Last week my friend from Rochester, Arnie, forwarded the obituary of Pincus Cohen, one of the last surviving teachers from our Ben Franklin High School days back in the late 1950s. Mr. Cohen taught Spanish during our time there and subsequently went on to become high school principal. I did not have Mr. Pincus as a teacher since I took German as a second language, naively believing that the Yiddish spoken at home would help me with the course. The notice of Mr. Pincus’s death led to a feature article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reminding readers of the time when, as principal, Mr. Pincus took out an ad in the paper to recognize the students who made the honor roll. He said there was always press coverage when someone does something wrong, so it was time to acknowledge those young people who work quietly and diligently doing something right. He paid for the ad himself. The $100 expenditure sparked a flurry of national interest and brought brief fame to my alma mater.
In subsequent years the school as we knew it closed, reopening as a cooperative vocational institute. No longer was it the hotbed of youth from diverse backgrounds –Black, Italian, Jewish and many others—that I remembered from my teenage years. Extracurriculars were sports, journalism and music and graduates attended Harvard, Yale, Penn and various state schools throughout the region. Several of my class became doctors and lawyers. Some obtained PhDs and went on to careers in academia.
We never gave enough credit to the teachers who guided us. Like Mr. Pincus there were several standouts. Homeroom teacher Mr. McCormick introduced me to the New York Times which I still read dutifully every day. There were sports coaches who went above and beyond for the athletes among us. For those of us who did not have help from parents with limited education, teachers were the surrogates to whom we went for advice, particularly when it came to the most important decision of our young lives: what to do after high school graduation. Ray Iman was a history teacher who wore Brooks Brothers suits to class every day and took several of us under his wing, mentoring us through the college selection and application process. He sat a few of us down in the front row of desks in the classroom after everyone else had run out and described for us what life had to offer if we worked hard, played fairly and stayed out of trouble. But it wasn’t the same for everyone. I remember the story of a sophomore girl in my homeroom who had stopped coming to class. The rumor was that she was pregnant. Back then, being an unwed mother was a scandal and unacceptable in society. Her boyfriend, presumably the father, experienced no consequences. As I recall, she was an outstanding student. Mr. McCormick gave us a short lecture about choices and without mentioning her name talked about how making a wrong turn can change your life forever. That talk stayed with me. There are lost opportunities and opportunities lost. Teachers made the difference for many of us. In hindsight, things might have been different for her if she had been mentored, the way the boys were. But girls were steered toward marriage and motherhood. She never returned to school.
