Alarming Situation


One of my early years of teaching in the 1970s, I had one of the smartest groups of four students that I had had up to that time and actually, pretty much since. I had them all in my class at the same time, and they all knew more about what I was teaching that I did. They never tried to embarrass me, which they easily could have but were great to have in a class together. They may have gotten bored with the whole going to school thing, but they kept a comin’. It was a real pleasure to have them in class.
Carl J. Stubbs at Orem High School
One of the things I enjoyed the most were their antics.
I had them first period. It was a great way to start the day, but as the day went on, they seemed to grow restless and mischievous. On several days before the end of school, the bell would ring early, before it was time for school to be over. There was always about five or ten minutes of class left. After a few times of this happening, one of the office staff would come on and tell the students, who had already bailed out of class, that class was not over. But it was. This went on for quite a few days.
One day I was going to the office, and one of these young men was motioning to another one at the office door. When I got to the office there was another one of the four, sitting by the board where the announcements were made, flipping a switch in the back of the console. I walked out, back towards my room, and there was a custodian going up the ladder to put a towel around under the old bell alarm. As soon as he started up the ladder, the bell would stop, and he would climb down. As soon as he got to the ground, the bell started again. This went on for a few times until the custodian just went ahead and put the towel inside the bell. It was funny but I didn’t laugh; I just walked back to my room.
The next morning in first period I brought up the subject of how the bell could keep going off mysteriously. We had a little discussion, and then I said that even though it didn’t have anything to do with economics, we should all try to work out together how this could be happening. There were several different ideas, none that were what was going on, but interesting. At the end I told them that I had an idea how it might happen. I then relayed an idea; it was really what I had observed. The young men knew that I had seen them, but I didn’t do anything that would cause them problems. I should have, but they had been having so much fun, and I had enjoyed it too. For some reason, the bell never went off prematurely again.
Earlier that year at homecoming time, there had been two groups of girls that were going to play powder puff football for the student body one afternoon for assembly. For about a week each of the teams were making announcements, telling how much better they were than the other team. One of the coaches of the girl’s team made some pretty inappropriate statements about the girls on the other team. At the end of the day over the PA system came an announcement concerning the teacher who had made the comments about the girls on the Blue team. The announce went like this, “Fitz is so dumb; he couldn’t find his ass in the dark with two hands and a flashlight.” It was totally inappropriate, but so hilarious.
The administration couldn’t find where or how they had made that announcement. Vance Calder told me what happened. Apparently, the students had brought an amplifier to school, climbed a ladder in the science workroom, and sent it over the PA system, using the speaker in that unoccupied room. Vance caught them, but didn’t say anything except to me. He was a good friend and relative that worked there also. By the way a lot of education went on at good old Orem High. When the district had to send in test results to the state from a random high school it was always Orem High’s scores that went in, “randomly.”


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some of My Testimony

Image
November 2019 Carl Stubbs As a young man, I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps as far as the Church was concerned. He had a strong testimony of the gospel, and he instilled that belief into me by his example. There were many people in my life that helped me along the way. I soon learned that the Church was true, but that all of the people who were members were not always so, including myself. Some of the men that were influential in my life besides my father were Frosty Traasdahl, Karl Snow, Glenn Snow, Jake Williams, Bert Whitney, M J Christensen and Bishop Cheeseman. I’m sure there were others, but these are the ones that come quickly to memory. One that I met prior to my mission was Alma Sonne who was the one that called me on a mission. I have always believed that the Church was true and have known that all of us are not exempt from the temptations of the world. I believe that we are all attempting to do our very best with the abilities that we have been given. As I went...
Read more

The Board of Education

Image
As I watch several of my children who are in education work during this coronavirus, I see them using the internet to reach their students. This writing will probably let you know that I started teaching many years ago. I will help you out with that. The first year I taught in public school was 1968. It was at Orem High School. Carl Stubbs in classroom D-2, 1985 In my room, D-2, the chalkboards were black. Not long after, it was determined that green was a much better color, easier for the students to see. I was not teaching there long before they came in one summer and put in the new improved green boards. They were still called blackboards by the teachers and students. These boards worked just fine for many years. I should deviate from the story of boards to let you know that my penmanship is not good. In fact, it is terrible. In fact, I remember in college I would take good notes, but have to hurry home and type them before I forgot what they said. I had a difficult time...
Read more

Kansas

Image
Written on October 12, 2020 As a young man between eighth and ninth grade, I had the opportunity to go from Boulder City to Kansas to work on my uncle’s farm. I say given the opportunity, but I was really just shipped out. His farm was in the southwest corner of Kansas. Looking back after sixty-two years I realize that my parents, my dad, in particular, wanted me out of town. I’m not sure why, but I guess I was not all that enjoyable to have around. I can’t even remember the name of the little towns they lived by, but I remember the farm. I suspect that my uncle Harry and his wife Inez were not that excited to have me there, but they treated me ok. I was there for about three months. They had two sons who were older than me. Duane was eighteen and Manley was about twenty. An old wheat truck like the one on my uncle's farm I got to work on the family farm driving a tractor, a large wheat truck, and a 1947 Kaiser-Frazer car. After work and on the weekends, I was allowed to driv...
Read more