I can’t carry a tune in a suitcase. Consequently, music classes were never my favorites and that had been true ever since the sixth grade.
Back then, the class was preparing songs for a Memorial Day pageant. The aforementioned classroom teacher came over and stood by me. When the rehearsal was done, she said, “Richard, tomorrow when everyone is singing, you just move your lips. OK?”
It was a downer that has lasted a lifetime.
But, as I said, I liked music and knew the words to all the popular songs, both the new ones and the so-called standards.
One day, the music teacher was playing tunes and asked who knew the titles. I was familiar with all of them and the teacher seemed impressed. She announced she wanted everyone to make a notebook about music and to have it ready in two weeks.
A special project for a one credit course seemed absurd so I didn’t do it. After my performance that day I was sure she wouldn’t care. To my shock, she gave me a D for the semester, the only one I ever received.
I wish I could say I learned my lesson but there were a few other incidents with extra-credit assignments in my high school career.
The concept of special projects bothered me immensely. I did my homework, participated in class and didn’t cause any disciplinary problems. I felt I upheld my part of the educational bargain so why did I have to do more? Unfortunately for me, no teacher ever bought that argument.