Cinnaminson Alternative School

(2026 - 2013)

CHERRY HILL — In the last Letter to the Editor he sent to the Courier-Post, longtime Cherry Hill resident Jack Hinger wrote on July 4: “How can we celebrate Independence this Fourth of July? It would be more appropriate to cite it as a day of mourning for the demise of our democracy. “ ... The wealth of America should not be controlled by less than five percent of the people. Corporate capitalism is incompatible with democracy. That should be the message of this Fourth of July.”

Hinger’s son Jim, also of Cherry Hill, said the writing was typical of his father. “He had a rough childhood, growing up in the Depression. He always felt he had a cause to fight for the little guy. He was anti-big business, anti-big politics, anti-war.

“He was a bit of a radical,” laughed Jim, 51. “He was always very passionate. And he was a fantastic dad.”

Jack Hinger, World War II veteran, English teacher, and author of hundreds of letters to the Courier-Post, passed away Wednesday at the age of 87.

The Collingswood native graduated from the borough’s high school and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving as a mechanic aboard the USS Coronis. The GI Bill enabled him to attend Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., where he earned a degree in English. He taught the subject at Cinnaminson High School until his retirement in 1992.

“He had very strong opinions about politics,” recalled his daughter, Judy Hoskins, who lives in Nashville, Tenn.

“One of my favorite things would be to come up and debate about something. “He would always listen very respectfully and always seemed to consider the opposite point of view. So I grew up thinking what I thought and did really mattered. I’m going to miss him a ton.”

Mike Daniels, the former Opinion Page editor at the Courier-Post, remembered Hinger’s letters, and called the veteran a “very good writer.” “He had a lot of thoughts about the world, and I was glad he often shared them,” Daniels added. “He was definitely one of our regular contributors, and he was very critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I’m sorry to hear he’s passed away. It’s sad.”

Jim Hinger said his father’s experiences in Japan during the war had a negative effect on him.

“He saw a lot, and my mother said he wasn’t necessarily proud to be in the military. He never considered himself a proud veteran. That’s why he was against the wars.”

Hoskins recalled the time when she was 16 and her father took her and some of his students to Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam war.

“It was a powerful feeling that we could go there and make our feelings known,” Hoskins said. “And, ultimately, enough people were (demonstrating) that it brought the war to an end. My dad always believed in peaceful demonstration.”

The topics of Hinger’s letters ran the gamut — from FDR and the Great Depression to Chris Christie, from big oil and big money to the schools in Camden. A sampling of Hinger’s missives: On the Middle East wars: “Today, America is a war-mongering nation, invading Middle East countries ... on the basis of lies and attempting to violate Iran in the same way.” (November 2012)

On Gov. Chris Christie: “The Courier-Post’s editorial supporting Chris Christie for governor was hard to take. Gov. Jon Corzine is no shining light in Trenton, but at least he’s not planning to petrify the schools by giving lush tax cuts to big corporate sponsors. Putting Christie in the governor’s office is roughly equivalent to appointing Bernie Madoff to administer Social Security.” (October 2009)

On democracy: “Our democracy has been sold out from under us. Elections to public office are controlled by the amounts of money spent promoting candidates and legislation. Money has replaced equality as our guiding principle in the U.S.” (May 2011)

Every Saturday, Hinger could be found on Route 38 near the Red Lobster restaurant protesting the war in Afghanistan.

“Practically up to the day he died, he would join about five to six other people on Saturdays and protest for about an hour,” Jim Hinger said. “He’d be out there with his cap and his scruffy beard holding his sign.

“People would come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I saw your dad out there again.’ ”

In the early 1990s Jack Hinger helped launch the Cinnaminson Alternative School as a way to help special-needs students graduate high school. Funding for the school was dropped after three years.

“I have a special-needs child and I realize now how important it was that he recognized that those kids fell through the cracks through no fault of their own,” Hoskins said. “He always cared extra for the people who didn’t have advantages.

“My father never thought he was anybody special, just a common, average guy,” Hoskins continued.“But the longer I’ve lived, the more I realize he was very special.

”Jack Hinger Sr. is survived by his wife of 61 years, Dottie; his daughter Judy; and sons Jack Jr. and Jim, both of Cherry Hill. He had seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Written by

Joe Cooney

Courier-Post Staff

From Jack, 2010

In the beginning…

I vaguely remember, back in 1970 or 71, the educational scene at Cinnaminson High School began to undergo some seismic shifts. The superintendent, Dr. Claffee, retired or moved on, and his replacement Dr. Blank, who addressed the high school faculty in his introductory talk with an invitation to bring him new ideas about learning.

During that time Lee Oberparleiter, John Blair, and I, had been discussing a book about a school in England called “Summerhill”, under the direction of a radical rector, who allowed the students to make decisions and choices about their learning.

We would meet in the teachers’ lounge and discuss this phenomenal school and its strange practices. Lee was already shaking things as English Dept. chairman with cinema programs and independent-Study English.

John was assigning his students to grow different species of plants in his biology classes, and I was assigning essay topics on books by Thoreau, Paine, and Whitman.

When Dr. Blank touched on new ideas for learning in his speech, John, Lee and I looked at each other and smiled. That was the beginning of the Cinnaminson Alternative School.

With Lee’s talent for communicating with local and state authorities, and John’s enthusiasm for fertilizing new ideas, and my inordinate tendency to encourage the challenge to tradition, we set about planning our proposition.

It was great, being part of that early conspiracy.

Jack Hinger

From John Blair (2013)

I would like to add some clarification and detail to the article on the life of Jack Hinger (July 28, 2013).

The clarification is about the nature of the Cinnaminson Alternative School and the detail is about Jack's involvement in it. The article stated, "In the early 1990s Jack Hinger helped launch the Cinnaminson Alternative School as a way to help special-needs students graduate high school. Funding for the school was dropped after three years."
What was special about these students was their desire to take responsibility for their own education. I had the good fortune to be present, with Jack, at the beginning of the Cinnaminson Alternative School and through to its end.

My name is John Blair and I was one of two full-time science teachers at the Cinnaminson Alternative School (1972-76). The Cinnaminson Alternative School was an open-enrollment, 10th - 12th grade learning community with approximately 170 students of all abilities, We always had more volunteer students than we were staffed for (10% of the high school's 10th - 12th grade students).

Three elements made this program unique. The students agreed to take responsibility for both their own education and their own behavior. Their parents accepted that we were an open campus and their children could come and go as they pleased. And the teachers agreed to assist the students in their individual efforts to pursue their own education.

Although that education generally included graduation from Cinnaminson High School (along with many other things), the program was not designed for that purpose nor was graduation ever an explicit program goal. In the fall of 1971, in the Cinnaminson High School faculty room, Jack's dedication to principled, democratic action permeated the first discussion about the possibility of a student-centered, democratically organized, learning community in our school district. As a senior English teacher, Jack Hinger's recognized integrity, forthright principled behavior, and diligent professional performance was a central reason that a program that assumed students could be trusted was ever approved for operation. For the next four years his honest, democratic, plain speaking was a constant in the daily life of the school.

Finally, in the late spring of 1976 (the last year of the school), his commitment to uncompromising principled behavior laid the foundation for a meeting. In that meeting the entire professional staff of ten part and full-time teachers agreed to refuse to implement a new Superintendent's order to fundamentally change the learner-centered philosophy, structure, governance and culture of the school. The Superintendent subsequently transferred almost the entire tenured staff, laid off the only non-tenured teacher (the other science teacher), and brought in mostly middle school teachers to implement his program. By the next February, since there was no longer any reason to be there, half the students had returned to the regular high school and the shell of the Cinnaminson Alternative School was officially closed.

And sadly, this unique learning experience went silent.

George Carlin said that "It's called the American Dream because you've got to be asleep to believe it." Unlike George Carlin, Jack Hinger believed the American Dream. He believed that individual people both can and should shape their own lives and participate in their own governance; and he believed that all people should always have the opportunity to do just that. Jack also believed that he personally should do whatever he could to keep that dream alive.

If we're going to be the land of the free, we must be the home of the brave. Jack Hinger was brave and he never, never, never gave up.

Jack was an inspiration, we need more like him.

John Blair Vashon, Washington jb@eskimo.net

JB at the chalkboard