I reached adulthood during the Reagan administration and I distinctly remember being excited when he got re-elected in 1984. He spoke bluntly, increased military spending, and made everyone feel good about being an American. Considering that most of my spare time was spent reading history books about military conquerors and great empires, Reagan’s persona was perfect for someone like me.
The turning point was when I got to my senior year and my American Government class. The person responsible was pretty unlikely to teach anyone anything. Mr Jamison was always late to class, never had a lesson plan ready and rarely used the book. By the end of the class I remember we made it through the 2nd chapter of our text which infuriated my classmates who had to endure the whole thing. If I give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he didn’t believe it was best to learn about the American Government from a text book. Maybe he was just lazy. I really don’t know.
A good example of his teaching method was the last 6 weeks. We were told to write 2 papers about anything in world history that impacted the American Government. My 2 papers were about William the Conqueror and his opponent Harold Godwinson. When I got authorization for these papers I remember arguing that these two represented a turning point as the rise of the Normans led to English Common Law and the Magna Carta which had a profound impact on our government. My concept was a bit simplistic as I look back and I’d love to write it today as there really is a good paper in there describing what happened under William and what could have happened under Harold. The truth was when I did my research I saw a book on the two men and wanted to read it. I read it in 2 days, returned it to the library and forgot all about the project. Mr Jamison’s classes after that consisted of nothing but goofing off and most times even he skipped class. The one thing I do remember is he never said a word about the project until the day it was due and I was totally screwed. I didn’t have the book and it had been well over a month since I read it. He gave us until the end of class to finish and frantically wrote the two papers from memory. As I recall my grade ended up that six weeks as a D. At first I wasn’t too upset as I’d already been accepted to college and only needed my diploma. My nonchalant attitude changed a bit when I realized how badly this class killed my class rank as it dropped from 24th at the end of the 1st semester to 47th when I graduated. That changed my class rank % from top 10% to top 25% which isn’t nearly as prestigious. Oh well! This was another lesson of sorts.
I’ve digressed but I told that to give flavor of Mr. Jamison’s teaching method. His classes were very loose with lots of discussion and not always about politics or government. In hindsight I don’t know if his classes were by a genius that got kids interested in political happenings by reading the issues of the day or a lazy guy that had tenure and didn’t care to teach that hard. It’s been too many years for me to fairly access that. All I know is one day he began class with a simple question.
“Are you are Republican or a Democrat?”
As we were in a suburban classroom, almost everyone raised their hand that they were Republican. The only person that answered Democrat also happened to be the only African-American in our school at the time. I remember a few of the popular kids tried to get him to switch his allegiance and his response was simple, “I’m black, we’re all Democrats”. Everyone laughed but in truth the opposite was also true. We were all Republicans because we were white suburban kids.
What Mr. Jamison did next was possibly the best lesson I ever learned. He told us to pull out a sheet of paper and asked us 20 questions that revolved around the most divisive issues of the day. When we finished we made a copy and turned in our answers. He quickly totaled the results and revealed the questions on the chalkboard which he read again. As we went down each question we were told to grade our own papers as he told us whether the position was Republican or Democrat. My result was 65% Democrat – 35% Republican. The totals for the class were about the same and when the teacher asked people who answered more Democratic, almost everyone in the class raised their hands.
He put the class totals next to each issue and I was amazed just how most people toed the Democratic party line. Mr. Jamison went over each question and had someone from each side talk about why they felt their answer was right. The discussions got a little heated at times (especially around abortion) but it was amazing insight into how my fellow students thought.
I’ve always thought I went into that classroom a Republican and exited a Democrat. The truth is that I’ve always been more Libertarian/Independent but that day taught me to look into the details before aligning myself to anything. The lesson Mr. Jamison taught me that day was a huge first step in developing my critical thinking and I’ve always been grateful that at least on that one day, he cared enough to teach and I really do believe my life is different as a result. On that day, his class was certainly better than memorizing lines from a textbook (even if he did give me my first D).
