As surprising and shocking a revelation as it may seem – yes, they are among us. I am not referring to aliens here on earth, the subject of film, TV, and controversial articles and “evidence” like Santilli’s Alien Autopsy film.
No, I am referring to sorority sisters – wholesome, perky girls endowed with beautiful smiles and perfect, white teeth. These are the kind of women one might expect to find in Kansas, not in New York City or Washington Square Park, home of the dentally challenged, filthy, mentally deranged, and convicted felons, and where at night, crusties and rats dominate the landscape.

I recently encountered a sorority celebration of new inductees. This was the first time in memory where I have seen members of the NYU Panhellenic Association. I was told that there are eight sororities at NYU. The group in the park was that of Delta Phi Epsilon, an award-winning chapter established in 1917.

Sororities and fraternities are certainly saddled with many negative impressions – hazing and drunken revelry prominent among them. However, times change, and I keep an open mind. Although not the lifestyle for many, I am sure there are benefits to the camaraderie and friendships made among students, particularly for those new to New York City, a place the can be an overwhelming, frightening, and lonely environment. This city is a place of extreme diversity, even home to debutante balls and college sororities, such as Delta Phi Epsilon. Without their telltale Greek logo T-shirts, they may travel incognito. But be assured, They Are Among Us 🙂

If you have read my story Jungle Lovers, then you know that I was quite unimpressed with the “guidance” I received in high school. There was little to no preparation for anything – no Kaplan tests, no Internet. I had already completed my years at NYU before I even learned what prep schools were. Certainly preparatory schools predate my high school years, and there were many fine examples of such where I grew up in New England. However, such places were certainly not something a working-class family would even be aware of, much less consider for a child’s attendance.

More disappointing, particularly for someone academically inclined as I was, is to learn the reality of admission to America’s top colleges and universities. It is not strictly a merit-based system. Most applicants to the Ivy League universities are well-qualified to attend. In Crashing Through Knowledge, I recount an incident where an upperclassman I met was so disappointed with his rejection from Harvard.
There is no question that prep schools send a much larger percentage of their student body to top schools. From a 2010 Forbes Magazine article, “America’s Best Prep Schools”:

In the past five years, Trinity School sent 41% of its graduates to the Ivies, MIT or Stanford. On average our 20 top schools sent nearly one-third of their graduates to those 10 schools. (In contrast, less than 0.01% of all U.S. high school graduates ended up in those schools in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Education.)

With this type of track record, the scramble to get into top schools starts as early as kindergarten or earlier for parents fixated on seeing their children on the best career track. The Dalton School, one of the highest rated prep schools in the United States, is located in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It occupies three buildings, spanning all grades from K-3 (shown in the photo at 53 East 91st Street) and grades 4-12 at 108 East 89th Street.

The Dalton School was founded in 1919 by the renowned progressive educator Helen Parkhurst. Parkhurst’s visionary Dalton Plan remains the keystone of the school’s progressive educational philosophy and is now the model for over 200 Dalton schools in other parts of the world.

The school is iconic and has often been referenced in TV and film. A scene in the film Baby Boom with Diane Keaton illustrates the extreme preoccupation that many New York City parents have with getting their children into top schools, even nurseries. Here, at the playground with her child, Diane Keaton overhears a mother bemoaning her fate at having her child rejected from the Dalton School:

Mother 2: What is wrong with you? You look awful.

Mother 3: We heard from Dalton, Cosby didn’t get in.

Mother 1 & 2: (in unison) Oh no!

Mother 3: I’m so upset, if she doesn’t get into the right preschool, she’s not going to get into the right kindergarten, if she doesn’t get into the right kindergarten, I can forget about a good prep school and any hope of an Ivy League College.

Mother 1: Honey, that is devastating.

Mother 3: I just don’t understand it. Her resume was perfect, her references were impeccable. Dennis is going to kill me.

More on education and schools: Read Between the Lines, Little Red, Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 1 and Part 2), La Rentrée

We had the grounds to ourselves – there literally was not one other person in sight. The city block that fronted the school was entirely free of cars – always worrisome. In New York City, the appearance of numerous legal parking spots (or an entire streets worth) is a warning sign – this typically means you have misinterpreted the signs. I reread the street parking signs carefully several times before parking.

But on an oppressive, hot, humid Sunday in August, it is understandable that no one is touring a place with all the charm of a prison yard. Nondescript, uninviting, institutional. The grass and trees that were there just seemed to highlight the inhospitable nature of the concrete accretion. A large mural graces the entrance lobby behind the green doors, but I did not even find this to be particularly attractive.
However, don’t judge this book by its cover.

Virtually every New Yorker knows the prestigious triumvirate of specialized science high schools for gifted children: Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, and Brooklyn Technical High School. I have had a number of friends, acquaintances, and employees who are graduates of these schools. My office manager for 15 years as well as her husband and most of her friends were alumni of Stuyvesant, while my current office manager is a graduate of Bronx Science. One does become spoiled working with young people like this – typically astute, quick, and very smart.

Admission to these schools is based on an entrance examination, the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), which is open to all eighth and ninth grade New York City students. Out of the 26,000 students taking the entrance examination each year, only about 700 are admitted to Bronx Science.

Looking at this place, it seems unimaginable that anything of merit takes place behind those doors. However, Bronx Science is internationally known as one of the best high schools in the United States, public or private. The school is culturally, ethnically, and economically diverse. Seven graduates have won Nobel Prizes, more than from any other secondary education institution in the United States. Six have won Pulitzer Prizes. The school has had 132 finalists in the Intel (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent Search, the largest number from any high school.

I expected genius to be oozing from the corridors, but my office manager assures me that school there was like any other – with cliques, gangs, and everything else that typifies high school. In New York City, where Content is King, places like Bronx Science require of us not only to not judge a book by its cover but also, once inside its pages, to go even deeper and read between the lines 🙂

Related Posts: Little Red, got math?, Keuffel and Esser, Kids

I don’t remember his name, but he was a senior and the best player in the chess team. However, he had just been beaten by my best friend, a freshman, which had garnered my friend considerable respect. So our upper classman was confiding in us, telling his tale of woe. He had just been rejected from Harvard University and was so frustrated. He wanted to know what more they wanted from him, because as far as he could see, he had delivered it all. He was first in his class. He had perfect SAT scores (1600). He had won everything winnable. But we were extraordinarily naive and none of us were prepared. We were bumbling, fumbling, and stumbling. If you read my story Jungle Lovers, you will get a sense of the poor preparation and guidance we really had.

In my junior English class, I could not find the word bourgeois when our teacher asked us to go that place in our text because I had never heard the word before and did not know how it was spelled or pronounced. A friend and I were researching schools. I called out the Worcester Polytechnic Institute – he could not find it in a guide because I mispronounced Worcester. It’s hard to find or get into a school if you can’t pronounce its name, and you are not going to benefit from a prep school if you don’t know they exist. That is correct. I did not know what a prep school was or of their existence until well after university admission.

In mathematics and computer programming, we speak of elegance in a proof or in computer code, as contrasted with brute force, such as the approach computers take to chess, where all possibilities are considered. Those of us made it to college were lucky and appreciative – this was done not through any elegant or efficient process, but strictly by brute force. We were crashing through knowledge recklessly like a runaway train. We loved learning, reading, and academics but had no real guides.

The prep school is certainly a more elegant solution to preparation for college. The emphasis is on a more well-rounded individual. Classes are smaller and instructors much better qualified with advanced degrees. And I am sure there is much better preparation and guidance, not just a bunch of kids bumbling, fumbling, stumbling, wishing, hoping, and just crashing through knowledge…

Photo Note: This is Notre Dame, an all-girl preparatory Roman Catholic high school, founded in 1912 and currently located at 327 West 13th Street in the West Village. There are 300 students with a student-faculty ratio of 13:1. You can read more about it here or at their official website here.

When I arrived at NYU, a few classes at the Courant Institute cut me down to size rather quickly. This was no longer home for the small town boy, universally applauded for basement experiments ala Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye the Science Guy. No, this was the real world of mathematical minds – the best of breed. My childhood dreams and ambitions of being a mathematician evaporated quickly, and within one year I had switched academic gears.

Always a lingering and nagging disappointment, I was only comforted decades later by two conversations. One was with a coworker who attended Princeton University and Oxford. When I asked what Princeton was like, he told me there was a lot of drinking and depression. Surprised, I asked why. He informed me that it soon became clear to most students that in every class there was that person that eclipsed the others, and you were not that person. These are the people that would go on to the rarefied heights that all the others had always assumed would be theirs.

I had a similar conversation with a leading French-American theoretical physicist and Senior Vice Provost at NYU, who received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate from Harvard University. In spite of his obvious brilliance and stellar achievements, the professor told me that when he arrived at Harvard, it was a rude awakening for him also to brush up against others of equal or even greater minds.
We all learned that we were not in Kansas anymore.

Mathematics itself is fascinating – the feelings most people seem to have about it range anywhere from just a sense of incompetency to fear, panic, or outright terror. Much has been written about our world of innumeracy and why these things are true.
Another coworker, a gifted NYU student, could not fathom why I or anyone else would major in mathematics and subject themselves to such a fate voluntarily. Stating that I actually loved mathematics did not help clarify things at all, but only made the whole thing even more perplexing to her. At best, even though some people may have a facility for math, it is typically seen as a tool, certainly not an end in itself.

One of the reasons I selected NYU was its strength in mathematics. Unfortunately, I did not realize how strong. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (shown in the photo) at NYU is considered one of the most prestigious and leading mathematics schools and research centers in the world. You can read more about it here and at NYU’s site here.

I walk by Courant Institute daily, its tower somewhere between torment and a tease for me. It is another one of New York City’s many sirens. This one, however, lures only a few who can hear its call – “got math?” 🙂

About the Photo: The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is housed in Warren Weaver Hall, a 14-story high-rise at 251 Mercer Street.

I was invited to be a speaker for career day at a New York City public school – PS 124, the Yung Wing Public School at 40 Division Street in Chinatown. This was both exciting and harrowing – I had never been in a public school in the city, and I also had never spoken before a class. I had written notes and a rough agenda, which were soon abandoned for a more organic approach.

The teacher who invited me was a former employee who, in May 2008, brought her class to my business for a field trip. That visit was filled with screams and squeals of joy. It was mutual adoration day. You can see that story and photo here.

Yesterday was a very different experience. It has been a long time since I have been in any school, and, good students or not, the kind of playfulness I saw on the field trip was reigned in by the school/classroom structure and atmosphere.

I made 3 short presentations to 4th graders – classes were rotated while presenters were stationed in various classrooms. Afterwards, I stayed and observed one of Judy’s classes with second graders. Maintaining discipline and focus is a daunting task – constant vigilance is needed. Many of the kids were distracted, and controlling the talking seemed to be an unending battle. I can see why teaching children appears to be the domain of the young. Teacher burnout is a well-known phenomenon for many good reasons – poor school resources, low pay, workload, student discipline, and high expectations for test scores and from parents.

A fascinating piece of technology was the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, which uses touch technology to detect user input and a projector to display a computer’s video output, including Internet access. Digital pens and erasers replace traditional whiteboard markers and erasers. I used it to display one of my blog postings and also to simultaneously write a few words. Judy used the Smart Board in her class to display a countdown clock from the Internet for their 25-minute quiet reading period. The level of sophistication is very high – when I asked if anyone was familiar with Netflix video streaming, almost all raised their hands.
I was particularly impressed with the children’s poetry work and the list of things that could be found in a poem – you can see it here in my complete gallery of photos.

I think I was quite unrealistic about my expectations – I suffered the idealism of a new teacher. As I left, I passed by the lunch room – the din was just incredible. It occurred to me that I had forgotten that these were good kids, just doing what kids do 🙂