A high school reunion in Chicago

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. This week on our program, come along to a high school reunion in

Illinois.

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VOICE ONE:

A warm sun shines on Scammon Garden on the South Side of Chicago. Under the shelter of a

tent, a crowd is gathered for a jazz brunch. The men and women enjoy the food, the music and

the memories as they talk about old school days. Some of them have not seen each other in

fifty years.

The event is part of a reunion of the University of Chicago Laboratory High School. People

call it U-High or Lab. This lab was created for experiments with education.

VOICE TWO:

The University of Chicago recently invited alumni to a special weekend where several U-High

classes held reunions. These included the class of 1957. About forty of the one hundred or

so graduates attended the reunion. Some came with their husbands and wives.

The former classmates are now in their upper sixties. Some are retired. Others are still

working. There are lawyers, professors, writers, social workers, scientists, economists and

business people. But on this bright afternoon, their thoughts return to a time when so much

of their lives was still ahead.

Ginger Spiegel Lane says there is feeling in the air of being teenagers again. The feeling

is so strong, she can almost touch it. Yet something is different. She notices that her

former classmates now talk much more openly than they would have as young people.

VOICE ONE:

Some in the class of fifty-seven grew up together. They knew each other as children when

they attended other University of Chicago laboratory schools. Some also went on to attend

the university.

There are four laboratory schools. These are independent college preparatory schools

operated by the University of Chicago.

John Dewey established the first laboratory schools at Chicago in 1896. He was a leading

educational theorist. He imagined a place where future teachers could work with young

students and test progressive ways of teaching.

Dewey knew that educators traditionally placed the most importance on memorizing and

repeating information. In his laboratory schools, Dewey thought that the child should be the

most important thing.

VOICE TWO:

In terms of being socially progressive, the Chicago laboratory schools have brought together

students from different racial and ethnic groups. In 1943 a political activist launched a

successful campaign to get the laboratory schools to admit black students.

Her name was Marian Alschuler Despres. Several years earlier she had received a doctorate

from the University of Chicago.

Marian Alschuler Despres died in January of this year at the age of ninety-seven. She was

married to Leon Despres, a well-known politician in Chicago who served for many years on the

City Council.

The University of Chicago Magazine, in reporting on her death, noted her efforts to get

African-American students into the laboratory schools. Today their population of minority

and international students is about forty percent -- still not enough to satisfy some

critics, though.

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VOICE ONE:

Some members of the U-High class of 1957 still live in the Chicago area. Others have moved

away but came for the fiftieth anniversary reunion, including Robert Despres, the son of

Marian and Leon.

A number of members from the class of fifty-seven attended a special event honoring a member

of the class of 1982. Arne Duncan is chief executive officer of the Chicago public schools,

the third largest school system in the United States.

Many graduates of the University of Chicago Laboratory High School are in public service. A

1979 graduate, Leslie Hairston, is on the Chicago City Council. A member of the class of

1937 is on the United States Supreme Court. John Paul Stevens is often called the most

liberal justice on the court.

VOICE TWO:

One area where members of the class of 1957 have done well is education. Paul Schultz is a

nationally known economist at Yale University and the son of a Nobel Prize winner.

Another graduate, Sydney Spiesel, is an expert in children's medicine, also at Yale. Doctor

Spiesel also writes for the Internet magazine Slate.

VOICE ONE:

Bert Cohler from the class of fifty-seven is still in the U-High neighborhood. He s a

professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago.

Mary Deems Howland teaches English literature at the United States Naval Academy in

Annapolis, Maryland.

And Allan Metcalf at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, is an English language

expert. His latest book is "Presidential Voices: Speaking Styles from George Washington to

George W. Bush." He is now working on a book about the word OK.

Another member of the class of fifty-seven, Tappan Wilder, has become a strong voice for the

literature of Thornton Wilder. Thornton was his father's brother. He was a playwright,

novelist and short-story writer who won three Pulitzer Prizes. He wrote the classic play

"Our Town." Tappan Wilder is responsible for the republication of some of his uncle's work.

VOICE TWO:

A visitor at the reunion commented that the U-High class of 1957 had enough mental energy to

light a city.

Many high school reunions are centered on a dance. But the members of the class of fifty-

seven made a different choice. They met for a discussion in one of their former classroom

buildings.

They talked about good memories of high school. But one man urged them not to glamorize the

past too much. He said time often makes days long ago seem happier than they really were.

VOICE ONE:

So the former students also talked about how they sometimes formed social groups that

excluded others. Yet one of those who took part in the discussion, Elizabeth Hughes

Schneewind, says they still found something good to say. They agreed that at least these

cliques did not form along religious, racial or ethnic lines, the way they sometimes do in

schools.

Ginger Spiegel Lane says the former students also remembered the many aptitude tests they

were given. Graduate students in education administered them. The tests were designed to see

what the students might do with their lives. She says that for a number of people the

results proved correct.

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VOICE TWO:

Gathering classmates from fifty years ago is a big job. But class members Mary Morony of

Chicago and John Keohane [koh-HANE] of Austin, Texas, worked hard. Mister Keohane is a

mathematics teacher but one of the people he found called him an excellent detective.

VOICE ONE:

Mary Deems Howland, for example, had moved several times. She had also changed her name when

she got married. But John Keohane remembered reading the name of her sister's husband in a

University of Chicago publication. He followed that clue and found the brother-in-law, and

that led him to his former classmate.

She could not attend the reunion. But she renewed several school friendships because of it.

She and classmate Mary Morony held their own reunion -- on the telephone. They talked for an

hour.

VOICE TWO:

Allan Metcalf says he came to know classmates he had not really known when they were in

school fifty years ago. And he says e-mails and calls are continuing after the reunion.

A former classmate from the University of Chicago Laboratory High School told one woman she

looked young for her age. The woman smiled and explained why: the reunion, she said, had

taken away fifty years.

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VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. To learn more about

American life, and to download transcripts and audio archives of our programs, go to

voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.