Mr. Foley
U.S. History & Gov’t-A
April 11. 2013
A Life Worth Knowing: Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs, more commonly known as Steve Jobs, was a man of great wealth and fame. Determined to make an impact, Jobs forever changed communication and technology. Steve Jobs was one of the world’s greatest contributors to modern-day technology. Born on February 24, 1955 Jobs was later adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. He was born to Joanne Schieble and Adulfattah “John” Jandali in San Francisco, California. Schieble was from Wisconsin and of German heritage. Her family didn’t support her dating the Muslim schoolteacher, Jandali. Realizing that she was pregnant, Schieble chose not to get married yet and put her child up for adoption. With this, she had one dominant requirement: her child’s parent were to be college graduates. Schiebele’s child was reluctantly given to a former Coast Guard engine mechanic who was a high school dropout and his bookkeeper wife. Job’s birth mother refused to sign the adoption papers for weeks. The standoff ended when Paul and Clara signed a pledge to stating that they would fund a savings account for the boy’s college education(Isaacson 1, 3, 4). Prior to starting elementary school, Jobs was taught how to read by his mother Clara. Jobs recalled how this effected him in Monta Loma Elementary, “I was kind of bored for the first few years, so I occupied myself by getting into trouble. I had a good friend named Rick Ferrentino and we’d get into all sorts of trouble.” Jobs and Ferrentino’s pranks consisted of posters announcing, “Bring Your Pet to School Day,” setting off an explosive under a teacher’s chair. Paul and Clara knew that their child was special and did not blame him for being bored. Later, upon entering the fourth grade, Jobs and Ferrentino were separated. His new teacher, Imogene “Teddy” Hill challenged Jobs with a math workbook and bribed him with lollipops. He would also receive five dollars if most of the problems were correct. “I learned more from her than any other teacher, and if it hadn’t been for her. I’m sure I would have gone to jail,” said Jobs when speaking about Mrs. Hill. Toward the end of the school year, Hill tested Jobs and he scored at the high school sophomore level. The school proposed that he could skip two grades and go straight into seventh. His parents decided to be a bit more practical and have him skip one grade instead(Isaacson 12, 13). The transition was difficult, making Jobs a socially awkward loner amongst kids a year older than him. Now attending Crittenden Middle School, fights and shakedowns in the bathroom were regular occurrences. Jobs was often bullied and gave his parents an ultimatum: he go to a new school or not go to school at all. So, the Jobses then moved to Los Altos and young Steve Jobs transferred to Cupertino-Sunnyvale School District, the safest in Silicon Valley. Around this time, Paul and Clara wanted Jobs to have a religious upbringing so they took him to the Lutheran church on Sundays. One Sunday at age 13, Jobs began asking the pastor if God knew everything. He included suffering and the pastor explained that Steve would not be able to understand but that God did know about it. That was when Jobs announced that he did not want anything to do with a God that was fully aware of suffering and did nothing about it. He would later spend years studying and practicing Zen Buddhism(Isaacson 14, 15, 16). Jobs soon started his freshman year at Homestead High. He had very few friends his own age, and the ones he did have were seniors. According to Jobs, most of his friends were into LSD and the counterculture experience. He preferred to indulge in his studies. This lead to him getting into the Hewlett-Packard Explorers Club. Jobs liked to work and had an early interest in making things. Hence, he developed knowledge for technologic parts. But during the summer, in between his sophomore and