Andrew

Part 1

I looked down the embankment from the railroad tracks.  My weight was already shifting under the loose gravel and sandy earth, and I visualized myself slipping and sliding down this bank and plunging into Gore Creek below. That would be a shame on a nice morning like this.  To my right, a little over a half mile away, Interstate 70 ran east-west out of Vail into Copper Mountain or, in the opposite direction, to Grand Junction.  I stood on the track mustering the courage to work my way down to the stream and wondered what the Interstate looked like during the skiing months.  Bumper to bumper, maybe, as opposed to this July day when traffic was heavy but steadily moving.

“Be careful going down.  It looks pretty steep.”  Polley was unfolding her streamside chair.  She became an expert at reading water.  “That eddy over there looks promising.”  It did, but first I would have to survive getting down to the water.

That school year I was doing better than surviving teaching Andrew’s Honors class.  Henry Bouquet High School prospered from a change in principals, and, after publishing an article about collaborative learning that received some note (and the school district some positive publicity), I found myself released from the dog house after twenty years.  I was assigned an honors class.  My former principal referred to my collaborative learning methodology as “that group work crap.”  He liked lecturing…every day…..for one hundred and eighty six days a year.

I rarely lectured in my classes.  I thought students should be engaged in high level thinking as opposed to low level listening, so I tried to create projects that would improve those neural pathways.  Many of Andrew’s classmates were highly motivated, mostly by grades, but Andrew was one of those who exhibited genuine intellectual curiosity.  He applied the adage, “Information is only useless if you do not use it.”

“So, we are going to study Geoffrey Chaucer and his work, The Canterbury Tales, but before we do, let’s develop a context for his poetry by sharing what we know about the Medieval Period.”

And so we shared what we knew or thought we knew about the Medieval Period.

Michael raised his hand.  “Is this gonna be on a test?”  Michael was solely motivated by grades, and he was disappointed in his last group grade.  He had let his group down by not doing his share of work and research.

My answer to this question was always the same.  “You ARE accountable for this material.”

Michael let out a colossal groan.  “Why do we have to look at this crap?!  Why can’t we study something relevant?”
Every year someone in class moaned about relevancy, and every year I waited for this teachable moment.

“All right, Michael.  What would you like to study that is relevant?”
Michael sat up. “How about that thing about Milli Vanilli? They got caught lip synching their album.”

“How is that relevant to your life?”

Michael looked at the ceiling and thought.

Andrew raised his hand.  “The Milli Vanilli thing is topical….not necessarily relevant.”

What a great kid!

“Great point, Andrew.”  Andrew was tall and very thin with dark brown framed glasses.  If he starred in a western he would be called “Slim.”  Some Andrews would choose to be called by his friends “Andy,” but “Andy” did not, like a baggy and draping suit, sit well with this young man.   Andrew was never absent, always participated in class, and did more than his fair share of work.  However, his test and quiz scores were abysmal.  I wondered why.

“So what is the difference between something that is relevant and something that is topical?”

They thought in silence.

“Okay.  Have you heard your parents complain about taxes?”
Everyone nodded their heads.

“How about the possibility of war?”

More nodding.

“How about disease?”  The Aids epidemic was filling the nightly news.

More nodding.

“So would you say that taxes, the threat of war and disease are topics that are relevant?”  Again nodding.

We were all on the same page.

“Barbara Tuchman, an historian, wrote a book, A Distant Mirror, a book about life in the fourteenth century.  She called it ‘a distant mirror,” because what people in Europe feared at that time were taxes, war and plague.  So how relevant to our own time would that be?”
Majorie shouted out, “Very relevant.”

“When we watch the nightly news and hear that there was a fire in a store in Center City or that Milli Vanilli got caught lip synching their album, those facts might be interesting but how relevant are they to your lives?”

Benjamin raised his hand.  “Relevant if it was your store!”

Laughter.

“True.  Let me give you another example.   I have in one hand a radio built in 1990, and one manufactured in 1932.  Which one is the better radio?

Lots of shoutouts.  “The one made in 1990!”

Okay.  Now.  Imagine I have two paintings here.  One in the left hand, one in the right. All you can see is the back of both paintings.  I tell you the one on the left was painted in 1990.  The one on the right was painted in 1654.  Which one is the better painting?

Benjamin raised his hand.  “You can’t tell.”
“Why not?  Why isn’t it the newer one?”
Andrew raised his hand.  “Art isn’t like technology.  Newer does not always mean better.”

“You all agree?”

Everyone, including Michael, nodded.

“So, do you also agree that something old can be relevant and something new, while topical, can be irrelevant?”

Again, general consensus.  “So let’s give Chaucer a chance and see if The Canterbury Tales are relevant.  Okay?”

Relevancy and topicalism are tricky things.  I saw many young teachers go down in flames trying to be topical and thus “cool” with their students.   By the time I learned what was new in student pop culture, it was old.  I learned my first year of teaching in northern New Jersey not even to try to be hip.  To earn my student teaching credits I had a Cooperating Teacher from a nearby university come out every two weeks to observe me.  Mr. Farley, in his eighties, took ten minutes to work his way from the door of my classroom to his seat in the back of the room. He always observed the same class because, as he confided in me, it fit in with his lunch and nap schedule.  The class that fit in with his lunch and nap schedule consisted of juniors, five of whom wore ankle bracelets for tracking by the local gendarmes, four of whom were in the middle stages of pregnancy, six of whom had failed this class before and none of whom were interested in British poetry, which I was required to teach.  I started each class demanding they remove the headphones blaring Heavy Metal music from their heads.

Mr. Farley had a tendency to contribute his observations on the content under study.

One day, as I tried to explain to this class the nuances of Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse,” and the concept of fate as a determining factor, Mr. Farley chimed in.

“Yes….Robert Burns….yes  yes yes.”  A few students lifted their heads off their desks.

“Robert Burns……Scottish poet…..yes yes yes….Harry Lauter.  You all have heard of Harry Lauter, haven’t you?”

Receiving no response, Mr. Farley looked at me.  “Yes yes yes.  Harry Lauter.  You certainly have heard of Harry Lauter, haven’t you?”

I shook my head.  The students were quietly attentive, but if this Harry Lauter thing went on, I was going to lose them.

Mr. Farley looked puzzled that I had not heard of Harry Lauter.  “Harry Lauter, actor AND singer?”

I shook my head again.

“That’s strange.  Harry Lauter, yes yes yes, was a singer noted for singing Scottish ballads.  Yes yes yes. He sang many ballads that came from the poetry of Robert Burns.”

Mr. Farley stared into the unblinking eyes of twenty six students…and one teacher.

“Hmmmm.  Yes yes yes.  Harry Lauter was big in my time….”  Mr. Farley sought a relevancy.  “Yes yes yes.   Harry Lauter was to my generation as as as …..as Harry Belafonte is to yours.”

Not a few students turned to each other and blinked.   Harry Belafonte?  Who he?

Since that experience I never again sought to be a hip teacher.