Letters to the Editor

Amped to teach

Jan 18, 2008 1:00 PM

To the Editor:

My first permanent New York City assignment in 1955 was as social studies teacher at the George Westinghouse Vocational HS in Brooklyn. I had come directly from White Plains High in Westchester, a model school in an affluent locale. The contrast was immediate.

GWHS was then an all-boys school with a majority of its students from Irish and Italian working-class families. My standards and expectations were a curiosity to them, shall we say? However, in order to control decorum I had the radio department construct a portable amplifier with microphone on a 40-foot extension line. It worked like magic! I was the sole member of the faculty who had such a miraculous teaching aid.

Until retirement some half-century later, it accompanied me for my entire career. Classes always “heard” me despite any rival noise or distraction. That instrument became my trademark for generations of students in every subsequent school, whether on secondary or even eventually college level. And, mirabile dictu, some of the most difficult of the students became my most ardent champions.

I offer this as a suggestion to any teacher in today’s often trying situations. Believe me, it is well worth the cost and effort.

Jerome L. Starr, retired