AStar-Gazette Elmira, New York Sunday, January 30, 1972 - Page 77
GSA vs. Erasmus Hall High School
… The keyword in Lee's happiness at GSA is “caring.”
“In New York, teaching is just a job, nobody cares about how you're doing or whether you even come to class,” he said. “It's different up here. The teachers are real friendly and we know we can go to them with our problems.
“It's much easier to study, too, and I guess it's paid off. In New York I had a D average but here I get B's in my courses.”
Lee's ambition is to continue his education in college and then return as a teach or coach at GSA.
“I like to work with kids,” he said, “and I'd like to help GSA because they helped me.”
Brad American, a GSA senior, attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, at one time one of the top academic schools in the city and the alma mater of such personalities as Barbara Streisand, and chess champion Bobby Fischer, great Columbia and Chicago Bear quarterback Sid Luckman and Philadelphia '76er basketball star Billy Cunningham. Today its just another of the overcrowded and troubled schools common to New York.
“The biggest difference here is that someone yells at me once in a while. Like to get me up in the morning. But I like it here. It's nice, I get good marks, learn and meet people. And most important, I'm doing better.”
One of American's teachers said that the GSA student recently handed in a lengthy report. “He said it was the first he had ever done,” the teacher stated.
“At Erasmus, if you didn't get what the teacher said the first time, you didn't get it at all and most of the time I didn't get it too often,” American chuckled.
“But here the classes are smaller and I catch on to what's happening.”
GSA vs. Erasmus Hall High School Sun, Jan 30, 1972 – 77 · Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York) · Newspapers.com
[Sounds like the kind of academic environment conducive to young, future chess champions, on the Autism Spectrum, dropping out.]
