One of the things that really ticks me off with the school voucher crowd is the idea that "we must take our children out of failing public schools". Instead of running away, fix the damned school system. My public school education was one of the best I ever had and I thank God for it every day. I got a great grounding in the four "r"'s. Yes, I said FOUR "r's" - reading, writing, arithmetic, and my own additon, "rote" (Kids should be taught to memorize dates and names and the Gettysburg address and the Preamble to the Constitution and poems and Shakespeare soliloquies).
Put money in your school system instead of bogus "tax breaks" and pointless Iraqi wars and your school systems won't fail. Teaching is the most underpaid,underappreciated career in the world. It's shameless in this country how we give education such short shrift when it comes to our tax dollars and our time.
I had memorable teachers all through my school years from kindergarten up. I can almost remember one from every year I had in school.
But the two who probably helped me and shaped me and prepared me more than anyone were Norman Yonce, my high school senior English and Creative Writing teacher and my college theatre professor, Charles F. Dickens (yes, "Charles Dickens" was his real name).
We were the very first class (Class of 68) Norman Yonce had at Highlands High. And it had a great influence on not just me, but lots of other seniors in his Advanced English and Creative Writing Classes. He was also a pal. At graduation festivities when we read the Class Will, here's what it said about my bequest: "Chuck Pogue leaves the corner of Mr. Yonce's desk." Because that's where you could usually find me perched in the morning, between classes, or after school. Sitting on the corner of his desk, shooting the breeze with him. He introduced us to all kinds of interesting literature. In Creative Writing, we not only studied the classic poetry, but also the poetry of the Beatles and we spent many a class listening to the Rod McKuen/Anita Kerr Singers records...THE EARTH, THE SEA, THE SKY. He gave me TEMPLE OF GOLD to read, then YOUR TURN TO CURTSY, MY TURN TO BOW which started a life-long love affair with the books of William Goldman (I still have the original paperbacks Yonce gave me; I also have rare first editions of both books).
Yonce also prepared me for college better than anyone and gave me the best advice about it when I was graduating..."In the next four years your life is going to change so dramatically that all this high school angst will seem like small potatoes." He was right, it did.
Charles Dickens, my theatre prof, prepared me for a theatre career and ingrained in me a sense of professionalism that still carries through to my work today. Like Yonce, he also became a friend and a pal. I was one of the his inner circle who was often invited to lunch with him at the Saratoga restaurant, his watering hole in Lexington. These were long lunches where Charles imbibed martinis and waxed philosophical and told theatre stories and we jabbered about old movies. He was a fabulous director and our professional relationship became such that by the end of college an audition was pretty much him asking me: "What part would you like to do?" He was witty, colourful, dapper (an immaculate dresser) talented, and a complete man of the theatre. To hear his booming laughter rolling out of dark theatre when you were performing was warm validation.
