Reflections on a Blessed and Satisfying Life - No.17: High School Academics

Reflections on a Blessed and Satisfying Life - No.17: High School Academics

Concordia Academy was clear on its mission: train young men for the rostered ministries of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod-both those ordained for pastoral ministry and those commissioned for the teaching ministry. I was in the second category following in the footsteps of my father.

Our training was in the old tradition of classical education. We took at least one course in religion every term. Next in priority came the languages. I took English, German (all using German script) and Spanish. Those studying for the pastoral ministry added Latin and even some Greek.

I do not think any of our professors ever took a course in educational methodology. They were clergy and were probably chosen because they scored high academically.  Dr. Studtmann who was also the school’s Director taught religion and German. The eccentric (and brilliant Dr. Viehweg taught Latin and Greek. Dr. Martin J. Neeb taught us public speaking and he assured us that even though we were in high school he used exactly the same curriculum he used while concurrently teaching that course at the University of Texas. The theologian George J Beto taught physics.  For two years Dr. Robert Schroeder taught whatever no one else taught. He was an excellent teacher (and should also have been the basketball coach!).

True to the values of the day, there were no women on the faculty. One woman was allowed to teach individual students the piano. I was among her notable disastrous failures (not due to any deficiencies on her part, I can assure you.) The other woman who was allowed on campus (and she wasn’t even a Missouri Synod Lutheran was a Mrs. Lillian Bedicheck. She taught Spanish. She was wonderful. She loved us. She gave it her best. We were disrespectful, came to class barefoot, not studious and failed to do our homework. But she hung in there with us, was extremely gracious and kind and I have wonderful and fond memories of her.

(Caveat on Mrs. Bedicheck: One of the reasons we loved her is that her husband was a big wheel in Texas athletics and he got us free passes to Texas Longhorn games etc. Twenty years after leaving Austin I was in a tailor shop in Hong Kong. I met a tourist from Austin Texas. I disclosed that I went to Concordia. The surprised comment from the tourist ”Oh, that is where my best friend Mrs. Bedicheck taught Spanish. She loved those boys and still talks about them!

When I compare the quality of my high school education with that of my grandchildren I see again how inadequate my high school years were. There was way too much indoctrination, too much rote, and too little project work. No cooperative work assignments, little creativity, no problem solving, no understanding of different learning styles, very little appreciation for the arts. On the other hand our teaching gave us strong faith and moral grounding, dedication to hard work, and a desire for more learning.

Another caveat: Prof Viehweg tried to teach us music appreciation. One evening he had a select group of us meet with him to listen to some classical music played for us from a wind-up Victrola. When I got back to my room I told my roommate how bad it was. I said to him, “We listened to that one song and all they sang was ‘Hosanna ‘over and over!” Of course it was from Handel’s Messiah and just too far removed from Country Western for me to think it could come anywhere close to expressing what one truly feels!

I guess something was done right. I still remember most of the Lutheran doctrine taught me. I can still diagram sentences. I have been able to have quite a bit of my writing published; I enjoy classical music and still read old German script. Just don’t expect me to play you a song on the piano-or send you a greeting in Spanish!