I had to stop reading that page really pretty quickly, because I was so creeped out.

I also just found an archive of the school newspaper from that time period. Seems like that teacher was pretty controversial in a bunch of ways. The next year, he claimed to be a member of SDS planted as an informer in the National Guard, and then claimed it was to teach about China in the early 1900s. He was also trying to get something called "Idea Forum" approved as a class. (I suspect many high schools in 1967 had something like Idea Forum floating around. My high school used to have some sort of "hippyish" history curriculum, but by the time I got there, the only thing really remaining was class names -- Modern World (Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation); Revolutionary World (US History up to about 1880); Industrial World (US History from 1880 to as far as the teacher was able to get); and Contemporary World (senior year choice of US Government, Modern Europe, Psychology, and one other thing I can't remember right now.)

Now I have to disengage my brain from him so I can get back to grading. Phew!

I so need chocolate right now. Why have the chocolate fairies forsaken me?

Mmm, chocolate. I don't have any, either.

Interesting. Neil Howe was in that high school at the time.

The Idea Forum thing was going on the same week as The Third Wave -- he was trying to get the school to adopt a new class, where for three hours a week students and teachers could meet and study whatever they wanted, outside the "stereotypical" roles of teacher in charge and students as listeners. It would also "bridge the generation gap."

Revolutionary World (US History up to about 1880);

Considering how much upheaval was going on in the world at that time, that's a good name.

Timelies all!

I have separate vacation and sick leave. Both roll over from year to year(though there is a cap on the amount of vacation you can roll over - not that I'm anywhere near that amount). G has the PTO thing now.

Neil Howe was in that high school at the time.

Neil Howe, as in Generations co-author?

Neil Howe, as in Generations co-author?

Yep.

A very nice man, as was (sadly--RIP, Bill!) Bill Strauss. They really did a good job of using discussion boards to develop a very vital community over at fourthturning.com, which was my first online hangout before I discovered Salon and, eventually, the Buffistas.

Looks like there was a lot going on at that school in those few years. The year after the Third Wave thing (which was April 1967), they started accepting black students from a nearby district. First issue of the paper that year is all in favor of this, and then pretty much every issue afterwards has several articles about how the school is dealing with "racial problems." And Ron Jones, the teacher in the Third Wave, was co-teaching a Sensitivity Training class (in which he promised that everything would be on the level.) And he was the adviser for a student activist club that eventually got disbanded by the school.