owp05

Our Deepest Fear

It wasn’t hard for this impulsive teenager to pack up and move to Lane County, then to Sun Valley, and back to Lane County. Moving from Patterson St. to Onyx St. to 17th Street wasn’t too bad either. Even moving my newly married life to Greenwich, Connecticut wasn’t too bad, because of the wedding.

One Nation, Under Gods by Marty Smith

One Nation, Under Gods

Serving one of the many farming communities in the Central Valley of California, is Chatom Elementary, a small rural school about ten miles outside of the city of Turlock. When my older siblings and I were students there, the playground and outlying grassy sports field was hemmed in by Chester Smalley’s black and white dairy cows, and Miguel and Josephine Rocha’s verigated green sea of alfalfa. The country lane that you would take from the main road to get to Chatom, was lined with sagging barbed wire that was supported by old moss covered fence posts, and latticed with those big yellow sunflowers. We were comforted by the famialarity of this landscape as each day we were taxied to and from school by a big yellow Blue Bird.
I have many happy memories of the staff at Chatom Elementary, from the friendly faces of the women in the office and in the cafeteria, to Mrs. Dailey who drove my bus and who was always, always kind to me. But it was the teacher
s who would make a lasting impression on me during those formative years. Teachers who made school fun and a place that I enjoyed being each day.
Mrs. Rutschow was my first grade teacher. I have never forgotten the sincerity in her her eyes and that caring, supportive tone that left you feeling like you were truly valued and capable of whatever the task at hand. Mrs. Jasquanas, in second grade, with her round, jovial face and big laugh, made learning fun with lots of art projects and music. I still know most of the words to the song “Donkey Small”, and I can still see Brett Johnson, the cutest boy in our class, beatin’ away on those bongo drums. Finally, who could forget Mrs. Tate in third grade? Always smiling, always encouraging you to take your learning to the next level, and you would, because you knew she believed in you.
All of these teachers ran tightly structured classrooms with well orchestrated daily routines. You knew what to expect at every turn; knew both the potential rewards and consequences for every action. Being a student in their classrooms made you feel safe and secure; creating a positive framework of norms and expectations for understanding this institution called school.
Fourth grade, however, would blow this understanding for me right out of the water. In its wake, was an equally positive, though changed, impression that has, in some ways, influenced my thinking today, including my own teaching style.
We had all received letters at the end of summer, a week or so before school was to start, informing us of our new class assignments. We were to be in room four with Mr. Padlo. On the first day of school, Julie Starn, my best friend, and I, rushed down the corridor before the bell to see where we would be spending the next nine months. We quickly examined each room in passing, taking time to more carefully inspect room two, Mrs. Peterson’s room, where our good friend Debra Panara had been assigned. At least she would be only two doors down.
Finally, we arrived at room four, last room on the end. Wide-eyed, we peered anxiously inside the open door. To our amazement, nothing was as expected! This can’t be our room, we thought to ourselves. Something was wrong. This room did not have the familar long, perfect rows of neatly lined desks. In their stead, were small groupings of desks scattered around the room. Maybe Mr. Padlo had not had a chance yet, to set up the room? But the bell was going to ring any minute, so shouldn’t he be in here getting things ready? The uncertainty of the moment left both of us feeling disoriented and a bit anxious.
Our eyes continued to scan the room for the reassuring, familiar sights of the teacherly order that would at least help to anchor us for the moment; like, a few neat stacks of lined writing paper with the evenly numbered boxes of those fat, red pencils and pink erasers? How about a nice bulletin board with a copy of the school calendar and that wee
k’s lunch menu? Nothing. These walls had multicolored posters of weird things, trees and frogs, with weird sayings, like, Earth First and Imagine. As we continued to scan the room, our disequalibrium only worsened. Lining the back wall was what appeared to be the bottom of a large tree, root system in tact. Laying next to it were two fallen telephone poles. From the center of the room, hung a large world globe.
Stunned into silence, Julie finally asked, “What’s going on? Is this really our room?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so,” I offered in consolation, as I double-checked the number above the door. Yep, it was room four, alright.
Suddenly sensing a presence behind us, we turned to find a strange-looking, bushy eye-browed man who appeared equally intrigued by the sight before us. “Cool room! I hope I get to hang out here,” he exclaimed, with a twinkle in his eye.
Given his casual attire of open-necked brown cordiroy rolled up at the sleeves, and faded denim, he was obviously unaware that school was starting today. We could only stare in utter bewilderment, as we nervously offered him our brand new 4th grade smiles.
In a single school year, our academic life would be changed forever. Over the months that would follow, we came to love this weird, strangely animated teacher. He opened our eyes and minds to possibilities that extended beyond neat penmanship and high scores on daily math tests. We became cooperative learners and artists, earning time each day to contribute the wood carving skills that we didn’t know we had, to class projects. By the end of the school year, we had helped to transform the tree stump into a cool chair, complete with the face of a mysterious mountain man carved into the backside. The two telephone poles were painstakingly chiseled into totem poles. One, honoring the spiritual beliefs of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, the other, the exotic mysteries of the aboriginees of Australia.
We also became musicians, learning to play a ukelele that we each were afforded the opportunity to purchase for ten dollars, complete with a cool vinyl case. We would perform two concerts that year for our parents. We also learned to play chess, and to demonstrate our understanding of current social issues, such as teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, through dramatic team performances. And, we became politically minded as we were asked to consider such topics as an individual’s civil rights, or whether or not our nation might be under more than one god?
I’m not exactly sure whatever happened to Mr. Padlo. I believe I heard from someone that his teaching style did not blend well enough with the staff in this small country school, and that he eventually moved on to teaching high school in some neighboring city. Wherever he ended up, I know with great certainty, that there are small pieces of him that will reside within me, forever.

Chocolate Unwrapped, Paper #3

      

                                         Chocolate Unwrapped

Author’s Note:  I wrote this piece because I wanted the experience of
writing an expository paper - a category of writing which is difficult to teach
because, ironically, there is too much information. My students tend to cut and
paste from the internet and call it a report.
    I also wanted to try writing something in the style of Michael Pollan’s
The Botany of Desire, a book which uses multiple points of view to weave a
history of four  plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. I found
it very helpful  to ask the question “ How did he do that ?” as I riffled
through the book and, while I adopted some of his formatting in this chocolate
piece, the voice is my own.  Pollan spent up to a year researching just one of
his plant topics - I spent just a few days reading several books on the history
and processing of chocolate.  There is no comparison between his work and mine
in terms of his prodigious talent and broad scope.  But I learned a lot -
much with the intention of turning over the question “How did he/she do that?”
to my students.

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    My stock broker friend, Sam, who helps me decide where to invest the
small inheritance I received following my father’s death, recently suggested
buying shares in a British owned company: Cadberry Schweppes. I responded favorably
not because I knew anything about the history or health of the company, or
the price to earnings ratio - but because, unlike some of his other suggested
stock picks, I at least could associate a familiar product with each name:
Cadberry, I knew, made delicious chocolate and Schweppes made the tonic soda I
bought during the summer months.
    I teased Sam about his choice, remembering his epicurean love of good
wine and good chocolate.  But he said it was purely a good investment and I
agreed to buy 200 shares.  I didn’t think anything more about it until Kate, Sam’s
wife, made a remark about visiting her husband’s office and finding a tall
stack of rectangular chocolate bars sitting next to the legal pads, paper clips,
and boxes of Bic pens.  Kate has been married to Sam for twenty four years,
mostly happily married, yet the uneaten bars, clothed in Trader Joe’s brown and
orange wrapping, completely surprised her.
    I knew that Sam’s obsession with chocolate, or what I interpreted as an
obsession, was hardly unique.  A lot of chocolate, thirteen billion dollars
worth, is sold in the United States and, I assume, eaten with either or both
pleasure and guilt.  Chocolate desserts certainly seem to disappear first at
dinner gatherings I attend.  And yet on Sam’s white shelves, a pile of chocolate
lay untouched, thwarting all the human effort that went into their production.
What type of passion was my investment, admittedly small, supporting ?
    The geometry of neat piles on shelves, ordered rows in stores, and the
grid of city streets fades away when you travel to the beginning of chocolate.
Imagine instead a steamy jungle where, among vines and tall trees. you spy a
strange understory tree growing. The tree,Theobrama cacao, is bearing large
pendulous  fruit right from the trunk.  No two fruit are the same -some have
ridges, some furrowed, while others are smooth and shiny, and the colors range
from bright green to pale yellow, dark purple to burnt orange or crimson red.
The tree called food of the gods cacao, in Latin, needs to be in this mix of
small and large shade trees, along with many vines and climbing plants springing
up all around, in order to have protection from the hot sun. The plant layers
also support the complex insect life so crucial for pollination leading to
fruit production - the source of the bean which eventually turns into chocolate.
    Unlike corn or tomatoes whose harvest ends with the first hard freeze,
cacao trees are in constant production. A tree will begin flowering diminutive
orchid like blossoms that turn into pendulous fruit when it is about four years
old, and continues putting forth thousands of flowers throughout the year
although only about one hundred will survive to become a pod. Once a cacao
blossom is successfully pollinated, it takes five to six months to become a mature
fruit.  The farmers have to keep track of each fruit as it approaches ripeness
- because the colors vary so widely, it takes an experienced eye to know when
a green, yellow, or dark purple fruit is ready to be harvested.
    I thought of this daily walk through the layers of jungle green,
remembering where each fruit approaching ripeness hung, as I watered my own small
tomato crop and peeked under the luxurious zucchini leaves hiding the star shaped
yellow flowers.
I resist the drip systems or automated sprinklers that my friends are so
proud of. I know I’m not necessarily being water wise, but I like the hand held
hose, a chance to keep track of each green tomato, to bemoan the sterile flower,
and delight in the baby cucumber.  The daily bath attaches me - for a few
short months I can pretend to be a farmer, both vulnerable and fecund.
     But cacao farms are not run on sentiment or pretense. The growing and
harvesting is usually a family affair.  Typically the men do the clearing and
heavy cutting while the women tend and harvest the fruit.  Once the pods are
picked and opened, the process of fermentation begins. An opened pod reveals a
sticky glistening pulp which surround the beans and keeps them moist.  It is
this white mass which turns into acetic acid, vinegar, when exposed to air and
heat.  The low pH softens the cacao bean, kills the germ and embryo inside, and
allows some of the bitter and astringent compounds in the bean to pass through
the now permeable skins.  After the beans are fermented, they are dried,
classified according to size, placed in a burlap bags, then weighed and sold off
to a buyer, usually a broker acting as an intermediary between the farmers and
the manufacturers.
       The time I spent with my son watching Mr. Rogers’ clips of how crayons
are made helped me invision the next stage of chocolate development.  I
imagine long conveyer belts and big gleaming vats of rich gooey mush with helpful
looking people sparsely placed along the labyrinth, delicate nets covering
their hair, and lab coats giving them the air of a ‘technician’. The pictures in
my Chocolate resources indicate that I’m not too far off.
    When the beans arrive at a manufacturer ( perhaps Cadbury) they go
through a machine which cleans and roasts them and then sends them off to be have
the hulls - the outside shells,  separated from the nibs inside.  The nibs, the
source of chocolate, are crushed in high speed mills and ground into cacao
liquor composed of cacao butter and cacao solids.  The brown gritty mass is then
further refined to break down the size of the particles.   
    It is at this point that human obsession begins: the liquor is now ready
to turn into what we know of as chocolate. Crucial ingredients such as
vanilla, sugar , and often lecithin are mixed in.  The dark chocolate paste gets
beaten into a powder like substance and then kneaded and agitated some more to
mellow, and round out the texture and flavor.  Many manufacturers add back some
of the cacao butter at this point to give the chocolate the rich satiny finish
so pleasing to the tongue. The chocolate is piped into tempering machines and
then into molds the size of the finished bar. The bars pass through a cooling
tunnel and the emerging chocolate, solid and shiny goes off to be wrapped.
    It is easy to loose sight of chocolate’s allure  by describing the
production process. Discovering that chocolate contains, albeit in very small
quantities,  caffeine, theobromine, serotonin, and phenylethylamine also don’t
explain its pull on the senses - although these substances collectively act as
antidepressents,  anti-stress agents and enhance pleasurable activities.
Sweetness alone, a built in preference in human beings is only a part of it although
seeing my daughter’s response to chocolate ever since she was very little makes
me think that the other part could be a genetic marker for chocolate
attraction.
    I found out that the Cadbury part of the stock I bought was started by a
John Cadbury in the 1800’s. John, a Quacker, opened up a coffe and tea shop in
Birmingham, England where he also sold the traditional chocolate drink. He
eventually expanded the chocolate part of the business and in 1853 obtained the
royal privilege as purveyor of chocolate to Queen Victoria.  It was Cadbury
who introduced the first “chocolate box” containing chocolate candies and
decorated with a quaint picture of  his daughter with a kitten. It was also Cadbury
who is credited with the invention of the first Valentine’s Day candy box
celebrating romantic love. 
    The strength of a culture is it’s ability to adapt - to pull in outside
traditions and weave them into the existing fabric.  Chocolate, Theobroma cacao
, food of the gods cacao, keeps feeding us with imagery and associations. It
is a food woven in with a history of human desires; a confection picked,
fermented, ground, mixed, and poured into a mold ending as a brown bar lying quietly
on a shelf, waiting for someone to rip open the paper and take a bite.

Life’s Journeys

              What was going through the mind of the unsuspecting traveler at the Medford Airport as the massive airship landed?  The aging beauty with the universal medical symbol-the red cross-preempted the arrival or departure of any commercial aircraft. We were to learn the “Nightingale” hospital ship took precedence over all domestic carriers, second only to Air Force One. Travelers who were veterans of WWII, Korea, or Viet Nam would reflect back upon the role of the C141, and its capability of transporting whole squadrons of troops, tanks, and other military support vehicles in its massive belly. Perhaps their memories would recall their own journey as a soldier or a patient. With the closest military facility located 90 miles east, it would be difficult to rationalize the oversized, Air Force aircraft landing at this private airport in the middle of the day.  Even harder to explain would be the reason a lone passenger would board within minutes of landing.

Landing and take-off would not resemble the leisurely boarding of a commercial aircraft, with its numerous opportunities for delinquent travelers to make their connections.  Passengers who traveled on this military cargo aircraft would not check their luggage.  They would receive the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) thirty minutes to one hour prior to take-off. The landing and take-off resembled a clandestine rescue of a government agent- no idle minutes were spent on the runway. However, the mysterious passenger wore no disguise, she was my thirteen year old sister.

A chance tumble on the balance beam in a sixth grade PE class started her journey.  My mother, struggling to maintain normalcy in our lives while my career Air Force father served his tour of duty in Viet Nam, relocated us near her family.  The call from the school health nurse alerted my mother of the accident, with the recommendation my sister see a physician.  While no bones were found to be broken, a severe curvature of Deanise’s spine was discovered. Specialists were consulted, the diagnosis confirmed, and discussions for a treatment plan began.

Scoliosis robbed Deanise of a normal adolescence. It seemed she would spend her future subject to or beholding to someone taller or more knowledgeable of her “condition”.  Aside from the long distance concerns of my father, the fret of my mother and her parents, the school would not be persuaded to allow her participation in any school activities.  Cautions such as “Are you sure you should be doing that?” became part of her everyday life.  This would challenge my sister who saw herself as having no limits whatsoever. The school’s ignorance of her limitations (none) and concerns for their liability would not be deterred. Deanise would spend the remainder of her middle and high school PE classes in various elective classes or as an office assistant.

Treatment plans for her curvature included wearing a back brace and various orthodontic appliances crafted to correct the movement of bone and teeth. The Milwaukee brace became a fixture in our family. Deanise would be required to wear the brace twenty-three hours a day. The hour reprieve would find the brace standing in a corner, patiently waiting to resume its job of remolding her s-curved spine.  The chin piece, connected to a bar that stabilized the hip enclosures, hindered her view of her world right or left.  The molded hip casing attached to three metal stays-one in front and two in back- limited  her every movement.

The monthly trips aboard the “Nightingale” would be the envy of her friends.  Scheduling appointments to San Antonio, home of Wilford Hall Medical Facility, was not done on a whim, and little consideration was afforded to school or family schedules.  Deanise missed many school days flying around the United States as the plane picked up other young patients with varying medical portfolios. Her fellow passengers included children with life threatening conditions such as cancer, or other medical situations similar to hers, requiring the expertise of specialists. The passenger manifest might include young children with their chaperones, or veteran travelers my sister’s age and older.

The independence and experiences Deanise gained traveling aboard Nightingale prepared her well for the oftentimes difficult middle and high school years. She lived life with the philosophy of never being too careful or too realistic or believing herself to have any limits. Traveling became a life-long passion for Deanise.  Annual flights to Maui, whirlwind trips to the East Coast, frequent excursions to Reno, and numerous overnight trips requiring six hours driving are the norm in her life.  While my sister’s journey through adolescence was often difficult and her education somewhat fragmented, she became an extremely independent, self-sufficient young woman.  Friends and family see Deanise as a role model who overcame the adversity of her medical condition-she has the straightest posture of anyone you will meet. Perhaps a direct result of her experiences-she models living in the moment.

Storm Warning!

"Red sky in morning, sailor take warning,
Red sky at night, sailors delight"

    Reading Lisa’s story about her first trip to a Spanish-speaking country made me think about the places I have been. Her account awakened my memories of the stress, confusion, and excitement of an exotic destination. So much about ourselves is revealed when we are taken out of the familiar; when we are decontextualized.   Travel, when done correctly, involves an inward journey simultaneous to the outward one.  These trips serve as markers for who we were, and mileposts on the journey to who we are. 

Cozumel, Mexico, 1991
    Cozumel is a small island in the Caribbean, off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. This idyllic location gives no indication of the many defeats it has witnessed.  It was home to the Maya who used the islands’ limestone to build their pyramids. Later, it was a stopover for Cortez on his way to conquer Montezuma and the Aztec Empire.  Now its abundant sea-life, turquoise waters, and white sand beaches make it a destination for divers, deep-sea fishermen, and honeymooners. When I arrived on the island I was just twenty-five, newly married and ignorant of the demise of the empires that preceded me.  Would I have taken it as an omen had I known? I remember only snippets of the trip, like individual scenes in a movie preview. It was my first trip to a non-English speaking place. I remember the awe I felt when I checked into our room and felt the cool pink marble under my feet, heard the gentle sound of waves breaking below our terrace, and smelled the peculiar musty smell of rot that pervades everything in the Caribbean. Each morning the sun would rise and paint the clouds red, a sign that hurricane season had yet to end. I can still feel the warm wind in my hair as we sped around the island on our rented scooter.  I recall the ferry ride to Playa del Carmen and the taxi ride through the jungle to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. They are the only ruins that are right on the beach.  I was standing on centuries old stone alters that had witnessed human sacrifices while European tourists in Speedos sunbathed on the beach before me.  On the taxi ride through the jungle back to the boat the radio was playing “Little Drummer Boy” in Spanish.  It was only October 8th.  The whole experience was surreal.
I can remember how it felt to sit in the back of that taxi, in that strange place, and I can still remember that sharp smell of decay. Perhaps it was the tropics that were to blame for the failure of my marriage. The very environment that draws people to the Caribbean eventually destroys everything that man tries to build there.
                                                                    ….

    A decade later, much had changed for me. Nearly everything I feared had come to pass.  I had been abandoned; my parents had retired and left to travel full-time, my closest friends had graduated and moved away, and my marriage had collapsed under the weight of our mutual immaturity and selfishness. I quit rock climbing, as I did not trust myself in life-or-death situations.  I had found myself dangling, a hundred feet in the air, contemplating letting go.  I had to endure the long process of coming to terms with what I saw as a profound personal failure. As with the death of a person, I had to pass through the stages of grief to reach acceptance. Recrimination, reflection and finally realization of my contribution to the euthanizing of our relationship filled the next several years. After much work, I regained the courage to take risks; a return to graduate school, a new career, and most importantly a new love entered my life.  I returned to the tropics a new man.

Sugar Beach, Costa Rica, 1999
    We drove north for several hours as the Pan-American highway snaked through the mountains before we turned off onto a smaller secondary road and headed for the pacific coast. As we passed through the rainforest, our progress was monitored by the monkeys.  We crossed over streams on rickety bridges, while Cayman, a relative of the crocodile, swam underneath. Eventually the road turned to gravel, and then finally to dirt.  The last ten miles took thirty minutes, as the road deteriorated to a twin ruts, passable only with 4-wheel drive.  Finally we were there.  The white stucco building was perched on a low hill overlooking the private beach.  A huge green parrot stood guard at the front desk, while the grounds were patrolled by a Cameroon (sort of a cross between a lemur and a raccoon).  The open-air dining room overlooked a small lawn and a path, which gently led down the hill to palm-frond shaded tables in the sand. There were only six rooms, each with a front porch flanked by pairs of palm trees with a hammock strung between.  Between the rooms and the ocean was a turquoise tiled pool.  The pool was filled completely to the brim, so the surface of the water seemed to extend to meet the ocean.  I learned this is called a zero horizon effect.   
    Sugar Beach was the most romantic place I have ever been: swimming in the warm ocean, surfing the gentle waves, lounging in the hammocks while a gentle breeze swayed the palms. Our nightly sundown ritual was the perfect vacation moment. Each evening we would gather on the porch of the dining room, sip piña coladas made with fresh coconut milk, and watch the sun be swallowed by the pacific. The sky would glow the most incredible orange color, and then slowly fade as the sounds of the night rose up to greet the darkness.  The warm thick air wrapped around me like an embrace. 
    It would be an overstatement to say that I knew my marriage was doomed while I was on my honeymoon to Cozumel, but every memory of that trip is tinged with feelings of fear and foreboding.  Sugar Beach stands in sharp contrast to that as every memory brings feelings of peace, hope, and joy. Now, six years later, it is still red skies at night.

Avoiding the Bus

As a kindergartener, I lived with my father in an apartment on Maui. We enjoyed our location across the road from the ocean. My dad had found a child care provider with a first grade daughter who went to my school. She was willing to put me on a bus to school in the mornings and watch me after school.

My usual routine during the week was: get dropped off at the sitter’s house, ride a bus to school in the morning, attend kindergarten, ride a bus back to my sitter’s house, and play there until my father came to pick me up after work. He and I might head to the beach after dropping our things off at home, or just sit on the lanai eating dinner. One day I asked my dad if I could go home with a friend after school. She lived in our complex, and I assured him I would stay with her and behave. He told me I could not go because we would be unsupervised and he had not made arrangements with the sitter. I continued to ask for permission to go home and play with my friend. Each time the answer was no.

One day after pleading with my father for permission, my friend and I were discussing his decision. I told her I still wanted to come, but I was not sure when it would happen. We played during school and tried to take in some information from the teacher. At the end of kindergarten that day, we were heading to the busses to go home. I decided I wanted to go to my friend’s house today.  I did not think this would be a big deal. I avoided my sitter’s daughter and boarded my friend’s bus. We arrived at the complex and ran to my apartment so I could change into play clothes. Apparently my friend’s house key fit our door as well as her own. After returning to her apartment, we began to play happily.

Little did I know, my sitter was panicking. I had ridden the bus from her house to school, but I had not met up with her daughter to ride the bus back to her house. When my father arrived to pick me up, he was greeted by two police cars and a frantic sitter. After explaining that I was not there, she asked my dad if he might know where I was. My father said he had not made other arrangements and decided to call my school. They reported I was nowhere to be found.  My dad had not yet begun to panic because he remembered my desire to play with my friend.

The police asked for a description of me and the clothes I was wearing that day. After giving them the information my dad recounted my desire to the police.  He then suggested they go back to our apartment to see if I was there. My dad jumped into his car and the parade headed to the complex. On the way, the police pulled my dad over and asked him to describe me again. A little girl had been found somewhere and they wanted to see if I matched her description. Everyone decided it was not me and continued their journey.

After arriving at our complex, my father immediately went to our apartment and was relieved to find my school clothes on my bed. Next, he headed across the parking lot to my friends apartment.  Just then, I came outside and shyly approached my dad saying, “Daddy, why are these policemen here?” I thought he might be in trouble and wanted to be sure everything was ok. I think this may have been the first time I had seen policemen up close.  My dad hugged me tightly and assured the officers I was the missing child. Everyone was relieved.

After the policemen left, my father tried to explain to me the importance of him AND the sitter knowing where I was after school. He did not punish me because this was my first big offense. I always tried to be a good girl and remember this lesson, but I went home with another friend later in elementary school; however, that is another story.

Third Paper: A Work in Progress

 

The Last Day of School

    Alice had been dreading this day for weeks now. She wasn’t sure why because everyone else seemed happy, excited even. Wasn’t everyone supposed to feel happy about the last day of school? “There must be something wrong with me,” she thought.

Significance of Foreign Language Study in American High Schools: Importance of Student Choice and the Value of French

by Terry Varner Benge
July 2005

There are many compelling reasons that all students should have the opportunity to learn a foreign language. Ideally students should have at least three or four languages from which to choose. Spanish is not the only language of importance to American students. French, as one of the most important world languages, should be high on the list.

 Imagine you are an American high school student forecasting your class schedule for next year. Your counselor told you it’s time to choose a foreign language[1]. She says you’ll need two years of the same language to get into a four-year college.

You’re fourteen years old; how are you supposed to know what you want to do with your life? You’re not sure whether or not you want to go to college, and even if you do, your family may not be able to afford it.

Why take foreign language anyway? Doesn’t everyone in the world speak English? And if they don’t, they certainly should! And you’re not the only one who thinks so. Many in your community – possibly your parents – think so too. If you absolutely must take a foreign language, there’s no doubt what it should be:  Spanish.

Paper #3--A Simple Joy

    A few things that bring me joy...when did they become “joys”?  Reading good books: for as long as I can remember; Saturday afternoons at  Duck football games: during college; a cup of tea every morning: post college; following March Madness basketball games: 4 years ago when I joined an “office pool” and won; making chocolate chip cookies: age 3; and going to Broadway musicals: summer 1982.
    It was early that summer when my Aunt Val announced, “We need culture in our lives.”  “Culture? Oh great... “ my cousins and I thought. She already woke us up every morning by playing John Phillip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” as loud as she could get the old record player to go. Wasn’t that enough “culture”  for us? We definitely thought so. My Aunt ignored our rolling eyes and didn’t seem to notice the way we put our heads down on the table. “Next month we are going to Portland to see a musical!” she proudly announced.
   

Brooke...Our New Addition!

She came into our lives in November on one cool Saturday afternoon. She was a bouncing baby girl weighing in at a hefty 6 lbs.  When Ivan scooped down to pick her up away from her other five brothers, his face became relaxed and satisfied .  I knew right away that she was ours forever, or at least for the next fourteen or fifteen years.