Lessons from Leto

 Back when I was young, thin, and had a little hair I attended A.P. Leto High School in Tampa, Florida. In those days, high school in Tampa was grades ten through twelve. Tampa was in the midst of a population explosion, and we had 714 people make it to graduation day in my class. We had a fifty-year reunion last fall that I attended and hated. More on that another day.

Education or the failure of it, has been a hot topic in the news lately. Just for full disclosure, my three years at Leto may have been the worst years of my life. I was in a "herd of nerds" program the last two years. There were about thirty of us who had advanced classes in math and science. So, I spent a couple of hours every day with my fellow geeks. 

How bad could high school be? I wouldn't do it again. I was one of the smallest kids in our class. At our recent reunion, the question I was most frequently asked was "When did you grow?" I had to explain that human growth does not end with high school graduation. Today, I am about five inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than I was at graduation. Yeah, I had a late growth spurt. 

Despite being in the "herd of nerds" program, I was never inducted into the National Honor Society. It has been more than fifty years and I am still a little pissed about that. In fact, I may be the smartest guy who ever attended Leto who was not a member of the National Honor Society. That may be my claim to fame or at least one of my favorite things to bitch about. But let's move on.

In my junior year I was in an Algebra 2 class. It was an advanced class that I shared with my fellow nerds. The woman who taught the class has almost certainly passed away by now, but just in case she hasn't, we will refer to her as "Madame X".

One day early in the school year, Madame X started the class by returning to us a homework assignment that we had turned in the day before. She then reviewed the assignment and gave us the correct answers. This included a discussion on how to solve the problems. When she finished that she told us that she had not recorded our scores and when she called our name, we were to give her our score.

After calling all our names and recording our scores, Madame X stood up and addressed us. She said, "This was a test of honesty. I had already recorded your scores before I returned your paper to you. I am stunned that some people falsified their score. Six people changed their scores, five raised their scores and one, inexplicably, lowered their score. Does anyone have an explanation for this behavior?"

If you guessed that I raised my hand to answer her question, you are correct. Madame X looked at me and said, "What is it?" I said, "You asked a question. I was going to answer it for you." She appeared shocked but said "Go ahead!"

I told her, "First, your writing is hard to read. This would explain why someone lowered their score. Second, everyone here wants to get into a good college. This is a very competitive environment. A lot of decisions will be based on grade point averages. Last, but certainly not least, if this was indeed a test of honesty, I want to point out that you lied to us first when you said that you had not recorded the scores." I was looking directly at her as it appeared that her head was going to explode. She yelled at me, "Meet me out in the hall."

Out in the hall, she was yelling at me. I felt a little like Gomer Pyle listening to Sergeant Carter. After about a minute, she said "Go to the Dean's office!". I headed down to the office and waited for the Dean, Sam Rampello. A few minutes later, he called me into his office. His first question was "Did you change your score?" I told him that I had not. He said, "Why did you say those things to her?" I told him. "First, everything I said is true. Second, I was just answering the question that she asked. If it was a rhetorical question and she didn't want an answer, she should have told us that." He looked at me and said, "I don't think that she will ever call on you again. If she does, don't answer anything but a math question. Go to the patio for the rest of this class period, don't go back to her classroom today."

Madame X never called my name again in that school year.

What was my lesson from Leto in this? Teachers asking questions don't always want answers.