Chapter 17: Professor? I need a better grade

Yeah yeah ... I know. I'm supposed to explain about the shock. I did ... did you read Billy and Wili: Wound too Tight? This is after the shock. An aftershock ... so to speak.

'Oh, yes, ' Bill thought. It was a huge class, this American History 101. A required course for all Arts and Social Sciences disciplines, this was Bill's first challenge.

It was offered once every four years, so there were 350 students per class from seniors down to freshman and a few college placement students. This course was so hated, the new guy always got it and Bill was younger than Mina ... poor Bill. The rest of the three years of their contract the twins were going to teach the Wars.

He actually had five groups for one hour a day, three days a week and two groups two hours a day two days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday's he had a total 1750 students spread over classes from 8AM to a night class starting at 7PM. Tuesdays and Thursdays he had 350 students starting at 10 AM, and 350 starting at 2PM. Needless to say, the Tues-Thrs classes were Junior's and Seniors.

The book was excellent ... except for two or three places where the politics of the author clashed with the politics of the instructor. American history starts with the invading Mongolian Asians moving across the land bridge and down through the North and South American continents all the way to the very tip of Tierra Del Fuego, and moving back northward to meet the next group or groups.

It's like pouring a cup of coffee ... the bottom fills and works it's way to a full cup. At least that's one theory. Men have walked from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego in less than two years.

There are others that say the first people were sailors and settled in the north, went back and told their home tribes of the plentiful game and huge open spaces and enticed more explorers. When the coast was loaded the migration started eastward. That's another theory. There's also the theory that the Egyptians colonized from the Med.

Then there's the spaceman theory.

This is NOT anthropology ... it's history. Anthropology is discussing the garbage ... and how we think prehistoric peoples thought.

Bill's job was to teach the basics that highschool left out. High school concentrated on1492 and upwards ... highschool taught that the white man was pure in intent and the natives were stopping progress. Bill had the sorry task of teaching that the European invaders were disease ridden killers intent on personal aggrandizement and gold to finance European wars.

However, all was not peace, freedom and right living in harmony with nature ... No, the western hemisphere had it's share of assholes and dictators, cannibalism and human sacrifice, just like the 'real world.'

Those guys that insist on calling themselves Native Americans were invaders too. They brought eastern world diseases that wiped out the indigenous ... that those were animals is neither here nor there... 'cide is 'cide ... be it genocide or extermination of species.

Bill made it easy, Two multiple choice tests ... a midterm and a final and one paper. The tests were straight from the book ... except for the two or three areas Bill disagreed with.

There was actually method to his madness ... students who attended every class knew the answers to the disagreement and the ones who just read the book missed the answers and got C's. Those who got C's on the tests could keep that grade or screw up so badly on the one paper they would have to come back in four years and take the class again. As it was, half of the class were those who flunked as many as four years ago and were doing a retake.

The previous instructor went crazy his last time teaching the class and failed every student except 26 who got A's. If he had failed everyone the school could void the grades but the A's made that course impossible. Bill was supposed to correct that error.

By the second week the classes were down to about one hundred per class. The 8AM class had 25 diehard students who were so damn stubborn about attending, Bill decided to hold the eight 'o clocks in the Student Union ... at 8AM there's only the students who were in the Union all night studying and were heading for bed.

It was nothing at all to see Bill's eight o'clock with breakfast ... some of the early risers were in the Union at six because Bill was too. The two hours before the Official lecture start time were Bill's study time and he got so he talked himself through what he was going to teach that day. It was like going to a study session before class but the prof was right there too.

The kids loved him. He related. Related? Hell, he was one of them. Three quarters of his students were older than he was. If you were one of the freshmen who stuck it through, you might get invited on field trips ... and if you got invited ... you flew with Bill and often Mina or Megan.