Mentors

Mentors ~ All

Contribution # 2 January, 2001

Mr. Jenkins

Silicon had yet to settle in the valley, the Giants just moved into a new home, the Forty-Niners were yet to be a serious contender, and I just got a brand new three speed bike. The days of new Levis with the cuffs rolled up only one very small turn topped with pink and black shirts were the rage except with the mothers in our neighborhood. Cars were just becoming cool, and the sock hop beginning to replace the lunch at the Formica cafeteria. The DA hair cut disappeared on the way home to be reborn the next morning after walking to the bus stop. Wood shop, metal shop for the guys, cooking and sewing for the girls, Junior high school was just becoming comfortable. The seventh grade jitters, now mostly gone, in eighth grade we were almost as big as we thought we were. Ray Lyman Wilbur Junior High, Palo Alto California, which now school has a different name being a middle school. But then, 1957, the Red & Gray of our teams and taking real classes brought us a sense of growing pride- learning to be the best. We did well, or so I remember, in football, baseball, track, the usual way brash youth measures strength and good.

Our neighbors built lasers in the his garage, his friends flanged the first magnetometer to visit orbit in a US craft, and our school mates had last names including Hewlett, Packard, Krouskoff, Coats, and other soon to be famous folks. We were the kids of the twelfth generation, growing up in the Bay Area, near “The City”. Later the silica would gel, crystallize, and grow into forms never imagined by the founders. We lived there when families could afford to live there, moms not needing to work, and the kids could go see Willy Mays and company play baseball for $ 1.00.

Stimulating times, only later would I fathom the magnitude. My memories focus not on the track meets I won, or the science fair I placed first, but first with an eight grade math teacher, Mr. Jenkins.

I t is not important, I guess, why I was placed in his class, I was. So were some of the smartest in the school. I felt both in and out of place, a want-to-be not wanting to fail. An even mix of pimpled faced boys, and better looking girls with more grace than the bumble of snickering males. In that room, however, we were not kids, but students. I wish now I could remember his first name, for he so effected my life that I feel we should be on a first name basis. He sure knew mine. “Gregory-you can do it you know”, he would confidently exclaim using my formal name in front of my friends where I felt more comfortable with a shorter address.

This newest school then in the district had more modern desks that included enough space to write, slouch, and have a book open all at the same time. On a slant enough to just barely defy gravity, only the pencil was safe from sliding off if we were to somehow loose attention. Easy for Mr. Jenkins to monitor all of us at once. Eight grade math, at the time the cutting edge of new ideas, involved not only numbers, but letters and some abstract ways to solve problems we did not know we had.

Mr. Jenkins had that special gift to interest students who wanted to be smart and help them find their potential, be demanding and strict, and make it fun. Competition in Wilbur Junior High was more than sports, it became academic too, and later for the 'popularity' of being well liked. The latter was less important to me, however my competitive nature forced me to try to do as well as I believed I must. Math was no exception.

My memories of Mr. Jenkins do not include much of what he looked like. Funny what our mind brings back first-the unusual rather than the commonplace things. He was not tall, not short, not fat, not thin, not big, not small, not dapper, not sloppy, not athletic, not frail, he was just Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. Jenkins, ill some of the time, showed us respect. Respecting a 13 year old kid, wow what a concept. If we did well in class and in our tests, he would move us a row back in the wider than longer room so as to concentrate on the students needing a bit more help, up front. If we faltered, even in attitude, up the row we would be moved. We soon learned trust is a dimensional relationship and were happy when we did well. Later we found ways not to let the pride get in the way-somehow keep it suppressed, and maintain some level of competition within ourselves and the class.

Pity the poor substitute taking over a class, where primary teacher would sometimes leave the room in the hands of the back row to monitor and self police. We were not used to a standard, 'Class open you're book to page 154 and repeat after me'. Nope, we were working ahead when we could, helping those around us and in a constant state of dialogue during the entire 50 minutes. For the first time in my life, class was fun and we left exhausted. Remember it we did, and use it; we found ways.

I learned that I could do things I wanted and not be intimidated by the 'smarter' kids in school. The space for my potential expanded that year, not unbounded, but broadened enough to allow me to find things that I could do, push my self a bit, and be proud that I too could do some of the tough things.

That same year, I met a wonderful girl, in the same class as it turned out, with many talents of her own. I will leave that for another installment. Suffice it so say that we were lucky to find a teacher, math or otherwise, during a stage of our lives when we were growing physically, mentally, and within a local rich cultural in innovation and creativity. With out Mr. Jenkins, many of us might not have made that step into young adults with the confidence in ourselves that we can earn and gain respect from even the elite .

Sally and I do not know what ever happened to Mr. Jenkins, but we both recall his presence and effect. The last part of the school year was dark and dull while he struggled with some disease that took him from our class. His light shines today in our hearts, for the lessons were more than geometry and algebra, they were of respect, trust, and humble confidence.

Thanks Mr. Jenkins.

GEM Press

Scottsdale, Arizona

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