Eric Davis, May 2013

Transcript

[Applause] [Applause] so I have to live up to that no thank you very um I uh I'm not sure about the number 42 uh we'll figure that out later uh I did come here uh in the fall of 1973 uh I suppose a lot of you guys weren't adults were not even born in 1973 um um and the atmosphere here was rather different from what it is now uh if you walked in the front door on the average morning you would find in the Commonwealth Lobby uh at least four or five people playing guitars and singing uh with sometimes with tears rolling down their faces uh songs by Bob Dylan and the like of him uh one of the favorite ones which my wife reminded me of yesterday was this one how many times must a man look up before he can see the sky it was that kind of stuff uh it it does it gets songs really are something uh the answer was blowing in the wind all over the place uh on the other hand uh there was another uh and rather more Stony um aspect to it uh which um I suppose could be summed up in the word uh Revolution um uh it was Vietnam time uh I don't know how many of you well I've said this about 50 times in the uh boys bathroom on the third floor the which is very nicely painted unobjectionable painted uh about five layers down there is a very large North Vietnamese flag painted there and uh sometime I will if requested to do so uh lead a revolutionary movement to uncover it uh but there was a lot of that kind of talk also going on here uh hard rain was going to fall as well as the uh um nicer Dyan things uh there were a lot of kids there was a lot of arguments a lot of things that happened around here which which teachers uh uh would hear that there was really no point in uh young people listening to old fogies like us old white fogies um who uh liked Latin and Jane Austin and ridiculously out of place things uh the word relevant was all over the place and um we were told very often that we weren't very relevant and uh that we ought to be quiet and listen to younger people a lot more uh there was actually a couple of times well maybe it was only one but it seemed like about 10 actually when uh when the entire school was shut down we had meetings in every every one of these rooms on the first couple of floors to see if there was any way in which um there could be some agreement reached by the older people and the younger people about whether we should actually go on trying to have a school here uh it was it was quite a knockdown business um along with those uh kinds of that dual character to think uh there were some other things which were luckily not so um categorizable uh in this room here uh early on we had for a while um there was a couple of kids who who really loved soap operas I spent a lot of time listening to soap operas perhaps even during school hours I don't know uh but uh they really picked up the the idiom and they wrote soap opers and they were performed them here during lunchtime it uh and that was quite a lot of uh fun also there was one night one night or no it was a noon time when we came down here nobody knew this was going to happen this was when we instead of having a lunchtime which was in uh organized according to a line and you you kind of came in ate and went out more or less continuously uh everybody came in and sat down at the same time time and then and school school uh kids um were waiters and they would come and bring the food and then the ninth graders would well the first ninth grader this is characteristic the first nth grader usually who got his hands on the food it was usually he ate it all this happened over and over no matter no matter what old people said I guess that's a sign of Vitality but one one one day we came down here and uh for lunch came down that those stairs and uh was really oddl looking because this room was totally dark and uh as we came in lights went on but the but the daylight had been shut out the tables were all set with white tablecloths and actual silver and uh I think they were all uh boys we're dressed up in tuxedos with a black tie and they were our way ERS that thing and there were flowers at every table and there were candles this was just a spur of the moment God knows why but it was absolutely it was absolutely wonderful and I forget what we ate was probably something quite marvelous so things like that happened back in the70s uh I'll have to say that I uh have liked being as you may imagine liked uh being here uh enough to stick around all this time because of all the things that I learned by trying to uh make make this job of being a teacher uh work and I'll give you a few little instances of how that um came about uh we have this weekend in the country long weekend in the country called Hancock which you guess uh almost all of you know about and uh back in the old days it was done in this place that Mr Merill owned up in New Hampshire and uh there was a we slept in the barn and then we also slept in a a large um other building that had a long uh well it wasn't as big as this room but it was about 2/3 as big as this room in which we our kids slept at night and uh and then at the end of the um weekend we would all have to clean the place up and so uh this long barn-like room uh one single open stretch had to be swept well I was in charge of uh getting the place swept um on this time that I'm remembering and I remember forgot to bring a prop uh I remember I remember watching this kid uh stand roughly sort of about here maybe and he had a broom in his hand and it was going like this like that in short he wandered around accomplishing actually nothing whatever he had never heard of what it was like to use a broom and uh I was raised in the kind of town where we all I didn't sweep my own room but we certainly rake the leaves and so I taught him how to sweep I had the experience of teaching a guy how to use a broom you know so you start you start at one Edge you know and you work you work your way steadily like a military campaign and um gradually you reach the so that was one thing so I thought and you know that's a pretty good metaphor for writing an essay if you want um I had a 10th grade class uh one of the first couple years and um I asked them the same questions over and over and over again there were certain things that I wanted them to pay attention to and when we gathered up a certain number of things and we written them out on the board I wanted to have some deductions made so I asked them the same questions maybe the same seven or eight or nine questions over and over and over again and after two and a half months of this which you might think was a little excessive uh I said aren't you sick and tired of all these questions that I've been asking you I said oh God are we sick and tired oh geez let's so I said all right you tell me what their questions were I'll write them down on the board and when we're done with that I'll never ask you those questions again and they could not remember even one even one of those questions so I was totally delighted I said all right I've got you for the rest of the year that was a great moment uh another uh another great moment which was quite different in character was uh toward the end of a 10th grade year um we always read MC Beth at the end of the year and uh so I was going through a last uh Preparatory class for the final exam and it was going to be on a a metaphor soaked um passage uh at the end of the uh thing I forget which one and um uh everybody was listening to pretty carefully and asking questions and then this one young lady named Jane litter one of my all-time favorite people uh uh she was not being very nice that day she was looking terribly annoyed and and pretty soon she started to ask uh questions which basically were how can you expect how in the world Mr Davis can you expect us to know how to interpret such a stupid thing as a metaphor and we've been talking about this all year but uh and she she then proceeded to ask a series so it was an attack it was an attack and everybody knew that uh my wife now who is thinking of taking a job of this sort was listening to this thing and it almost convinced her not to ever try to be a com teacher but she asked a series of about 14 or 15 questions uh and they were uh she had me on the ropes so I tried desperately to answer these questions and I I hope I did a reasonable job but at the end of the questions I thought I occurred to me uh that if you put those questions together you would have an absolutely marvelous uh demonstration or essay about exactly what metaphors are how they work and what you can get out of them it was a brilliant a brilliant thing she was only doing it because she was pissed off but but you know she struck to the heart of the whole matter it was a marvelous thing uh another thing I'll tell you about uh my daughter and uh two sons have gone here and my uh my daughter Theo uh well I was talking to her one day about a class that I had where I couldn't get anybody to say anything nobody would say anything these happen all the time uh and uh Dr it drives you nuts if you're a teacher so uh I I I asked what in the hell is going on why were they because they've been wonderful the day before how can they be like this in one day and the next and she said uh I believe I quote uh don't worry there's not a thing you can do about it it's all social and you'll never hear a word of it you'll never understand a single thing and that that has proved to be quite true uh as a final instance of this particular bunch of things um I we read Passage to India very often in 12th grade uh and uh very early on in my career here um in a spring day when it was kind of warm and we had another one of those days where nobody was saying much of anything and uh this was a 12th grade class and um so uh I forget exactly how that thing ended up with the day after we had this unsatisfactory class that this is about the end where the it's all about the Hindu part of things uh I received a little present it was a piece of candy of some sort and it had a note on it and I actually saved the note by uh it was an inspiration to save it I the note reads like this when you eat this candy bar you will be eating it but you will will not have eaten it yet however you already ate it as did I and all the other members of the universe centuries ago good luck love Emily so I think the moral of that story is that essays don't tell the whole story uh there were some um one of the amazing things that happened here over the years uh is you got to hear uh veteran faculty people say things which um I don't quite know what verb to give it but I'll tell you what they were uh Charley Chatfield one of the finest people I have ever ever ever known uh would just let these things fall and then when you were sitting there shocked by them he would walk away so you couldn't answer ask about and this is one of those things he just said one day oh well then you know death is the mother of beauty said that now I have it just struck me as one of the dumbest things I've ever heard do does anybody want to die no uh but of course it's quite true besides he was quoting wace Steven so it has to be true uh another one he said was writing is aggression he said and I always thought of it well because I got beat up a lot when I was a kid that's why I became a scholar you know so I thought you know it was a way to avoid aggression but it is but it isn't writing is aggression you can take that one home and think about it and then I quote Charles Merill who uh he said this and I think he wrote it also in the wall Garden but I'm quoting it anyway he quoted it sometimes he said you and this is another one of the things that I thought I've never heard a dumber thing in my life he said you cuz once you get out of school you get to be free right that's why you graduate you will be taking exams he says strictly graded for the whole of your life what do you think of that everybody here who has children will probably know what I mean okay uh just I'll tell you just a few more things there have been some dramatic Exchange with students that um uh count for a lot or tell you a lot uh one of them happened uh last week um involving a person named Gabe wiin rib who some of you may know uh we were reading we just finished it was the last day we finished a Hamlet and uh it was a little extra time and uh I started to think well if you I asked them if you could quote a thing or two um that somehow struck you that uh is really at the heart of things or something that you thought was really interesting uh what would it be well they didn't have they then started to Ripple through their books as if they had never read the flag uh I was thinking because we reading the last few pages I was thinking they would light on something like the rest is silence or uh good night sweet prince and flights of angels tend each other rest seeing the other but uh what this guy picked out was uh two words from the next last page which were it left that's pretty good one of the happiest moments I ever ever had uh and my most triumphant one uh was was a kid named Andre Jones uh who was in room 3C and the history room and uh I forget what the there was an argument going on but there was also uh storm brewing outside start to rain uh really dark crowds and stuff like that and uh this guy Andre um said something which was uh well in the religious sense of the word it was unforgivable and I said Andre uh if you if you say things like that go ahead God's going to strike you dead you know and at that very moment there was this enormous thunder right outside right outside the window of that thing so we we were all shocked and all the rest of us left but but Andre was not finally I have to tell you about Isaac and his life bulb we have a a thing at Hancock where by faculty members have to sleep somewhere in the reasonable vicinity of uh the younger people and uh this guy Isaac slavit um who was a bit of a wise guy uh was sitting at was in in a room with three uh two or three other kids in it and you're supposed there's a light sou time so I said the lights out I went around and I turned out with the no I asked him to put out the lights and then of course I went around 10 minutes later and the lights were still all on so I I went around and I turned them off myself and uh then I went around 10 minutes later and I the lights were all back on again so I went around and I yelled at them and I turned off the lights some more and uh and I went back again and the lights came on in his room so I went in and I took the light bulb out of the thing and I walked back to my room and the trouble with that was that Isaac came after me and there uh followed in the room I was going to sleep in right next door to that a uh a fight I had an actual knockdown fight with Isaac slavit who was about five times stronger than me and about the lifeb it was up here struggling and uh but he couldn't get hold of it because I had a pretty good hold on and in the end um he dragged it down to where we both were and uh and then uh I I looked in his eyes and he looked in mine because I I thought I was going to get smashed and and he gave me this little smile and he let go that was one of the nicest things that ever happened to me it was it was it was sweet it [Applause] was all right I'm going to say just one last thing I'm going to quote uh it was either the first or second year I was teaching here and it was a 12th grade class and it was a warm spring day and nobody it was one one of those things where nobody wanted to say anything and uh and they didn't and um I forget what we were talking about anyway the bell rang and uh in a rather defeated condition I um I looked into the eyes of this young lady who is sitting in the front row a person who I don't know what she was doing here she looked like a perfect Southern California girl Twilight field was her name I guess it still is her name and uh and I said God something like I don't to know about this stuff and she says yeah she said it's all pretty boring until you start to think about it and I'll have to say if I if I were building this school again and I had something to put up over the door as the motto of the school that is what I would put up you [Applause]