You are currently browsing stories tagged with “School Days.”
No, I wasn’t going to cut school to go to Yankee Stadium and watch the Yankees play the Orioles during their 1967 season. “Aw, c’mon, BB, let’s do it,” recommended “Reese,” one of my Southwest Bronx neighborhood pals and fellow schoolmate during my sophomore year at DeWitt Clinton High School. Otherwise easygoing, when it came to missing school, I couldn’t [...]
When I was fifteen years old I went to Camp Camelot, a romantic name for a Fat Camp. My family had always called me "big boned." My classmates had other terms for me, and they certainly were not half as nice. In my elementary school gym class there was one record used for special occasions to humiliate the fat kids [...]
I had just completed my freshman year at Cornell University, where I was majoring in Functional Apparel Design. The program focused on designing clothes for people with specific needs. My degree would be nothing like those awarded to fashion design students at F.I.T. No, nothing frivolous for me. But what I didn’t realize when I began this course of study [...]
Most parents have to be repeatedly prodded, coaxed and cajoled into attending any school meeting. Parents of Emotionally Disturbed Special Ed. students are required to attend annual meetings to evaluate their child's individual program and progress, or lack thereof. It is therefore no surprise that voluntary meetings, such as Open School Night, can be notorious for lack of parental attendance. [...]
The average Special Education teacher's career lasts a grand total of approximately two years. It's the one fact I remember on the road to my Master's Degree. Actually, remember two. I also remember that teaching in the inner city is the second most stressful job in these United States, next to being an inner city cop. And of course, cops [...]
When you walked through the door that first time in September, you became a Riceman …always a Riceman … never a boy, kid, lad, young guy … just a Riceman. Founded in 1938, and in 1940 relocated to a six story red brick building on the corner of what was Lenox Avenue and 124th Street, it was, and is, an [...]
