4.2.12 WC: 191694
Summarizing my past: The major changes in my life
The questions I am most often asked by others—and sometimes by myself—are about significant changes in my life and why they occurred. Going back to my teen years, the question is why I changed, within a few short months, from a C and D student in high school to an A+ student in college and law school. The change was dramatic and sudden—literally over the summer of 1955, between high school and college. What happened in those two months to change me from being last, or close to last in a class of 50, to being first among the men (15 women were ahead of me)!” in a highly competitive class of 2,000, and then first in a class of 170 even more competitive men and women (only a handful) at Yale Law School? Was it me who changed, or was it the schools?
It was both. I think I had begun to change during my last year in high school, but my reputation among the faculty was so firmly established and so negative, that teachers simply couldn’t see past it. Even when I got A grades on the statewide Regents exams, the teachers gave me Cs and Ds as semester grades. My occasionally intelligent classroom comments were taken as ‘wise ass” remarks. And some of my teachers even thought I must have cheated whenever I got a good grade on a test. So I doubt it was possible for me ever to shine in a high school where my favorite teacher insisted that I was “a 75 student” and would always be “a 75 student.” (I didn’t quite live up to his expectations, graduating with an average below 75).
Moreover, my high school was a Yeshiva—a “parochial school” and I am not a parochial person. I did not respect most of my teachers, and the feeling was obviously mutual. Creativity was frowned upon. Rote memorization was rewarded. And “respect” for “authority” was not only demanded, it was actually graded. I got a “U” for unsatisfactory. When I got to Brooklyn College, creativity was rewarded, rote memorization frowned upon, and respect was something to be earned, not merely accorded by the title of Rabbi. The same kind of creative and challenging answers that got me Cs and Ds in Yeshiva earned me A’s in college and law school.
But there was more at work than a change of schools. I changed over that summer as well. I went to a new summer camp as an assistant counselor, where I excelled and received praise for my creativity as a song writer for “color war” and for my leadership skills. I had always been a leader, even during my darkest days in high school, but the school rejected my leadership, fearful that other students would follow me in my heretical ways. I always had an abundance of energy, but it was—in the views of my high school teachers—misdirected.
That summer in Camp Maple Lake, I received confirmation of my talents, and the result was heightened self confidence.
I also met a young woman and began my first serious romantic relationship, which culminated four years later in my first marriage. Suddenly, I was “talented,” “attractive,” and “accepted.” It was a great send off to college.
'? Because of the draft, men and women were ranked separately.
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