good guys always win

good guys always win

chapter 3

(7.25.02)

John P. Stevens is considered big for a New Jersey public high school. My class, the class of 2001, consisted of about 450 students. In total, the school size was close to 2,000 students. A few characteristics about JP, as it is commonly called:

1) Lots of Indians: you'll see them in hordes in the hallways, and if you're lucky, you'll even get a whiff of their distinct, spicy odor.

2) Lots of Asians: but aren't Indians considered Asians? Not at JP, pal. I'm talking about Chinese, Koreans, and in rarer quantities, Filipinos and Vietnamese students. And some Chinese kids would rather be called "Taiwanese."

3) Italian controlled: the principal, the football coach, and 99% of the board of education dominate the administration. Better be on the good side of the Italians in order to succeed at JP.

4) Smart, smart Jews: they dominate the top 10 in GPA for virtually every graduating class, even though many Indian and Chinese kids prove to be fierce competitors as well. From my personal experience, I'd have to say that in making an ethnic judgment, these Semites are damn good when it comes to getting good grades.

Funny how all these characteristcs are, in the end, all racial. To many of us who graduated, that was what JP was all about: the rich diversity of the student body. It was a school that made it possible for a white kid to hang out with a bunch of Indians and feel comfortable about it, it was a school that made straight A's look cool because second generation students were expected to succeed, and it was a school where two starters of the football team not only scored 1500 or above on their SATs, but were also Asians. But Asians are supposed to play ping-pong, aren't they?

Those two Asian football players were Warren and myself. It's nothing much to brag about because we didn't win that many games or break any records, but we both won recognition for playing well and also being capable students. The summer before our freshman year, I had a sudden urge to join football because I had played in a Pop Warner league in elementary school. I knew that Warren was a very able athlete and convinced him to join, too. For the next four years, our lives were dominated by schoolwork and football, and often times, these two worlds would cross paths, but more on that later.

So, this is how I begin a sketch of myself and my crew, if you can even call it a crew. Warren, Wally, and I had close ties since middle school. We all got busted for trying to steal computer games from a computer show in seventh grade, and we all sang in our middle school choir together. I think Wally and Warren experienced a blow to their friendship during a warm day in eighth grade. Head has this nice pool in his backyard and Warren, Wally, and Wally's brother Woody all went to swim in it. Horsing around, Warren decided to throw Woody into Head's pool, and in doing so, accidentally threw Woody in a manner that led him to hit his head on the ledge of the pool. Ouch. A bloody pool, a visit to the hospital, and some stitches later, Warren and Wally would still be friends, but I guess things changed a little, especially with Wally's mom not too happy about the incident.

The incident didn't affect how my friendship panned out with these fellows. I became close with Warren through our involvement in sports and the ability to have deep, sentimental conversations. Our two-way communication skills reached ESP levels as we expressed thoughts through eye motion and contact. Wally and I shared ambitious dreams of media dominance and entrepreneurial excellence as we tinkered constantly with our website and our not-so-legal music and software business. We were intellectually compatible and had many discussions about history, philsophy, and politics through the years. Warren and Wally were my two most trusted friends in high school, and they gave me a great sense of security.

The others, no less important than Wally and Warren in the scheme of this story, will receive their share of attention throughout. What is important to know was that entering high school, I had these two close friends and a whole lot to learn about the education system.

When I received a B+ in geometry the first marking period of my high school career, my parents freaked out. They thought that this B+ would be my ruin and that I would never be able to make it to an Ivy League school. I had just started a web magazine called Goldstuff.com that summer, an ambitious attempt for a 13-year old. This project was forcefully aborted because I had "failed" geometry. Every evening, my dad sat me down for an hour or so after dinner and made me carefully go over all the theorems and laws. It was frustrating because my dad tried to teach me some Korean-based geometry concepts that were even more baffling to me. I began to hate math because it made me feel inadequate and very confined. I needed a way to escape the parental pressure. I needed to be better "prepared."

I love euphemisms because they can make seemingly evil things sound very innocent. "I'm going to 'play' with my girlfriend" or "I bought it with a five-finger 'discount'" are pretty funny when you think about what is being said and what is being meant to be said. I began to realize that in order to succeed in a subject that didn't have my interest was to "prepare" for it. I would start with the basics: during passing or lunchtime, I would ask some friendly kids what kind of questions were on the test. The anal ones would refuse to be specific, but others would be kinder and even say what they put down as their answer. When this became a routine, I decided to take it a step further. I became friends with a tall, skinny Taiwanese dude named Huhzoo. He spoke funny, in a semi-fob accent, but he was a very nice, generous fellow. He had close friends who took geometry tests before our last period class, and he was hooked up with very specific information. On top of that, he studied for the test very thoroughly. I too would try very hard at home to understand as much of the geometry on my own, but there were always two or three questions that stumped me. Huhzoo tried his best to help me out on some questions, and sitting behind me, he would sometimes stick his paper out to make his answers visible. He was of great help, but not good enough for me to completely ace my tests. A fat Korean girl named Hayan sat in front of me, and she was very nice to me because my last name was Kang and the lead singer for this popular Korean group at the time, H.O.T., was named Kang Ta. Not only that, I tried my best to be charismatic and nice, especially because I needed as much aid as I could get. Head, who I was semi-friends with at the time, was also in my class and sat in the next row. These characters were my in-class sources. Hayan was very good at math, but had trouble comprehending the English-written theorems; Head was naturally smart and would mess up on the easy questions only to easily figure out the hard ones; and Huhzoo was always well organized and prepared.

"Pssssst," I would sound to Head while pointing at number twenty-three. Head swiveled his head to make sure the teacher was occupied with something else, wrote a few things on his scrap paper, and let the paper "accidentally" drop. I then did my swivel and once the coast was cleared, I picked up the sheet and made the necessary adjustments to my test.

"Pssssst," I would sound to Head again, while pointing at number thirty and thirty-two. Head would shake his own head as an indicator that he did not know the answers either, or was unsure about his own answers. I then made some coughing noises and lightly poked Hayan's fat back. Tap, tap, tap - she would press a few things on her calculator. Then, raising the calculator high and a bit to the right, she would make the two answers visible for me. "Excellent," I would tell myself.

And this is how I turned a B+ panic into an A- escape. I had a solid A going into the final, but I had little "preparation" for such a high-security test and recieved a B for my effort. My parents never really bugged me about grades after that, and the geometry class was a great experience: I learned that copying off someone's paper was an obsolete method -- the grades I received were already determined with my efforts to win the favor of my classmates.

If my personal method demanded a CIA-style maximization of resources, then Warren's personal method was one of confident aloofness. By acting natural even in high-pressure testing situations, it seemed like Warren inoculated himself from the teacher's surveillance. He would eyeball a smart kid's test without a break of sweat. He would use his cheat sheet in a manner that would have you thinking that the teacher had allowed everyone to have one. He never really discussed how answers were going to be obtained or who had made arrangements to help him. He did his own test and if problems arose, he would spot an unprotected test and copy what he could see. I would have to call Warren a true maverick; he stuck to the old school ways of cheating and yet found great success. And this was just our freshman year of high school.

I don't think Wally cheated at all as a freshman. We were in the same English class together and we took every test and quiz straight-up, not seeking any help and not giving any. Ligi, Fanman, and Fat Boy were unknowns to me at this point because they had attended a different middle school, and Head was an indifferent cheater; he cheated sometimes, but only when he felt like it. He didn't mind taking the low score. I also had a good friend, Nigi. He was also from the other middle school, but I got to know him quickly through Wally. Nigi was the nicest Chinese guy ever, and it was too bad he never got into our methods. His grades deteriorated every year and he found himself mostly in accelerated classes (at JP, Honors is the top level class, then Level 1/Accelerated, Level 2, and BSI for basic skills instruction). I'm not saying that Nigi was stupid by any means. He's got intelligent things to say, but he lacked the drive to become any sort of an academic competitor.

I would have to say, the proudest memory of my freshman year was the success of the Hoching Study Guides. Hoching was a venture started by me and Wally in middle school. We planned to make money off selling software and also wanted to publish content online. Our website was a hodgepodge of things that covered music news, computer games, and sports. During the year, Welton and I devised a way to help us study. It was to create study guides and post them on the web. We would ask trusted, smart kids to join us and divide the subjects. We would make neat, outlined packets that covered all the lessons of each subject. For geometry, we enlisted the help of Doc Healey. Doc was an honorable guy who was willing to make some sample questions and organize a study packet. His geometry packet was very popular during the midterm and again during the finals. However, what I believe spurred the entire "system" was the success of the World History study guides. This was divided between me, Head, and Wally. We meticulously bolded every key word and outlined each time period to come up with a comprehensive packet that would save many students from having to read their book. Our work not only helped us to study, it inspired a certain feeling of teamwork and influence.

"Yo Wally, look!" I said, in an excited manner, pointing at our classmates with their own printed copies of our study guide. "Haha - who the hell is that kid in the corner? I don't even know him and he's using our study guide!"

The success of the study guides helped to make a name for the Hoching website, and positive publicity was always welcomed. But more pertinent to this story, the study guides offer proof that we began our cooperative learning not as slackers, but as highly motivated students with a knack for efficiency. Working together, performing well, and getting good grades all made us happy students. Study guides were never assigned by teachers or even suggested; they were completely voluntary. It was like academic socialism: we amassed a certain wealth with our neatly compiled study guides and we were willing to share it with anyone. The experience was truly joyous. And as nerdy as it may sound, we tried to make learning fun.