Using the financial statements for the snider corporation

Those of us on the paper, and the yearbook that she also supervised, lived in Hattie’s classroom. We hung out there before and after school. Now, you have to understand, Hattie was a single woman, nearing 60 at the time, and this was the 1960s. She was the polar opposite of “cool,” but we hung around her classroom like it was a malt shop and she was

Wolfman Jack.3 None of us could have articulated it then, but it was because we enjoyed

being harangued4 by her, disciplined by her, and taught by her. She was a woman of clarity in an age of uncertainty.

We remained friends for 30 years, and she followed, bragged about, and critiqued every twist in my career. After she died, her friends sent me a pile of my stories that she had saved over the years. Indeed, her students were her family — only closer. Judy Harrington, one of Hattie’s former students, remarked about other friends who were on Hattie’s newspapers and yearbooks: “We all graduated 41 years ago; and yet nearly each day in our lives something

comes up — some mental image, some admonition5 that makes us think of Hattie.”

Judy also told the story of one of Hattie’s last birthday parties, when one man said he had to leave early to take his daughter somewhere. “Sit down,” said Hattie. “You’re not leaving yet. She can just be a little late.”

That was my teacher! I sit up straight just thinkin’ about her.

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Among the fundamentals Hattie introduced me to was the New York Times. Every

morning it was delivered to Room 313. I had never seen it before then. Real journalists, she taught us, start their day by reading the Times and columnists like Anthony Lewis and James Reston.

I have been thinking about Hattie a lot this year, not just because she died on July 31, but because the lessons she imparted seem so relevant now. We’ve just gone through this huge dot-com-Internet-globalization bubble — during which a lot of smart people got carried away and forgot the fundamentals of how you build a profitable company, a lasting portfolio, a nation state, or a thriving student. It turns out that the real secret of success in the information age is what it always was: fundamentals — reading, writing, and arithmetic; church, synagogue, and mosque; the rule of law; and good governance.

The Internet can make you smarter, but it can’t make you smart. It can extend your reach, but it will never tell you what to say at a P.T.A. meeting. These fundamentals cannot be downloaded. You can only upload them, the old-fashioned way, one by one, in places like Room 313 at St. Louis Park High. I only regret that I didn’t write this column when the woman who taught me all that was still alive.

Thinking Critically about This Reading

What do you think Friedman means when he states, “The Internet can make you smarter, but it can’t make you smart” (paragraph 11)?

Questions for Study and Discussion

1. Friedman claims that his high school journalism teacher, Hattie M. Steinberg, was “someone who made the most important difference in my life” (1). What descriptive details does Friedman use to support this thesis? (Glossary: Thesis)

2. Hattie M. Steinberg taught her students the fundamentals of journalism — “not simply how to write a lead or accurately transcribe a quote, but, more important, how to comport yourself in a professional way and to always do quality work” (3). According to Friedman, what other fundamentals did she introduce to her students? Why do you think he values these fundamentals so much?

3. Friedman punctuates his description of Steinberg’s teaching with short, pithy sentences. For example, he ends paragraph 2 with the sentence “She was that good” and paragraph

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3 with “She wanted to teach us about consequences.” Identify several other short sentences Friedman uses. What do these sentences have in common? How do short sentences like these affect you as a reader? Explain.

4. Why do you think Friedman tells us three times that Steinberg’s classroom was number 313 at St. Louis Park High School?

5. What details in Friedman’s portrait of his teacher stand out for you? Why do you suppose Friedman chose the details that he did? What dominant impression of Hattie M. Steinberg do they collectively create? (Glossary: Dominant Impression)

6. According to Friedman, what went wrong when the “huge dot-com-Internet- globalization bubble” (10) of the late 1990s burst? Do you agree?

Classroom Activity Using Unity

Mark Wanner, a student, wrote the following essay using this thesis statement:

Unfortunately, some of the sentences disrupt the unity of the essay. Find these sentences, eliminate them, and reread the essay.