|
Milne
Alumni June Newsletter Dear Milne Alumni and Supporters, In this issue: * Milne MiniMester Stories * Announcement From Merle Bachman, '72 * Sad News MILNE MINI-MESTER STORIES Here are some further responses to "In May 1972 after a winter with too many snow days, Milne students were offered a two-week 'Mini-Mester' in order to fulfill the required number of school days. Our faculty created an array of unusual, and in some cases, once-in-a-lifetime experiences." From Helene Galek, '72: "Because I was interested in teaching kids and working where needed, I volunteered to work downtown in what was known as the 'inner city' with young kids in a summer program under the supervision of Gordon Simpson from the Business Department. I did that in the morning and then worked in my parents' dry-cleaning store to make money for college." From Greg Laden, '76: "The Milne 1972 Mini-Mester did seem to come out of the blue, but it was only recently that I learned this progressive educational experience was pulled out of thin air at the last moment following a winter with snow days thus causing the school to miss the state mandated minimum of days in class. "First a word about the minimum and the snow. I remember, um, the speech given by, um, Dr. Fossieck, who was the, um, chief administrator for the, um, school. As we students cruelly counted his legendary 'ums,' he told us that in his three decades in charge of The Milne School, there had never been a snow day, so don't you kids count on a snow day this year either! Later that year it snowed big time. I remember going to school that morning, meeting up on the way with my bff Kark Shelford. He and I had done the same thing: ignored the school closing info knowing that there would be no, um, snow days. "We got to school, dropped our pea coats (we were fashion mavens) in our lockers, and headed off to homeroom. Eventually we noticed that the school was utterly abandoned. Then we noticed that the door leading back into the locker room had become locked. We were going to die of exposure on the way home for sure. "So we did a search through the tunnels, having heard that Bill and the rest of the maintenance crew hung out down there somewhere. (Remember Bill, what he would say if you asked him 'Hey, Bill, what's up?') We knew we were getting closer as the smell of tobacco smoke increased. Eventually we came upon them in a boiler room. They were playing cards. "Bill did let us back into the locker room, we got our coats, and the bus did manage to lumber by eventually to bring us back across town where we lived. "But I digress. "Mr. Lewis ran the Mini-Mester I signed up for, or possibly was assigned to, I can't remember. Albany was a pretty standard city. It was urban, with a lot of older areas, surrounded by a mixture of wild lands (like the Pine Bush), farms (like the Normanskill Dairy near my end of town), and scattered nascent suburbs. The vast landscape of continuous ranch housing and strip malls that now surrounds all American cities was just being built. Hardly anybody lived out there. Early versions of malls were being constructed, and suburban housing with young families filled the landscape with children needing to go to school. "So they built many, many suburban schools all around around the city. "If Mr. Lewis's Mini-Mester had a name referring to education, I don't remember it. Our plan was to visit these newly built schools, interview the principal or other admins, maybe some teachers and students, tour the facility, and take notes. Later there would be a report. The report was to list criteria. I never understood the meaning of the word 'criteria' so I think my report wasn't very well done. "As we toured, we saw and heard interesting, sometimes startling things. A typical visit might involve traversing a muddy field that would someday be a lawn but was still scarred up from the construction of a brand new behemoth of a building to house the 'Central School,' then a newish concept. Nobody lived near these schools, and everybody would be bussed in. I remember as a city kid never seeing a yellow school bus but knowing they existed. These new central schools would be served by dozens, hundreds of them. One school had a massive telescope and an entire astronomy wing. The principal in one school made the claim that bells used to signal beginning and end of class were constraining and obnoxious, so they disconnected the school bell system in that brand new facility. These schools had massive cafeterias, and some would have lunch being eaten in shifts. Most of the schools were nearly empty of students, because they were not built to serve a large population that existed at that time, but rather, a coming population that were currently babies and toddlers taking over these extensive suburbs. "At the time I thought this was great because I learned about a lot of new ways to do education. I believe this gave me a sense that education could be different than the standard routine invented in the 19th century. I was already in a school that was very different from the standard school, and it allowed me to consider alternative paths. Ultimately I would earn a double PhD from Harvard, an MA from the same institution, and graduate in the top of my class of 10,000 or so students in the Regents College of SUNY. (Not in that order.) But those reifying moments (the granting of a degree) sit atop an utterly unusual and somewhat chaotic educational career that usually takes me a half-hour to explain when someone demands I do so (I tend to avoid talking about it). I believe the Mini-Mester combined with Milne being odd in its own way, and the fact that it was the 1960s (which lasted well into the 1970s), combined to push, or pull, side line, or shape my attitude about education and, indirectly, my oddball decisions. "That was at the time. More recently I've thought a lot about Mini-Mester as I've been engaged in various aspects of education. I've taught at Universities, I've been involved in developing state standards and practices, and taught in teacher training programs in the sciences. I administer and teach in a STEM program for K-12 kids. Daughter attended a classic 'central school' like the ones we saw built back then, and Son is in a giant suburban school system now (largest in the state). "So I live in, and contribute to, a modern system of education that did not exist when I entered Milne (it probably existed in New Jersey or someplace, but not in my world at that time) and was built just then, and before my very eyes. I likely would not have noticed this Enormously Important Transition had it not been for Mr. Lewis's last-minute module in the Milne Mini-Mester. It is like working in the satellite communication industry and remembering back to the early days just before Telstar. And, like the space program, many of these earlier ideas didn't end up working, while others did. "More than one transition has happened. Today, there would be no astronomy wing attached to a new school. There are now three or four bells controlling the beginnings and ends of classes. One of the scariest things a modern suburban central school teacher does is hallway duty, scary because of the sheer number of semi-dangerious adolescents moving along like a Tibetan river in the spring. Today there are no Bills with their ribald jokes, and it is hard to find a cigarette even in the boiler room. We of that Milne Mini-Mester crew did not observe the beginning of the current system, but rather, of a short lived transition later under funded, choked under too-large class sizes, and barely funded. "The school buses, still, remain yellow and numerous." Send an email with your story to Judy. I will include submissions in upcoming newsletters as we remember the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Milne Mini-Mester! ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MERLE BACHMAN, '72 Merle Bachman, '72, has a new book out: Thank You for Being, a Poet's Memoir of Home. More information is available at her website, https://www.merlebachman.com SAD NEWS Bonnie LOSEE Kroha, '65, sister of John M. Losee, '69, and daughter of the late faculty member Susan Losee, passed away on May 18, 2022. Janet G. Bartlett, mother of Elizabeth Bartlett Marschke, '68, and Kevin Barlett, '70, passed away on June 9, 2022. ________________ Thanks to all of you for your interest in Milne Alumni activities. Judy (Koblintz) Madnick, '61 For contact information, see the Milne Alumni homepage: |