When I was in High School I took German class freshman and sophomore year. I learned almost no German--the teacher, Mr. Norton, was a somewhat addled and very burned out veteran of World War II. This was 1964-65, so WWII was closer then than the Vietnam war is to us now. Every day someone would ask Mr. Norton some question about the war, about Germany, or anything to get him off on a tangent. Very little teaching resulted. He also had his map of secret Germany that he kept rolled up in the pull-down projection screen. Before unveiling it he would check the halls and cover the little window in the door.