My Public Education

[Martin Hash]

2nd Grade:
Our math test consisted of "5 > 3" & "2 > 10" type questions and we were supposed to put the appropriate "T" or "F" next to them. 2nd Grade was a little early for abstraction, or I was a little slow, because I thought the ">" sign was supposed to be "bigger," as in the wide end was physically wider on different signs. I always felt like I didn't know what was going on as a kid, and this was one of those times: to me, all the wide ends looked the same, but if I squinted real hard I could barely tell which was minutely wider than another. Needless to say, my scores were no better than random, and it was determined that I didn't know math.

3rd & 4th Grade:
I failed 3rd Grade, 2 "Fs," but we moved, and my mom enrolled me in 4th Grade anyway. In 4th Grade I was identified as "gifted," & even selected to appear on The Art Linkletter Show with a couple other "gifted" children. The school wanted me to skip 5th Grade but my dad said, no, he's already the smallest kid in his class & you people don't know shit.

Art Linkletter.jpg

5th Grade:
We moved again in the middle of 5th Grade and because I was new, I was put in the back of the class, and had no idea what was going on in history, science, or language because they used a different curriculum than the one I came from. Plus, I couldn't hear anything, and the teacher couldn't hold my attention anyway. In the back of the class, right behind my desk, were some "science kits" donated to the school. No one had ever even opened them. There were also some cards you could read, and as you improved, the color on the top of the cards changed, all the way to Black (but nobody had ever gotten to Black.) I had to start from the very beginning (pink), and was way behind everyone else. The teacher thought maybe I should go back to 4th Grade. I asked if I could do a Science Kit ("From Sun To Sound"), then another ("Electronics"), then all the rest, then the State of California thought maybe I was "gifted" again, and put me, an 11-year old on the bus to the State Computer facility to learn programming. I also finished all of the reading cards, including the Black ones while the teacher was droning away in the front of the class, saying, I don't know what. Then we moved again.

Punch Cards.jpg

7th Grade:
New city, new school, but in this one we rotated classes like High School & never got to know any single teacher. I was the only kid who carried a briefcase, buttoned my top button, and collected those "brain teaser" books to work on while the teachers were droning away at the front of the class. Got all "As" but none of the teachers knew anything about me, apparently not even my grades, and didn't care because I never paid attention to them or what they were saying anyway. The other students knew me though, and when I invariably had to move before the year was over, they asked the teachers if they could throw me a party? None of the teachers had ever heard of such a thing but because almost every student asked, they relented & I had a going away party during 5th period. The students all signed a hand-lettered card, “To Our Computer Martin.” (The teachers had no idea.)

To Our Computer 1.jpg

High School:
I can't relate how awful High School was. Besides the set curriculum, I made my own "self directed" courses. One time I got 8 "As" on the same Report Card, including an A+ in Chemistry. The Chemistry teacher said that he had never given an A+ before & probably never would again, and he got me a job working as a "chemist" at a potting soil plant.

Organic Nutrients.jpg

As a Junior in High School, a part-time teacher took an interest in me. She made me editor of the school newspaper for 1 issue. She "hung out" with me. I was uncomfortable with the arrangement, and dropped out of the paper. This teacher then switched her attention to the school Student Body President (my friend), fucked him on a student outing, divorced her husband, married him, had a kid, and now they're divorced.

During Senior year, I went over to the Junior College, the only student to ever do that at the time, and got "As" in Physics, etc. I built my own X-ray machine. My SAT scores were 99/98 and I was accepted to MIT, and got a scholarship to Columbia, just by checking the box on the SAT worksheet. (I didn't even have to apply.) I never once talked to a student counselor in 3 years. (Except once when I went to ask if the A+ in Chemistry was a mistake.) No one ever talked to me about college. Not one public education person even knew my grades or what I was doing.

XRay.jpg

To end this story:
I went on to get 3 Masters & 3 Doctorates; worked for Hewlett Packard & Microsoft, started my own company, built a Disneyesque mansion, retired & traveled the world. One of my goals in life is to tear down Public Employee unions, the Teacher's Union in particular, and totally modify how education is done.