I was born in February of 1934, and when I was a young boy, school started for all youth at age six. Kindergarten was not available in those days, at least not where I lived in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. I can remember the year (1939) before I was to start school. My three older siblings were already in school, and I had a younger brother who was just a baby. I remember spending most of those days trying to find things to do while I was waiting for them to come home. We lived on the outskirts of town, and there were very few other children that I might have played with. I just don’t remember spending much time with others. I do remember being listless, waiting for my brother and two sisters to get home. They were close enough to my age, and we usually played together.
I didn’t have many toys, but I do remember having an old cast iron model T Ford truck toy. It was small (about the size of my fist) and very heavy, black in color, as were the real Model T trucks manufactured in the early days of automotive history. It had a seam down the middle where the two molded cast iron halves were fit together. I would sit in the dirt/sand by our porch and play with that truck, making roads, loading dirt in the back and driving it to an area in that make-believe world where I would dump it.
At that same time, about a block away, there was a contractor preparing to build a house. There was a big steam shovel (Yes, I said steam shovel) digging dirt out of a hole where the basement would be. The operator would load the dirt from the hole into the back of an old Model T Truck (just like mine). I remember it being muddy, and the truck would get stuck and the operator of the steam shovel would push it out of the mud with its bucket. I watched that operation from a vantage point as our house was on a slight hill. There was a small valley/cow pasture in between, and the land sloped up again where they were building this house.
I could see straight across at the project. I was very fascinated with what went on, and my little cast iron truck replica took on much more value to me after seeing a real Model T in operation. How I would love to have that little toy today.
You are probably asking, what on earth, has that got to do with my education? Education has many facets and formal or structured education is just one. From the time we leave the womb until the time we are placed in our tomb, the human being is sensing its environment and thus learning.
The story of the toy was just to set the stage for my first formal educational experience, the first grade. You can probably tell from the description above, that I was looking forward to the time when I, too, could go to school. My mind is fuzzy about how I perceived my first years of school. I can barely remember any of the academic aspects of it. I do remember trying to learn the alphabet and the first little “Readers” with phrases, such as: “See Dick run, See Jane skip, See Spot (a dog) chase the ball.” If a person had one of those readers, in good condition, it would probably be a valuable antique today. In our school, all the student desks were stationary with built in inkwells that we had to dip our pens into to write (long before ballpoint pens). I remember practicing the alphabet letters, both printing and in cursive. The long black pens had a slit in the writing part, that apparently helped hold more ink, and the point would often get bent or gummed up and then would not write very well. I often went home after school with ink on my hands or clothing because the inkwells and pens were messy. We had pencils, too, and I can’t really remember why we used one or the other. I also remember struggling to understand punctuation, and, even today, I have a hard time remembering when and why we put a comma here and semicolon there, etc. Some might believe that without a clear understanding of grammar rules, one could never be considered an “educated person.” I, of course, would never agree with that assumption. Some of our most brilliant scientists could neither spell nor punctuate and some who are considered grammar specialist are not at the top of their class or the smartest people you might know.
To be really honest, what I remember most about those early years in school was the recess periods and the walks to and from school with my brother and sisters and later, my little friends. I remember one cold winter day at recess an older boy told me to lick some ice off of the monkey bar. In accepting the challenge, my tongue was frozen to the steel pipe, and to get myself free, I had to leave a couple layers of my anatomy on the pipe. He of course knew what the consequences would be. Please note that I have never, ever, challenged a younger person to do the same. That was a very important informal learning experience for me.
We walked home along the railroad track. At one of the crossings, there was a little store on a corner. Once in a while, we would have a penny or two in our pockets, and we would stop and press our little faces into the slanted glass counter to look at all the various candy options. With a single penny, we could buy several pieces of candy. There were jawbreakers, licorice, jelly beans, bubble gum, etc. That was a real treat for us.
We would sometimes stop along the way to look at various things that caught our curiosity. One of the points of interest was to climb up on one of several pickle vats along the railroad tracks. They were large round wooden vats, probably about 12 feet in diameter with a stair going up to a wooden catwalk around the outside. We would get up on the walk and look down into the vats and see all the pickles being pickled in some kind of liquid. As we looked into the vat, we could see dead birds and rats, as well as leaves, etc. I guess the only thing that matters in pickle production is the pickled pickle.
Even though I know teachers play an important part in one’s education, I have to admit that at this stage in my life, I don’t remember any of my early grade school teachers. The first one that I do recall was my 5th grade teacher, and I think that the only reason that I remember her is because she wore a wig. One day she was getting into the supply closet, and it caught on something, and it came off. She was mostly bald and it was the first time I had ever seen a bald woman, as well as a wig. I can’t really remember a teacher that I thought inspired or motivated me to become smart and/or good.
I attended the sixth grade after my family had moved for the third time, and it was my third school. Here again, the things I remember were not academic. I remember being the new boy on the playground and being challenged. One boy grabbed my baseball and started throwing it to another boy. They threw it back and forth over my head. After I had enough, I told the one who took it initially, that he had better give it to me, now! I said, “If you throw it one more time, I am going to hit you.” He threw it, and I hit him in the eye with my fist. He sported a black eye for about two weeks, and he never had anything to do with me again all the while I knew him. I never had to prove myself to any others after that either. One day, I was the teaser, teasing a girl across the aisle from me, and she stabbed me with her pencil in the upper thigh. The lead broke off and left a black mark where the lead was embedded in my leg. That pencil lead, just under the skin, was with me for many years. As I grew older, the lead would move further and further down my thigh. About the time it got to my knee, a good foot from the starting point, it disappeared. I learned two things from those experiences. I learned that a person’s rights may be trampled on only until the “trampled” takes action. I learned not to tease others. The teaser almost always gets hurt in the end by the teased.
I was not a good student during grade school and junior high years. I got C’s and D’s because I never did any of the assigned reading or homework. I was not motivated to learn the things they wanted us to learn and the way they were taught. Many years later, while working on my PhD in Educational Administration – Higher Education, I remember reading a statement about teaching young people. It stated that the “child’s own will is the educators most powerful ally. Unless the child’s will is activated, education can never succeed. The most determined and conscientious educator cannot educate a child who remains passive, a child whose imagination has not been set aflame with the picture of the kind of person he wants to become.” My imagination had not yet been set aflame.
I was always motivated enough, however, to find some kind of work to make a little money even as a little kid. When I was about nine, I had a paper route with my sister. At eleven and twelve years old, I sold papers on the street corner in Spokane, Washington. When we moved to Pullman, Washington, and when I turned thirteen, I was a pin setter in the local bowling alley. I learned from those jobs that if I worked hard and did a good job, I would be rewarded over and above the compensation provided by my employer. For example, when I was real fast at pin setting and I didn’t make the bowlers wait, they would throw a tip down the alley for me.
Halfway through my thirteenth year, I joined the National Guard, and that was an education in and of itself. That’s written about in a different paper.
When I was in the ninth grade, I was a janitor after school for about two hours a day. I had several classrooms I had to clean and straighten for the next day. In February of that year, I turned fifteen, and the public school code only required that a student attend public school until they turned fifteen. I went to mom and dad, and told them that I wanted to quit school and get a full time job. They were not real happy about it, but they had always supported me in my decisions. In those days, it wasn’t uncommon for young people in my community to drop out of school. My first job after dropping out was working for Turner’s Hog ranch, just outside of town. The year before that, his hogs all died from some disease, and their bones were lying all over his hog yard. He had built four bins that were about eight feet square and placed strategically around the yard. My first job was to drive his little Fordson Tractor (Fordsons were new at the time) with a front end loader on it and scoop up all the bones and put them in the bins. When a bin was full, he would pour oil all over them and set them afire. When that project was done, I cleaned out his barns, and the pig poop was probably the worst smelling animal poop you could ever imagine. I learned only one thing from that experience, that I didn’t want to be a hog rancher.
I had many jobs during the next few years. Though I was never fired, the longest was with the Pullman City Street and Park departments. Many of my early jobs were just short term manual labor jobs, and when the task was done, the job was over, too. I don’t ever remember being out of work for very many days. I had a pickup truck which I used to haul manure and scrap iron in to make extra money. I would get free manure from local farmers’ barns and sell it in town for city gardens. I would also ask local farmers for the old scrap metal lying around their barns (sheds) and load it onto my pickup, drive it into town and sell it to the local scrap dealer. Some people would probably accuse me of being a hustler, and, in reality, I guess I was. When I was seventeen, I went to work as a hod carrier, providing brick and mortar to bricklayers, as well as building the scaffolding they worked from. I did that kind of work until I became an apprentice bricklayer myself. There has been some education of one kind or another, in everything I have done.
During the summer of my eighteenth year, after the class of students that I should have graduated with had their gradu- ation ceremony, I was eligible to take the GED (High School Equivalency) examination. I passed it fairly high—high enough to get my diploma just three months after my classmates graduated. My classmates had spent three and a half more years in school than I did for the same award. My score was also high enough to qualify me to be admitted into Utah State University about three years later.
When I turned nineteen, I was drafted into the army. Military Basic Training is a fairly significant education in and of itself. I also completed Military Police Training and Intermediate Radio Operators school. In the first two, I was awarded recognition for being one of the top three or four graduates out of several hundred men. As draftees, we were required to take the AGCT (Army General Classification Test). In my basic training company of 160 men, I, and one other trainee, was called into the company commander’s office and told that we had passed the AGCT test high enough to go to Officer Candidate School if we would like to. In order to go, we would have to extend our service requirement from two years to three years. Since the army was not my primary interest, I turned it down. I wanted to get back to my apprentice bricklaying job as soon as I was discharged. Beside that, the Korean Conflict was now over, a truce had been signed, and there was no longer any immediate threat to our country. So, as far as I was concerned, there was no patriotic reason to remain in the service.
Where I got the knowledge to do so well on those two tests is beyond me. Most of the men in basic training with me were high school graduates, and some even had a year or two of college. So what was it that gave me the edge? There must be some residual value in on-the-job experiences.
Even though I had anticipated being a bricklayer as my career, I had a unique experience that motivated me to get a formal education. Shortly after I finished my Military Police training and while I was serving as an MP on the Presidio in San Francisco, California, I met a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He introduced me to the Book of Mormon. After reading the book and being touched by the powerful spirit of the book, I decided to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After that, I was so excited about religion that I started reading everything I could get my hands on: church books and religion in general. I can truthfully say that I probably knew more about church doctrine than most of the young people I attended church with, most of whom had been members all their lives. It was a type of education that I really had not anticipated. I was so wrapped up in it that I was, for a while, even maybe considered fanatical. It hurts me to think of myself as ever having been fanatical, but looking back, I have to concede that I was. The doctrine of the church states that a member should read from good books and get as much education as one can, for: “whatever intelligence a man attains unto in this life will go with him into the next.”
There I was, a fanatic with an order from on high. Where I had planned to be a bricklayer all my life, I was now being given another direction, that of becoming formally educated. I now planned to attend college and get a bachelor’s degree and enter into the field of education. Education would be a career where I might be a positive influence on youth. I finished my bachelor’s degree and completed my apprentice bricklayer requirement at the same time. I worked as a bricklayer half-time all the while I attended college in order to provide for my family and accomplish both of those goals together. Sometime during my junior or senior year in college, I decided that I wanted to be a High School Counselor. In order to become a counselor, a masters degree was required. So I applied for such a degree through the Psychology Department at Utah State University and was accepted as my grades were high enough to qualify. However, I was fortunate to be hired as a High School Counselor after my graduation (1959), even without the Master’s degree. I completed my Masters degree in 1963 while I worked full-time. I was fortunate to work at a brand new high school, Bonneville, in South Ogden, where I worked until 1966.
In the Summer of 1966 the Dean of Student Affairs at Weber State University asked me to apply for the position of Director of Scholastic Standards, as the current director was leaving for another position elsewhere. He had seen my work in assisting students in obtaining scholarships to Weber. I applied and was hired. After one year, the Registrar asked me if I would be interested in becoming the Director of Admissions, a new position at Weber. I accepted, and became the first at the University.
The Registrar position had been renamed to “Dean of Administrative Services,” and the Dean was nearing retirement age. Very few Deans were hired without a PhD, and I thought that if I wanted to be in a position to take his place when he retired, I had better get a PhD. I was 36 years old at the time, and I vowed to get the PhD before I was forty. I applied to the University of Utah, took the prerequisite tests, passed them, and I was accepted. I worked full time at Weber, attended most of my classes at night and studied as a very serious student. I finished the class work, passed my language requirements, wrote my dissertation, passed my oral examinations and graduated before I was forty years old (in 1973).
One of the pitfalls of being that driven by goals or objectives is that other things are usually neglected. I never spent nearly as much time with my children as I should have and would have liked to during that highly demanding and stressful period, let alone with my sweetheart wife. It was a sacrifice on everyone’s part. The bottom line, when the Dean retired, there were over one hundred applications for his job from all over the country, and I was selected. Was it worth it? Who can answer a question like that? I feel it was in some ways and not in other ways.
The question is still out there regarding what makes one educated. I believe the answer is in one’s ability to learn. We live in an ever changing society, facts obsolesce, tools wear out and skills change. Therefore, I believe an educated person is one who has a highly developed learning skill—a superior capacity to absorb information when needed. A person may read all the great books written over the centuries and have their head full of detail and information that they may never use in a practical way. Then there are those who have learned how to learn what they need to know when they need to know it. I’ve never been a bookworm; that is not to say I do not read. I read a lot, but everything I read is of interest to me or is of importance to and related to projects I am doing. These may be either self appointed projects or they are part of my responsibilities at work or church. I would like to think that I am one of those, who, when a “need to know” arises, I have the skills to learn and become proficient in a short period of time. I would like to think that that is the kind of educated person I am. Socrates, in around 400 years, before Christ stated, “Whom do I call educated? Those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day; and those who possess a judgement which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the expedient course of action.” At one time, talent was believed to be very limited, and once in a while a talented person was stumbled upon. Now it is common knowledge that talent can be produced or generated in most all persons through the process of education. The best form of education is that which is motivated from within.
As a father, I have written this because I want my children and grandchildren to understand the work and education that I have achieved in the hope that it will motivate and encourage them to know that they too can accomplish many things that at one time, they like me, may have thought they could not. You can!