87 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
87 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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etext__/violence/violence4.txt
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Rowan High-Jinks : An account of one person<6F>s time at Hattiesburg High
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School, Rowan Campus-by Patrick Moore (special to ATI)
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(Dedicated to Mrs. Andrelle Nicholson, who had the unmitigated gall to
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reject one of my original compositions and give me an "F" because she
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thought it was copied, and Mr. Wally Gregg, who took it upon himself the
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task of suspending me from school without so much as the benefit of a
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hearing, or even telling me.)
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PROLOGUE
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For my part, I was one of those that scored unusually high on
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achievement tests, but did poorly in classes. There was just not enough
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in the HPSD to keep kids like me from looking outside the window,
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because the classwork was so goddamned boring.
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When I graduated in 1982, I began to discover what the HPSD failed to
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offer. I took my ASVAB in 1984, and scored high enough to have my pick
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of any job in the military I wanted. I chose communications. In 1987, I
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began working as a direct support technician on FM tactical radio
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equipment, which was a prize job. I was only one of 5 in the entire
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battalion qualified for such work.
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Frank Zappa once said, "If you want to get an education, go to the
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library." I learned more in the Hattiesburg Public Library than I did in
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the classroom. I spent so much time there that the staff allowed me
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access to areas normally off limits to normal patrons. I knew the Dewey
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Decimal System by heart, and the staff allowed me the unusual privilege
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of setting up and running microfiche machines. On more than one
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occasion, I corrected new staff members on the proper way to thread a
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microfiche. (I bet I can still thread and run an old microfiche
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machine!)
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Yet, in the classroom, I felt trapped.
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Trapped because I wanted to take a different direction than what the
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school board prescribed. The system didn<64>t take into account wildcards
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like me, or offer anything besides the daily drudgery of classwork.
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TIMELINES
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DATELINE 1970: Hattiesburg High recieves a desegregation order.
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Beginning at the start of the 1970-71 school year, Blair High
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(Hattiesburg<72>s white high school) and Rowan High (the Black school) were
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ordered to admit students of all races. However, many parents find ways
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to skirt the order.
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1972: The Justice department looks at the Hattiesburg school system, and
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declares that the HPSD hasn<73>t taken effective steps to enforce the
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desegregation order. As a result, Rowan becomes the city<74>s 10th grade
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school, Blair the 11th and 12th.
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1979: I begin my 10th grade year at HHS-Rowan, and learn about
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schoolhouse politics. I thought the REACH program was off-kilter, giving
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preference to children of well-to-do parents. By now it was full-blown
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favoritism.
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1980: I am given an assignment to write a report. I turn it in, within a
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few minutes I get it back with an "F" and the word "COPIED" at the
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bottom.
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Two months later, I find myself on suspension. Why? I had a habit of
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arriving to school early, and decided to grab a smoke before school. How
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did I find out? One of my teachers told me, after he saw my name on the
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daily absentee report. It seemed that Mr. Wally Gregg had decided to
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suspend me for 1 day because I was smoking, and didn<64>t bother telling
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me. (Can you say violation of the 4th amendment?) So, I took a day<61>s
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vacation.
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Then, in May 1980, I get news that somebody had torched Rowan School.
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Not that it was any big surprise. Tensions had built up over the past
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few years over the treatment of students by the faculty. I can only
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wonder what pushed someone over the edge to actually do it. It didn<64>t
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take police long to find a suspect. It turned out the person that did it
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had flunked several grades, and was thoroughly fed up with his treatment
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by Rowan officials.
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The next year, I went to Blair. Things went far better there than at
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Rowan. I began getting A<>s and B<>s, and had teachers who were genuinely
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interested in my achievement.
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So, if there is to be something taken from this, it is this: just because
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you have a few setbacks in High School does not mean you will do badly
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once you leave.
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