“Kids These Days”

My father attends the Imperial Restaurant in Westwood every weekday morning for breakfast. I chose the verb “attends” because many of his cronies at the Imperial call their hangout the “Institution of Higher Learning,” so it just seems apt to say he attends instead of the more prosaic verb “patronizes.” Many of the “pupils” have taken to calling themselves ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out). When I am in Cincinnati I try and go a few times so I can soak in the atmosphere and also to visit the extraordinary waitress Pam. Extraordinary coffee is poured, and extraordinary internet epiphanies shared.

The other morning a man who looked very much like the Reverend Jim character in Taxi rushed in to the institution, a man I don’t remember meeting before, saw me, and dashed over—“Hey I gotta ask you. Do they eat camel meat over there where you are? I mean, do they eat their camels?” I was a little surprised at the question—why, I don’t know, but without missing a beat I answered, “Nah, you don’t think they’d eat their transportation, do you?” “Okay, just had to ask you,” he nodded and went to sit down and move on to the next important topic to ponder.

Yesterday I joined my dad again, in part to see his friends Harry and Ruby, a couple who met in Europe in the closing days of World War II—I always love hearing their stories, and another of the “classmates” approached me. “Hey, John. Hey, have you been to any of those harems you hear about over there? I mean if I came to see you, could you take us to a harem?”

Kids these days.

I say that phrase, “kids these days,” not just because of some of the silliness—yet curiosity—from the Imperial, but because that is a favorite phrase of my wonderful student Yazan back at KA. Whenever anyone says anything kind of off kilter, or bizarre, or just funny, Yazan says with a world-weary smile, “Ah, kids these days.”

It is two weeks ago right about now that I got on a plane in Amman bound for Chicago and my two week spring break in the United States. It has been a lovely vacation. If you have kept up with the blog you know I have reveled in the Denison Singers reunion, basked in the spring time perfection of New York, visited great friends like New York Doris and Cincinnati Doris, indulged in great meals with Anne in New York (one day last week we ate on the terrace of her club for both lunch and dinner!) and Shelley in Cincinnati, marveled once again at how perfect my sister and brother-in-law are, and felt the everyday pleasure of taking care of errands and exercising at the YMCA.

But it is time to turn my attention to returning to KA for the last 8 weeks of school. Tomorrow evening I will get on a plane bound for Germany and then switch to a flight for Amman—arriving late Saturday night where I will be met by excellent friend Fatina. It is time to plan for what we will discover as we study the 20th century in my world history class. It is time to think about where my young scholars might go in the last two months of school.

So, in a way, this is “Kaleidoscopes” Part II as I think about my students again, and turn my attention away from just eating and talking (although I do maintain a healthy regimen of both of those too in Jordan!) and remember what they had been up to before our spring break.

About two weeks before the vacation we had a test that covered the era of 1700-1900 focusing on three extraordinary revolutions that overshadowed everything else in the western world—the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. These revolutions—one in thought, one in politics, and one in technology—allowed us to move quickly through 200 years of history. My goal has been that even though this course is supposed to cover the entire world’s history in one year (who in the Ministry of Education or school systems around the world think that that is smart???) we must spend at least six weeks on the 20th century.

When it came time for the test the students approached this test with much less of the juvenile trepidation they had shown before. At the study session I offered there was much less of the “I don’t know anything—you must tell me everything” harangue. In the study session we compared the Scientific Revolution with the Industrial Revolution. Raja, a bright young man to be sure, suggested that in the Scientific Revolution thinkers stared and wondered at natural phenomena as opposed to in the Industrial Revolution thinkers applied the scientific discoveries of the earlier age. He gets it. You study “stuff” and then you distill your own answers. Hard working Lana asked less about what “exactly will be on the test” and realized you just have to prepare yourself for whatever question is posed to you.

One of the questions I asked involved a document we had studied very closely, the French Revolution era “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen.” The language in the document states that the French government for generations had exhibited “ignorance, naivete and contempt for the French people.” I asked the students to name a historical moment when the revolutionaries realized such “ignorance, naivete and contempt for the French people.” What was exciting was that I got a variety of solid answers—from the storming of the Bastille, to the Tennis Court Oath, to the angry Women’s March on Versailles, but one very interesting response came from Faris, a young man who had been working his way up the ladder of improvement since January (from D+ work to B+ work). Faris wrote about a painting that we studied, The Swing, and commented that in this “carefree painting of a noblewoman we might see the birth of the contempt of the nobility to the problems of the Third Estate.” I had never thought of the proto-Revolution painting in such a way, and as always, when your students teach you something new, you are re-energized.

Another student, Samiha, looked at the iconic painting by Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People and thought it reminded her of the god Vishnu in Hinduism. Oh my. Never made that connection before, but she saw “Liberty” trouncing ignorance, naivete, and contempt in much the same way she remembered the Vishnu trounced ignorance and folly in Hinduism.

I had given the students an excerpt from Charles Dickens’ French Revolution novel, A Tale of Two Cities—the famous opening: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair.” On the test I asked them to take one of the historical moments we had studied and asked them to explain how the Dickens quotation better explains the fullness of their historical moment.

I still need to think about the words I use on tests—I have to explain, or clarify words more than I want to do, words like “intervene,” and “debt” and “true son”—so eventually they do not need me there as dictionary.com. But the tests improved on the previous test scores the month before. One student went from an F to a B- on this test. I love that many write at the top of their tests, “God Bless This Test.” One section of class asked if we could start the test early (16 of 17 were in their seats three minutes before the bell rang) so they could have more time for writing their answers.

When I graded the tests I decided to color code them—not put a grade on each of the mini-essays, but color code them in pink and green. Their prose was highlighted in green for a great idea or concept explained, and words in pink meant a great historical fact had been used. I wanted them to see immediately where their work had been most effective. Some students had lots of pink and green, some had some green and no pink, some had a little pink, and some had no highlighting at all. Of course they wanted to wheedle out of me what the actual grade had been, but I hoped they would take the bait to see what had been a strong answer, and what had been more or less drivel. I gave them the option to rewrite their answers, using their book and/or notes for extra credit. But the color coding did allow for some good discussion about what made for effective answers. How many took the bait? Not many—just a few students took advantage of the re-write opportunity. But let’s not be hasty—there have been deep improvements in my young scholars.

During this time I invited a lovely Canadian woman teaching in Kuwait to interview at KA. She teaches there in what is called a “Model School.” But as she explained the level at which she teaches her seniors in high school (a most basic level in my mind—she gives them lists of terms and then she tests them on the terms—she says she has to otherwise they fail whatever test she offers) I realized, yet again, the progress our students have made. I remember when I directed the show Anything Goes in 1994, and that production was beset with more problems than you could imagine, and my inveterate actress Megan noted the old adage, From hell, past earth, and into flight, about the state of our show. My students at KA are living that adage it seems to me.

One of my sweetest students, however, has had a rough couple of months. He and his best friend have loved the boarding school experience too much, and consequently done very little of their work! We sat them down and showed them what had happened to their grades—yadda yadda yadda. As he turned in that April test he enclosed a note to me with the inscription:

“To my dear Mr. John,
I would like to first thank you for your help in these last few months. I will take full responsibility for what I have done poorly this semester. I hope that in the remaining weeks, I would worry less about the past and work for a better future. I will cover my sloppy work with more good quality and on-time homework to improve my grades that are falling down. Therefore, I hope you accept my apology so I could have a second chance to improve. Thank you for your compassionate feelings that you gave me.”

Kids these days.