<Begin Segment 8>

AI: So, getting back to the fall of 1942, then, you were just beginning to learn a little bit --

HM: Right.

AI: -- about the experiences, and you were getting to know your students. And what classes were you teaching that fall?

HM: I taught eleventh grade, two eleventh grade core classes and a twelfth grade. Now the -- I'm not sure that I had two eleventh grade classes that first year, because also, they had a group of students who had a half-year of German to go, in order that they should complete their two years and be eligible for college, and they didn't have a German teacher. And I had had German in college, so I was drafted to teach the small group of German students. So looking back on it, I'm not really sure whether I had two classes of eleventh graders. But then when I went back to teaching in the third year, I had two eleventh-grade classes.

AI: Well, and for people who don't, aren't familiar with the term, the "core" classes...

HM: Oh, that was English and social studies. And for the eleventh grade -- I guess it was probably ninth, tenth, and eleventh, they were two hours in succession, and we were supposed to blend the two so that when you wrote a paper for history, you also were writing a paper for English. And it, it worked very well that way. The seniors had only a one-period class. And frankly, I don't remember a great deal about my twelfth-grade class.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.