Lessons for a Lifetime : Ex-Students Pay Homage to an Outspoken, Gutsy L.A. Teacher

The congressman, the network movie critic and the big-time lawyer who came out Sunday to honor their high school civics teacher were still her students, “still 18” and still paying attention to the gutsy opinions of Blanche Wadleigh Bettington.

Bettington is 92, and she taught high school civics for 42 years before retiring in 1966. For about 200 grateful former students who showed up to honor the teacher who wielded such influence in their lives, it was as if nothing had changed: Blanche Bettington still holds passionate opinions and isn’t afraid to say so.

In the outdoor central court of Hamilton High School, where she taught for 16 years, Bettington took the microphone and ripped into the state’s proposed school voucher measure.

“My great interest is public education, I’m terribly concerned about it, and if the voucher plan is carried, I’m concerned it will be devastating to public education,” she said in a ringing voice.

That Bettington would seize on a celebration to make a political point did not surprise her students.

“Sitting in one of her classes was like sitting in on a world championship game,” said Joel Siegel, the movie critic on “Good Morning America,” who flew here from the East Coast for this. “It was exciting. You wanted to be there.”

Fran Diamond, a 1961 Hamilton graduate, recalled that on the day in 1960 that rapist Caryl Chessman was executed in San Quentin, Bettington greeted her class by yelling: “You’re all murderers! You’re all murderers! The state is murdering in our name and we’re all responsible!”

So devoted was she to the 1st Amendment’s pledge of free speech that when she retired, her students gave her a blank picket sign so she could carry any message she wanted.

Sure, she was frequently accused of speaking out in the classroom, Bettington agreed. But “I thought that was what I was paid to do.” In the 1950s, that landed her in trouble.

She spent 26 years at Canoga Park High School, and “one of my most peculiar students,” Lyn Nofziger--who would become press secretary and adviser to Gov. and President Ronald Reagan--accused her of being communistic. And she had a run-in with a state legislative committee on un-American affairs.

Later, the Vermont-born Bettington advocated the civil rights revolution led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And still later, she was an implacable foe of the U.S. role in Vietnam.

Even long after her retirement, her judgments carried weight with her former students.

Howard L. Berman, a veteran Democratic congressman from Panorama City, recalled Sunday that in 1991, more than 30 years after he left her classroom, he got a stinging letter criticizing his vote to authorize President Bush to wage the Gulf War.

Berman left early to fly back to Washington for today’s signing of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, but not before he reminded Bettington of that letter. He believes that U.S. participation in the Gulf War led to the Mideast peace talks, he told her. “You may be right,” she replied.

What she believed in most of all, her admirers said Sunday, was the Constitution.

Whenever she was dissatisfied with the civics textbook provided by the Los Angeles Unified School District, Bettington said she simply told her students: “Fortunately, it has the text of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We’ll read them and ignore the rest of it.”

“She was a great lady,” said Bob Steiner, Hamilton class of 1953 and a longtime publicist for the Forum. “I remember particularly her unrelenting condemnation of the internment of the Japanese in World War II. She said due process was holy. And that was not that easy in 1952. There were a lot of kids then who thought anything the government told them was fine.”

Gerry Chaleff, Hamilton class of 1959 and president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., said: “She’s a teacher who taught you how to think. She made you think.”

Berman added his homage to the Congressional Record last week, noting: “For better or worse, it was this provocative and challenging teacher who showed me the allure of the world of government and politics. . . .

“Her unwavering commitment to civil rights, civil liberties and free speech is testimony to her humanity and basic goodness. Blanche exemplified the selflessness, patience and empathy that is characteristic of the best high school teaching.”

In honor of Bettington and Joe Weston, another Hamilton great, the high school has a scholarship fund for students who aspire to be teachers. On Sunday, after a series of tributes, it was Bettington’s turn. She said she had wanted to spend two hours criticizing the school voucher measure but had bowed to advice that she limit her comments to three minutes.

“If I had the time, I’d like to conduct a class and open this up to a discussion,” she said.

She feels good, she told the crowd, although her eyesight is fading and she has to have someone read to her. But, with just one momentary tremulous note in her voice, she remarked that she may still see better than some of her friends think. She added: “As I see all of you, I remember you so well. You are still 18.”

As they ate their picnic lunches, many of these former 18-year-olds clustered around their former teacher, listening for her sharp asides. “They were going to sell the big library Downtown to a cigarette company,” she said at one point. “I was speechless about that.”

A man listening to her snorted: “Blanche Bettington is never speechless about anything.”