My fourth grade, fifth grade and sixth grade experience in elementary school was somewhat unique. The school had taken a class of fourth graders, fifth graders and sixth graders and combined them all together in a section of the school called The Project. Basically The Project allowed students of different ages to be in classes based somewhat on their academic abilities like in the upper grades. However home room consisted of students in the same grade. Miss Danneker was the fourth grade teacher. Mister Parker was the fifth grade teacher and mister Washington was the sixth grade teacher.
Miss Danneker was the archetype 1970s elementary school teacher. White, 30 something, blonde hair, soft spoken and easy going. She was very fair and and would be generally considered nice but sometimes had difficulty controlling the students. Kids were either threatened with going to the office or sent to the office for disciplinary reasons, a stark contrast from Miss Thompson. In fact, the students in Miss Thompson’s class preferred going to the office to escape dealing with her wrath.
Miss Danneker did have some redeeming qualities that a students didn’t understand at the time. She shared with us life experiences that went outside the traditional classroom. She had friends from many different industries and we were privileged that they would come in and share their experiences with us oftentimes providing gifts. Miss Danneker would go around the class and ask us if we had any interests or what we wanted to be when we grew up. Somebody from a respective industry would come in with experiences and merchandise and talk to us about getting into that field. No planned event or no going down to the assembly. The person would just show up. Miss Danneker would say hey we have a special guest today. All of a students were very impressed by this. College professors, policemen, firemen, scientists, doctors, nurses. They would all come in to talk to us and give us small tokens. None of this was a deterrent to the habitual mischief that would go on in her classroom, however.
During recess, many of the kids managed to sneak off and run to the local McDonald’s that was nearby. The lucky guys, of which I was not one, somehow managed to sneak off with their girl of choice and have kissing sessions in the bushes near the school. A good amount of cheating was attempted in her class as well. The pinnacle of this mischief, for me at least, was the Playboy magazine incident.
You know how when you’re young and kids have personalities and they grow up and they’re totally different from what you would imagine? Well, for our class that happened to be the Playboy Kid. The Playboy Kid was the last person you’d expect to be the one to teach the rest of us about Playboy magazines.
The Playboy Kid was a typical fourth grader. White, slightly overweight, very conservatively dressed every day with conservative parents who seemed to be a bit older than most of the other kids’ parents. He was very buttoned downed, disciplined, caused no trouble and didn’t speak out in class. He didn’t bother anyone and was friendly with everyone.
One morning while in Miss Danneker’s class there seemed to be a lot of movement going on. I really wasn’t paying attention until I heard Miss Danneker start to question people going to the restroom. Miss Danneker stated, “Hey, every 15 minutes somebody needs to go to the restroom. Can you guys hold it until we have our next break”? After that couple of guys in the class told me to ask Miss Danneker if I could use the restroom because they knew she would let me go and then allow the rest of us go as well. Only thing was I did not have to use the restroom. At this point the guys in class realized that they had to convince Playboy Kid to let me in on the little secret. You see, I was not a part of the original group of guys because my teacher’s pet reputation followed me from the third grade and so the guys didn’t trust that I would keep the secret. However they did eventually tell me and I did keep the secret.
Playboy Kid had taken his dad’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Edition Playboy magazine and brought it to school. He took it and placed it in the boy’s bathroom on the very top shelf where no one would look for it. Each boy would ask to go to the bathroom, have their time with the magazine and then return to the class. Playboy Kid would receive lunch snacks or school supplies in return. Genius. Up until this point I had not heard of Playboy magazine but when explained to me I certainly asked Miss Danneker if I could use the bathroom. Just as the guys predicted Miss Danneker in fact did let me use the restroom and in succession each boy got to go once the other kid returned.
Remember this is the fourth grade. I guess you’re about nine or ten years old in the fourth grade? When I pulled that magazine off that shelf I knew right then and there that I had entered the world of no return. Seeing those bodies, those shapes, those poses, that flesh, those body parts. I don’t think words could explain the effect that had on an adolescent boys psyche, or the rest of his body for that matter… Totally unaware of how much time had passed, I was resuscitated from my Playboy magazine trance by a male teacher knocking on the restroom door and asking me if I was okay. Lol! I was great! Finally, all the boys in the class got their opportunity to see the Dallas Cowboys Edition of Playboy magazine. But it didn’t stop there.
You see, Playboy Kid had leveraged the magazine to get extra favors in terms of lunch snacks and school supplies for himself. So I began to think. I had to see more of that magazine. I asked if I could take the magazine home. He refused initially but then I reminded him that no one would have gotten a chance to see the magazine if I hadn’t asked to use the restroom. Also I had saved us from getting caught because one of the boys stayed in there too long and I “volunteered” to go get him as opposed to Miss Danneker going to get him. I reminded all of the guys of this as well. So I took the magazine home and made a lot of new friends among older guys in the community before returning it back to Playboy Kid. But back to Miss Danneker…..
At some point during the school year Miss Danneker went around the class asking all the guys what sports they liked and which teams they liked. At that point my favorite team was the Minnesota Vikings because of running back Chuck Foreman. One day sometime a little later Miss Danneker pulls up to the school and she starts bringing in boxes. Out of these boxes she starts pulling out signed memorabilia from different teams. I received a football and a poster from the Minnesota Vikings signed by just about every member of the team. Other classmates received similar items from their idols or their sports teams. As it turned out Miss Danneker’s husband worked for either an NFL franchise or for the league. This suddenly made her very popular with the other student and also the envy of the other teachers.
The life lesson that we learned from Miss Danneker is one of the most important of all: Dreams are attainable and therefore tangible. Our idols were real people that we had access to no matter where we came from. More importantly we could achieve just like them.
Thank you Ms. Danneker.
Side note: For 50 years I’ve told my friends that I became a Cowboys fan because of Tony Dorsett. However, the Dallas Cheerleaders were the ones who started it all……
The Real Life Corner 