Читать книгу In the Arena - Mike Curry - Страница 6

Foreword

The genesis for this project came from some writings of my wife’s grandmother passed down through her family. The writings describe a time none of us had or would experience and a much younger person than we would have known.

I know almost nothing about the lives of my parents or grandparents. Unfortunately, as a general rule, when we die the texture of our lives is lost. I have had some great experiences, and I wanted to leave something behind that allowed other generations to know something about me.

Initially, I wrote about my experience as a Marine Corps infantry officer in Vietnam. My writing was based on official Marine Corps records and numerous letters I wrote home. Then I expanded that to include incidents noted in diary entries from my rather tumultuous years in education. I added the Watts Riots and the years I spent in Jamaica as a Peace Corps volunteer. The latter also based on letters.

I have changed the name of the schools as well as both teachers and students, or I didn’t use a name. It seemed a prudent thing to do. Many of these incidents are not in chronological order. I grouped some of them in order to provide some sense of order, particularly if it involved the same student or group of students. Also, these incidents took place over a thirty-one-year span and in two different schools. However incredible, I made nothing up. It all happened.

Some of the incidents I describe are trivial in the larger scale of things and some are not. Most, literally thousands of students who attended Jefferson Middle School and Franklin Elementary, have gone on to become productive citizens. Numerous positive things went on in the school, thanks to some wonderful teachers. However, most situations I describe are not positive because they represent where I spent so much of my time. As with countless other situations, it is the problems, the exceptions to the norm, that suck the air out of the room. In some cases, they were traumatic incidents. My account also gives the reader an idea of the constant barrage and diversity of issues occurring in a school.