Rabbit Box Blog

The Experiment

When C.A. Hager appeared at the head of our sixth-grade classroom, he could have been an astronaut for all we knew.

Male teachers were rare. I had known of only three in the whole school system up to that point, and they were over at the “old school.” They were gray, old men who wore full suits to school and kept their jackets on all day, even at recess. To us, they looked completely out of place in an elementary school classroom, almost as ridiculous as a clown at a funeral. You knew the occasion was serious, but the way that guy was dressed made you want to laugh. 

But, being in the overflow group of fourth through seventh graders who had been transferred to the  “new school” across town from the original campus, we considered the new school to be the ultimate of modernity, while the poor kids at the other campus were trapped in that stuffy old school. 

To this day, when someone talks about being “old school,” my mind flashes to that group of plain brick buildings.

Beyond being male, Mr. Hager was young – just 22 and fresh out of college. He was also from a town more than 30 miles away. Rather than move to town as most teachers did, he drove his MG-B sports car to school every day. And his car was named Clyde, after Ahab’s camel in Sam the Sham’s song!

Mr. Hager was athletic, good-looking, and dressed like a fashionable college student. In that pre-Beatle year (they burst on the American scene the next year), that meant short, neatly trimmed hair, pencil-legged pants, a pressed Oxford shirt, and a narrow “cool” tie. He arrived in a sport coat most days, but it hung in his little teacher closet at the front of the room. 

If he had been a mediocre teacher, just his youth and appearance would have made him a favorite with most of us, but he turned out to be a natural in the classroom. In a time when most classrooms were structured around the teacher lecturing and then having us repeat what we heard either on paper or by recitation, Mr. Hager found ways to make our lessons come alive. 

When we studied the Bill of Rights, he engaged us in classroom discussions about what the rights actually meant and how they worked in our lives. He brought in two young attorneys to discuss our legal system in greater detail. As they tied their daily activities to the Bill of Rights, we sat spellbound. It was almost as if Thomas Jefferson or John Adams had come to explain why our lessons mattered. Even better, in fact. These young guys were cool. And one was a girl!

Mr. Hager figured out classroom activities to illustrate mathematical and scientific principles we were studying. Rather than make us memorize and recite the geometry of a circle, for instance, he brought in a bicycle wheel and a tape measure. We spent several days measuring and working with the diameter, radius, circumference, and other basic facts. Then we derived pi. Several of us honed our long division skills by seeing how many decimal points we could carry the calculation in search of an even answer.

To this day, I have no trouble remembering the value of pi or its meaning.

Our most memorable class exercises were brought on by challenges or questions we posed to Mr. Hager. For instance, one day we were doing a math problem that talked about stopping distances for an automobile. The printed problem was fairly dry, of course – “read the chart of stopping distances to answer this question. If a car is going 50 mph, can it stop before hitting a barricade 200 feet ahead?”

But one of the less academically inclined boys, Jerry, challenged the logic of the problem in the book.

“There’s no way it could take that long for a car to stop if it has good brakes,” he sneered.

“Why do you think that?” asked Mr. Hager.

“When my dad puts on the brakes in our car, it stops,” Jerry replied.

“I bet it takes longer than you think,” said Mr. Hager.

“Well, maybe a few feet, but nothing like that book says,” Jerry said.

“You know my car, the MG?” Well, of course we did. That car was the envy of every kid in school. “It’s just a little car, with excellent brakes, so it would stop shorter than your family car. But I can tell you, it takes as long to stop as this chart says.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jerry said defiantly.

“I can prove it,” Mr. Hager said calmly. 

We all brightened. This sounded like a field trip in the making.

Mr. Hager pointed to the road that ran in front of our school, parallel to the wall of windows that made up one side of our classroom.

“What if I drive my car there, then put on the brakes and stop as fast as I can?” he said. “We’ll compare the distance to the chart.”

“You mean we can all go outside and measure?” Susan asked what we were all wanting to ask. Escaping from the classroom, even for a short time, was the ultimate goal of every kid.

“No, it would be too dangerous for you all to be out there with no adults around,” came the answer. Mr. Hager might be young and cool, but he knew the adult party line pretty well.“You can see just fine from your seats.”

“No good,” said Jerry. “You can just go easy on the brakes and claim that was as good as it would stop.” 

“Why don’t you ride with me and make sure I don’t cheat?” Mr. Hager instantly bought Jerry’s approval – and loyalty, even from a kid who hated everything about school. No one ever rode in a teacher’s car, especially not a sky blue MG convertible.

“And we’ll take Susan and Bradley along to watch from the sidewalk and help make sure I measure correctly. Okay?”

With that, Mr. Hager and his helpers left our classroom. A few minutes later, we watched from our seats as they reappeared in front of the school. Mr. Hager talked to them a bit, then posted Bradley on the sidewalk right in front of the middle of our room. He walked with Susan down the sidewalk, talked to her a bit more, then he and Jerry disappeared in the direction of the teacher’s parking area.

We waited excitedly, watching Bradley as he turned and gave us the high sign, grinning broadly.

The MG drove slowly up the street, disappearing beyond the trees at the edge of the school grounds. We could see Bradley looking up the street. He raised his arm, and we could see the sports car rolling smoothly down the street. When it got to Bradley, he dropped his arm. 

The wheels of the car stopped turning instantly – I swear they did – and a slight puff of blue smoke appeared behind each one. The car skipped across the pavement a few times as it slowed and finally stopped near where Susan was standing. She stared for a moment, then ran and stood by the front bumper.

Mr. Hager waved to us then drove off to park the car. He and Jerry returned quickly. Jerry stood by Susan while Mr. Hager walked to where Bradley marked the beginning of the braking. He started pacing off the distance.

Inside the classroom, we counted his paces in unison. 

“One! Two! Three!” we counted, getting louder as the number grew higher. Mr. Hager reached Susan and Jerry in 42 steps. We could see him talking to Jerry. Jerry nodded, and everyone came back inside. The students took their seats and Mr. Hager walked to the blackboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote “42” on the board.

The classroom was buzzing with excitement.

“Did you see that car skipping when he locked up the brakes?” someone said. 

“Yes, I put them on pretty hard, but I didn’t want any claims I was trying to let the car coast,” Mr. Hager said with a glance in Jerry’s direction.

“So, how did we do?” he asked.

“Good,” we crooned. This was about the coolest experiment ever.

“No, I mean did we do the test correctly?” he said. Coolness does not trump methodology in his class.

“For instance, was I going the correct speed?” he asked.

“Well, you looked like you were going fast,” said Sally.

“But I was in a sports car,” Mr. Hager said, smiling. “It looks fast sitting still. I can tell you we were going 35 miles per hour, the posted speed limit. That right, Jerry?”

Jerry nodded. “I could see the speedometer needle was right between the 30 and 40.”

“Okay, then speed was correct. Bradley, did I hit the brakes where I was supposed to?” 

Bradley said, “Yes, exactly even with me.” Jerry nodded his agreement.

“Susan, did you mark where we stopped?” asked Mr. Hager.

“Yes, I stood right beside the front bumper, just like you told me,” she said.

“Jerry? Do you agree?”

Again, Jerry nodded in assent.

“And could I have stopped the car any shorter?” asked Mr. Hager.

Jerry shook his head slowly.

“No, I could hear the tires squawling,” he said, sounding a little awe-struck.

Mr. Hager took down a yardstick and laid it on the floor.

“Now we just need to convert my measured paces to feet,” he said.

He placed his left heel at the end of the yardstick and stepped off a pace.

“It should measure just about a yard, or three feet,” he said. “I’ve practiced doing this for refereeing football on fields without yard markers.” In those days penalties were stepped off ritualistically by the official, so we knew what he meant.

Sure enough, his right toe was just at the end of the yardstick.

“Three feet. Okay, Jerry?”

“Yes,” said Jerry.

Mr. Hager returned to the board and wrote X3 under the 42, then drew a line.

“Who can do the math?” he asked.

“126!” came the answer, more or less in unison.

“So, let’s sum up. A very light sports car with excellent brakes, traveling at 35 miles per hour on dry asphalt pavement under perfect conditions, took 126 feet to stop. What does that suggest about the bigger car going 50 miles per hour in our math problem?”

“It would take at least 200 feet to stop,” offered Susan, “like the chart says.”

“Everybody agree?” asked Mr. Hager.

We all nodded, even Jerry.

At recess, I asked Jerry how it was riding in Mr. Hager’s MG.

“It was all right, I guess,” he said. “But I still don’t believe it. He did something. Maybe MGs don’t have good brakes like American cars. I wish I could get my brother to bring his car over here so we could test it.”

“But your brother’s car is a broken down old wreck. He’s always having to work on it just to get it running. Don’t you know Mr. Hager’s MG is practically brand new?” By now Jerry’s stubbornness was beginning to be irritating.

Jerry scowled defiantly as he shook his head. 

“Well, maybe it does have trouble running sometimes, but my brother’s car can stop on a dime.”