Chapter 02: Some Challenges of Boarding School; A Black Sheep Scientist in the Family
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Description
Dr. Bogler continues his discussion of the difficulties adjusting to the Oundle School. He also notes the excellent teachers and resources the school offered. He talks about playing English sports (he “loathed” rugby).
He then talks about his growing abilities in the sciences and mentions a summer botany project he worked on with a professor in Frankfurt. He then talks about his family background, noting that no one else in the family has been involved in the sciences, calling himself a “black sheep.” He explains why his family was so open to a son exploring a career path that was unusual in family culture.
He then explains a little about the English system of exams.
Identifier
BoglerO_01_20141110_C02
Publication Date
11-17-2014
Publisher
The Historical Resources Center, Research Medical Library, The University of Texas Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Oliver Bogler, PhD, Oral History Interview, November 10, 2014
Keywords
Educational Path; Personal Background; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Cultural/Social Influences
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Educational Path; Personal Background; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Cultural/Social Influences
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So how did that evolve? At twelve you go to the U.K. You said that was a really culture shock. So tell me about that process and then about the educational experience you had.
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
Yeah, so, I mean, the culture shock was mostly that suddenly I was in a very—going from living at home, going to this very open, American-style celebrating diversity kind of, even in those days, environment, to this monocultural situation. You know, I was wearing a jacket and tie and there were all kinds of rules, and everybody had to—it was very rigid. It was a very rigid sort of lifestyle and regimented and all kinds of stuff that you had to do, and it was culturally very different. I mean, I changed my accent very quickly, and now it sort of swings around in the middle as some people confuse me—they don’t always know where I come from. But depending what I talk about can influence my accent as well, so if I go to England and drink a few glasses of beer, I plum right up. (laughter) But it was a difficult time because I was still pretty young. Now, most of the kids who went to Oundle had already boarded in their preschool, in their preparatory school, which is what the English call the school before the public school, so some of them had been boarding since they were six, so for them it was old hat. One of the other reasons we selected this school is that the main school started at thirteen, and my brother went straight into the main school, into what’s called the third form in the U.K., and I went into the second form. This school had a junior house where they had first formers and second formers, which is fairly unusual, but it made it possible for us to go to the school at the same time. Now, initially, for that first year, I was in a separate house at the other end of the little village, and then I joined my brother’s house when I joined thirteen. But that group in that little house is called the Berrystead. Almost all the kids had started there when they were eleven, so they’d already been together for a year, and I sort of came in as this new person, and then I spoke different and I didn’t know really what was what. I had no idea what was going on, so it was a little hard, and they were a little mean to me, I think like kids generally are when there’s a new person coming. There was one fellow who they appointed to be my—you know, sort of take care of me. He was an interesting—he was my age and he had Danish—I think he was half Danish and his father, he had grown up in Hong Kong or so on, so he had a multicultural background, he spoke some German and stuff. So I did make some friends pretty quickly, and I fit in all right. You just do what you do, which is you immediately camouflage yourself with all the things that you can. So as I said, my accent changed and I became very interested in the things the other kids were interested in. And then otherwise it was just missing home. I had a very happy home life, and, of course, all my relatives in Germany, where there is no boarding culture, assumed we were being sent away because there was something terrible going on. Maybe we were on drugs or whatever. That’s the only reason Germans send their kids to boarding school is to get them to break a habit or something, and it wasn’t like that at all. I mean, we had a very happy home life. But really, my parents wanted to open a door for us, and they did. So it took a while to adjust, but, you know, kids are very flexible and they’re very malleable and they adjust. So the first term, which was like a twelve-week term, that was pretty rough, and then we went home for—I guess at half term we went home for a week, and we actually flew back to Frankfurt. That was tough then coming—having that week at home, and then everything seems like a bad dream and then you have to actually get back on the plane and fly back to school. That was a little weird, but we adjusted pretty quickly. And my brother was there, and I saw him every day. He took care of me, so that was good too. And, yeah, once we were adjusted after a few months, it was actually a really interesting school. So the nice thing about the school was, first of all, the resources. It was a private school, and I know it wasn’t cheap, and the teachers were actually, on the whole, really, really good, motivated. And then the resources the school had were pretty good. In addition to really good science labs, they had some of the first computers. I remember learning to program a computer in 1980. I don’t know what it was, like a BBC micro-computer or something. I don’t even remember what it was, but it had BASIC, and you would write like lines of code. But it was, you know, wow, right?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm.
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
And then they had these workshops where you could—they had a foundry workshop and lathes and all kinds of—and every year, as part of your school year, you would get a week in the workshops learning some different thing, woodworking, whatever, and they had these people who were—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Because grocers wanted people to remember their roots.
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
They did, and they wanted practical people, so that was really pretty good. And there were other things, which I have no particular talent for. So there was a great music program, but I’m tone-deaf and all that good stuff. And then you develop camaraderie and relationships and friendships and things like that. We had to play a lot of English sports. I had to play rugby, which I loathed. I’d been playing soccer quite happily back in Germany. I was playing for my little village team and I was having a good time with that. But soccer in England is not considered a sport for gentlemen in the making, so it was forbidden at our school and we had to play rugby instead. Of course, on Saturday or Sunday we could go to a field and kick the ball around, those of us who were inclined towards soccer, but that wasn’t formally a sport. And then cricket, which I never picked up, because I’d played T-ball in Germany, but cricket, I wasn’t going to do that. (laughs) And so, yeah, I mean, those kinds of things. But it was really, first and foremost, the education was really good and the teachers really cared, and—you know.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Were there some specific ways that you felt yourself blossoming in the sciences during that time?
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
Yeah, I mean—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Or not.
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
No, absolutely. The school, the system, they had streaming, so in the third form, which is sort of the first part of the junior school, they streamed everybody in a single stream, and then from the fourth form on, they broke the streams essentially into arts and sciences. And at that point, my arts stream dropped and my science stream stayed up, and so very much I think it just resonated with me, and I think I was good at the schoolwork. We did projects. I remember there was a project we did one summer. Actually, my mom helped me get a connection with a professor in Frankfurt. I was on summer vacation. We were supposed to identify a project over the summer, and I remember doing a project with some seeds, some plants that he was working with. So I went to see this professor in Frankfurt, and then when I got back to school we planted the seeds, and I worked with one of my teachers there on doing that. I forget what the experiment was about, but it some genetics of color or something like that. It was very cool. So these kinds of things, they were just very open to these sorts of things and they were always very interested in things, you know, the teachers were. So I think that’s one of the things that I enjoyed actually throughout my education, I have to say, is I don’t think I can ever remember meeting a teacher who was cynical or disinterested or just phoning it in. The school was clearly a good place to be a teacher, so I think they were able to select good people. So I think I got interested very much there.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I neglected to ask you earlier, was there anyone else in your family involved in the sciences at all?
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
No, no. I’m an outlier. No, not at all. My father trained in law and worked in personnel and management consultancy. His father and mother were both politicians, if we go up the family tree, union representatives. On the other side, on my mom’s side, her father worked for the state power company, and his grandparents on that side were tax collectors. So, no, I was definitely the odd one out. My brother is a journalist by training. Yeah, so I’m definitely the black sheep of the family. (laughs)
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Do they look at you that way? Do they think of you as the black sheep of the family?
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
No, not in an obvious or unpleasant sort of way, but, yeah, I mean, it’s definitely an area that isn’t part of our family tradition.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. Interesting. Yeah.
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
But my parents were always very open. My father, I know his father really wanted him to be a politician and insisted that he study law in order to lay the groundwork for that, and my father didn’t want to do any of that. He wanted to study. He would have liked to study history or archaeology or whatever. That’s where his passion has been his whole life. So my parents were always, “Follow your heart and follow your interests,” and I think that was part of their strategy for our education was to really give us all the opportunities that we had. Now, in the English system, when you turn fifteen, you do your first set of exams, which are called the O-levels, ordinary levels, and then you have to very quickly choose a very restricted portfolio, essentially, for your pre-university work, and that was not a problem for me, frankly, because I knew what I was going to do. So I did biology, chemistry, and mathematics, which they call “mats” over there. (laughs) That was logical for me. It was a bit harder for my brother because it took him a while to find out what he wanted to do. He ended up studying history, which in England is a perfectly good preparation for all kinds of things. (laughs) And has done very well.
Recommended Citation
Rosolowksi, Tacey A. PhD and Bogler, Oliver PhD, "Chapter 02: Some Challenges of Boarding School; A Black Sheep Scientist in the Family" (2014). Interview Chapters. 1555.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1555
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