Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 9, 1994 TAG: 9404110150
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
"And I haven't even started to push yet," Blacksburg High School teacher Dolores Grapsas tells the students who have stayed after school for the tutorial.
"Hell-o," mouths one woman sitting in the back.
"You're going to have to come in here with starched shirts to hold yourself up," Grapsas warns. Advanced Placement courses impress colleges, and can even mean bypassing introductory courses once you get accepted. In order to prepare for the essay test, Grapsas has always offered 10 extra free sessions to help students. With the 17 snow days this year, students will need 30 sessions. The classes have done 10 so far. They soon will begin two-hour sessions.
Virginia schools started Sept. 7 this year, because of the law requiring schools begin after Labor Day.
"Starting after Labor Day is a heartache. Literally, we have lost a term. I have another 20 days to catch up," Grapsas says. "[The students] work hard for you. They'll never complain."
They won't complain to Grapsas because they respect her toughness. "I love it. I transferred in from a college-level class," says Ken Hincker. "It's the best decision I made all year."
Someone says, "I think you passed the last test, unlike the rest of the class."
"Content and Grapsas, a winning combination," he says, explaining why he puts in the extra hours.
\ Fourth period, with 32 students (first period has 33), waits for the war to begin. That is, World War II.
Grapsas fixes her steely stare on students still chatting throughout the room. "Yes, I'm looking at you. Anybody else want me to look at you?"
Students continue to cut up during roll, and the next business is discussing a standardized test. "You're going to be so frazzled after DBQ, I might have to give you a day for CPR," Grapsas quips. "You're going to have to time yourselves very carefully. You may not bring dictionaries. You may bring tissues for crying."
Then the AP test is on the agenda. The first 300 years of the test should be OK, she tells the class.
She launches into the causes of World War II. Nationalism, the Versailles Treaty, imperialism, militarism, isolationism.
The Spanish Civil War flies by at 90 mph.
"Please star this," Grapsas says. "Please read a little bit on the Spanish Civil War."
On to collective security. The Rome-Berlin Pact which leads into a minidiscussion about North Korea and the nature of war after the Cold War. No one thinks the United States would defend an invaded South Korea, despite the alliance. But Dennis Price says, "I guess you could. I mean, hey, hey, a little war. Nowadays war is more rattatatatatatatatata instead of ratta," he makes a reloading motion, "ratta," reload, "ratta," reload, "ratta."
The class breaks into laughter.
Ethiopia, Manchuko, Lytton Commission, no time to stop to spell "Haile Selassie." "It's in your book, let's go. I'm going too fast?"
"Yes!" Price says, but they move on to the Stimson Doctrine. Panay Gunboat in China. "What about the Maine?" one student asks.
The class all tries to answer at once. Grapsas answers with her thick Yankee accent, "You sound like lentil soup." Fifty minutes have almost gone by.
"Are you doing your work the night before?" she asks of the last tests. Alley says, "Are our grades that bad?"
"You're generalizing, you're not putting detail. It looks like you did all the work between 12 o'clock at night and six o'clock in the morning," Grapsas says.
\ Students are getting ahead for the AP, though, as they meet for the 11th time on Wednesday afternoon.
Grapsas makes little theatrical coughs. Ahem, ahem, ahem.
Emily Gibb, a student wearing a whiplash collar from a car accident, runs from the door to her seat and back to the door again.
"Are you all done running around at breakneck speed?" Grapsas asks. "Let's go ahead and start a war."
Yay!
"Everybody bring their helmets?" Ahem. Ahem. "Whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready."
She tells the class how far behind they are. "I think somebody's talking. I'm going to hurt you."
It's this mock toughness that keeps the kids coming after school, despite sports, plays, other classes' work. Kate Schwabe says, "Ms. Grapsas is just always hysterical. She's awesome. She's the best teacher I've had this year."
The session begins with appeasement. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts ... ."
Absolutely.
Hitler occupies Austria. They are "throwing roses and flowers and pizzas. They invited all the Germans to McDonalds and they're delighted."
One student draws on the leg propped up on her desk, and tickles it with her long hair.
"Listen, we're losing focus," Grapsas says.
"Because Italy - everybody with me - has now attacked Albania."
A student asks, "Where is Albania close to?" Grapsas looks at her disbelievingly. The student apologizes, "I have no geography skills."
"I can see that." Grapsas points to the Balkans on the map. "Albania is south of Floyd, right above Chicago, here." She bares her teeth.
Down to the Bosphorus Straits. Points to Egypt. "What is that?"
Gibb snaps up. "The Suez Canal?"
"Who does it belong to?"
"England!" Gibb yells.
"She just had an accident, she's in terrible pain, still semi in a coma, and look at her answering these questions," Grapsas says.
Somebody jokes, "I think it made her smarter."
"The Germans and the Italians want very much to get in there. This is oil."
And back to Hitler. "What did he write?"
"Mein Kampf."
"It's boring. You couldn't even make it into a soap opera," Grapsas says.
As the afternoon lengthens, and class clowns put their spin on the lecture, the class laughs. Grapsas asks, "How can I keep my inertia going with this?
by CNB