It sounds uncharitable, I know.  But you wouldn’t believe some of the gems we encountered on that trip.  Our favorite was the day we took the students to Versailles.  After touring the chateau, we stepped out into the garden, amid Baroque music and twinkling fountains, and surveyed the acres upon acres of gardens that, after four visits, I have still not completed touring.  Planes of green stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by the spiderweb of white footpaths and the marked orbs of bright azure pools and verdant topiaries:

It was this hushed and grateful silence that our students broke to ask, first, if there were any shade in the gardens, and second, if there were any trees nearby.  The expression on Rob’s face must have caused the latter student to rethink his question, because he hastily added, “Well, I mean, I can see the trees down there . . . but are there any closer to us?”

Very wisely, Rob responded without sarcasm or condescension.  He just said, “I’m going to let you think about that.  I’ll come back to you in a few minutes.”  And we walked out to the gardens, where we found views like these:

Not only are there trees and shade in abundance, it’s actually nearly impossible to take a photo in the gardens that doesn’t include both.

Okay, that was one of the worst questions.  But they kept coming throughout the trip.  The students didn’t know where the subway stop was for our hotel, even though we’d returned there multiple times a day.  They wanted to know when the Arc de Triomphe was built a few minutes after someone had made a presentation and handed out brochures with that exact information.  We got used to repeating every directive three or four times, as in: “We’re going to Villa Savoye today.” (“Where are we going?”) “We’re going to Villa Savoye today.” (“Oh, we aren’t going there tomorrow?”) “We’re going to Villa Saoye today.” (“Should I get my Villa Savoye materials, then?”)

It was a minor annoyance; as Mike likes to remind us, if they get on our nerves, hey, they’re getting on our nerves in Paris.  We patiently helped them navigate the subway, look up pertinent information and hear the itineraries, again and again.  We saved the shocked laughter for our private kir sessions, and we reminded ourselves that while this was in some ways a dream vacation, it was also a job.

And I kept thinking about the questions even after we got back, since they are the same kinds of questions I encounter in the classroom on a near-daily basis.  What page are we on?  When is this due?  What was the answer to number 7?  Something about the presence of a teacher makes us turn our brains off.  We are so reluctant to look for the answers ourselves, to trust our own logic and intelligence rather than having the solution spoon-fed to us.  Here I include myself; I have only recently begun forcing myself to pause before I send any e-mail with a question in it, and often I’ll find that I do know how to find the answer – it’s just that it involves more work than simply asking someone else for it.

It’s so easy to be philosophical at the beach, far away from the day-to-day frustrations and joys of the classroom.  So, while I’m thus removed from the situation, I’m on the hunt for a humorous and compassionate way to deter these inane questions, the questions that make me want to climb the walls of the classroom and breathe consuming fire on it.  I like Rob’s response, but it would be tedious to repeat many times a day.  Maybe having another student answer, as proof that it is possible to pay attention?  I’m afraid that might be too embarrassing for both parties.  I’ll keep thinking.  Feel free to join in.

We marvel at the resilient child who survives the most toxic parents and home environment and goes on to a life of success. Yet the converse — the notion that some children might be the bad seeds of more or less decent parents — is hard to take.

It goes against the grain not just because it seems like such a grim and pessimistic judgment, but because it violates a prevailing social belief that people have a nearly limitless potential for change and self-improvement. After all, we are the culture of Baby Einstein, the video product that promised — and spectacularly failed — to make geniuses of all our infants.

Not everyone is going to turn out to be brilliant — any more than everyone will turn out nice and loving. And that is not necessarily because of parental failure or an impoverished environment. It is because everyday character traits, like all human behavior, have hard-wired and genetic components that cannot be molded entirely by the best environment, let alone the best psychotherapists.

Besides playing on my biggest fear about parenthood (what if your kids are just plain rotten?!) the article brought to mind another point made, much more lyrically and with a healthy dose of cynicism, by Jason Peters: Too many people are going to college, and college itself is ceasing to do much of anything but harm:

It may be—it is certainly so in some cases—that “higher education” is little more than a poorly wielded blunt sword that maybe strikes, but for the most part glances off, the heads and shoulders of young people, and I suppose this is lucky.

But not in an ideal college experience. There’s a risk to education, and education should be worth the risk, to say nothing of the cost. It should result in better and more thoughtful citizens of given places. It should culminate in full human beings who know better than to be enamored of abstractions. If I allow that education should be driven largely by content, I hasten to add that it should also be ethical, moral, and humane. It should be conducted with respect for both the future and the past, which is to say its should be conducted with measured suspicion of and admiration for both.

Young men and women, if they have been properly educated, should undergo a crisis of conscience analogous to physical growing pains.

By and large they don’t. They undergo a closing of conscience–and of consciousness. They are introduced only to the easiest of moralities—“tolerate difference.”

[. . .]

It is difficult to imagine handing over democracy to such people, but we really don’t have any other choice. We can’t exactly hand it over to the cows.

And of course there’s the other kind of student who will not suffer any crisis of conscience whatsoever. He is the student who has been raised by fundamentalists, either religious or secular. He arrives at college knowing he will be assaulted and he is determined from the start to withstand the assault. He believes St. Matthew was written first and Revelation last. Or he believes all facts of existence can be explained in terms of natural selection, or by brain states, or by the subconscious. The great catastrophe of his existence is that mystery has been dismissed before he even gets a chance really to be confronted by it. He was raised by parents who on Sunday mornings either went Jesus-hunting at the Bible Chapel or warbler-hunting at the Cathedral of the Pines.

All of this is to say that there are both pervious and impervious students and that all of them are being introduced by “higher education” to a lower form of existence. Perhaps all of them are credulous young men and women, at best the trusting sons and daughters of trusting men and women who don’t know that they’re paying a lot of money so that their children can be told things that aren’t so by people who don’t know that they aren’t so.

Really, it’s hard to summarize a good author — you should read it all, though there is some mild adult language and a general jaded tone that belies his good nature.  (He’s the brother of one of my dearest friends, so I’ve met him several times.)

I could (and do) heartily agree that college is too widely seen as an instant fix for everyone: students who did well in high school are expected to cement their social and vocational status with a degree or two, and those who blew off four years are told they can make a comeback with the next four.

I could (and do) also second Peters’ suggestion that higher education should include compulsory manual labor — food preparation, cleaning, gardening or something designed to teach them the value of visceral, tangible effort.  It’s good enough for you that you should be forced to do it even if you wouldn’t have chosen to.

However, I think the important point in both articles is that we (I speak for Americans, though probably some Western Europeans are following suit) are far too empowered for our own good.  We think we can do anything, from changing dispositions to changing intellect.  We are all such complex beings that it’s ludicrous to try to pin ourselves to any one set of influences; we just don’t know where our minds and personalities come from.  We’ve all met nasty people and simple people, and though we’d like to think they wouldn’t ever exist in our families (or, God forbid, ourselves) odds are that some of us will have to accept that reality.  We just don’t want to.

I wondered idly how many of my students would place me in the second category.  In a way, I’m glad I don’t know; in general, the only ones who come back are those appreciate all the work you’ve put in and want to thank you for it.  I read this Times article recently with a lump in my throat, hoping that someday I might be worthy of that kind of devotion (but please, not a Facebook group):

In the weeks before the death last month of Jerry Sheik, a retired band teacher from Intermediate School 70 in Chelsea, his wife, Judith Kalina, said he was overwhelmed by the praise written on a Facebook page created in his honor, “Sheik’s Freaks Reunite: A Celebration for Jerry Sheik.”

The page has 135 members, mostly students from the 1970s who played in the stage band Mr. Sheik conducted. They have posted old band photos and recalled their rendition of “Oye Como Va.”

One former student, Melissa Sgroi, wrote, “There are few people that you look back on in your life and know they left an indelible mark. Thank you Jerry Sheik for being one of those people.”

Another of Mr. Sheik’s students, Ned Otter, said, “Jerry was the first one to put a sax in my hand.” Mr. Otter went on to play saxophone professionally, touring with Dizzy Gillespie. He is one of nine overseers of the Sheik’s Freaks page.

“He played a critical role in my life,” Mr. Otter added.

It’s funny, but although teaching is often referred to as a selfless profession, ultimately, what we’re doing — filling young minds with our thoughts and ideas — is pretty egotistical.  I tell myself that if I can convince just one student per semester of the evils of misused en-dashes, there will be more of me to go around — I can retire someday and not worry about that stuff, since I’ll have an army on the prowl for punctuation errors.  My Journalism students can rattle off several dozen of the public offices, so they know of the significance of Robert Byrd’s passing and John Paul Stevens’ retirement.  And when I’ve studied for the SAT with you, by golly, you know that test backwards and forwards, though you’ve lost respect for it after finding out just how much of it is pure psychology — tricking you into answering with faulty logic.  Ultimately, I can’t tell whether I’m doing this for them or for me.

One such example was last week’s issue, which spoke about Art Linkletter.  Apparently, I unknowingly stole borrowed the title of his book to use for one of my most popular tags, The Darndest Things (Three recent examples.)  Linkletter had a television show in which he interviewed children so that others could be amused by their hilarity and unconscious wisdom.

Here’s what I found interesting: how do you think Linkletter found kids that would consistently say interesting and funny things?  Easy.  He wrote to teachers and said, “Give me a few hours with the child you would most like to have out of your classroom.”

This is at once funny and sobering.  Oh, I hate thinking that I might be the teacher who doesn’t appreciate creativity unless it falls within prescribed parameters.  But I’m sure I would have willingly booted out some future TV stars if given the chance.

I have tested this theory numerous times, and it always works, even on my most composed kids.  I think those magic words — one time, just one — somehow make your brain shut off.  Woo-hoo!  One more time, and then we get to have ice cream!  (Well, Music Mind Games is pretty close to ice cream, and that’s usually the carrot that’s dangling in front of them, to use a very badly mixed metaphor.)

So, although I haven’t nailed down the psychology of it just yet, I’m learning to say, “Again, please,” until it’s correct, and then to just stop asking.  However, you’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how hard it is to strike a certain phrase from your vocabulary.  The more you dwell on not saying it, the more likely you are to say it in spite of yourself!

But I really thought that e-mailing a group of teachers about a new product opportunity, designed by one of my good friends, would be simple.  Take orders.  Collect money.  Write one big check.  Feel good about helping my friend and giving the manufacturer some business.  Easy, right?

Wrong.  In 24 hours since the original offer, I have gotten e-mails from almost a dozen teachers who obviously didn’t read it.  They want to know what size they should get.  (There are two sizes.  How in the world should I know which would work better for you?)  Where should they send the check?  How long do they have to decide?  What kind of material is it?  And how does Paypal work?  ALL questions I already answered, except the last one, which is utterly ridiculous.  Why not just ask me how the Internet works?

After a year of answering questions like this (What page did you say we were on?  When is this due?  Do we have to write in complete sentences?) I have had it up to here with people who don’t listen, don’t problem-solve on their own, and expect me to do both for them.  My patience and compassion reserves are drained.  I have chosen to not respond to these messages at all, rather than to unleash the torrent of my wrath that would surely follow.

On days like this I love to read Dr. Grumpy’s rants. His stories always make mine look downright reasonable.

For instance, we’re going to see these guys live tomorrow night:

And yes, we paid money for the tickets.  Actual American currency.

E-mail me if you want to know where to send the sympathy card.

UPDATE: For all my whining, I have to admit it was a fun concert, if a little short.  Beautiful weather at Pier Six and fun, funky, soulful jams.

“You wrote ‘Attached is’ in your message, but no files are attached.  Send anyway?”

Translation: “Hey, moron, try to get with the program!  Do you want this guy’s business or not?!”

Gmail, I love you.  More than is probably healthy.

Two recent Times articles that have to do with parenting, education and food, but come from vastly different worldviews:

On the Best side is this excellent treatise involving a restauranteur who believes that “Children’s menus are the death of civilization.”  Hear, hear!   Based on my experience and observation, kids will eat what they’re expected to eat.  When there are no expectations, you can hardly blame them for eating only macaroni and cheese.  It’s somewhat endearing at four, but downright embarrassing at fourteen; I’ve heard more than one high school girl unabashedly admit that she doesn’t eat vegetables.  At all.  I’m so grateful to my parents for forcing, bribing and tricking me into eating all sorts of weird things — from pork rinds to artichokes and snails and tandoori — those experiences gave me the courage to discover new passions on my own.

In the Worst corner is this article that appears to be making a serious case for labeling foods as choking hazards.  They’re actually printing quotes like this:

“You have a SuperBall that by government regulation has to carry warnings telling people it’s a risk to young children and you can’t market it to them, yet you can have the same identical shape and size gumball and there are no restrictions or requirements.”

Well, maybe that’s because gumballs were INTENDED to be put in your mouth.  And because it’s generally expected that parents will use common sense in feeding and supervising their children.  Truly, can we say that it’s necessary to affix a warning label to a carrot?  People, it’s called common sense and supervision.  And while I can’t imagine the horror that parents who have lost a child to choking have experienced, the reality is that accidents happen, even shocking and fatal ones.  Heaping up onerous legislation can’t stop them from occurring.  We need to make peace with the unpredictability and fragility of life.

The first student was too absorbed in his work to notice, and the second was a family friend who generously refrained from staring, but my last student of the night was a sweet, inquisitive four-year-old who simply couldn’t concentrate until, as Carole Bigler would say, he had cleared his mind by speaking it.  I apologized to both parent and student for the ice pack I was holding over my face and explained that I was having some sort of allergic reaction.  His mom gallantly claimed she hadn’t noticed.  Her son, however, had. “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYES?”

I don’t know, honey.  But don’t worry.  I’m all right.  Can you play Mississippi Hot Dog for me?

This seemed to satisfy him, and he played it beautifully.  On the last note, he looked up at me.  “ONE OF THEM IS BIGGER THAN THE OTHER ONE!”

Yes, this was true, I agreed.  And how about Ice Cream Cone?  Can you play it with your left hand?

He complied, but this time got only a few bars in before whirling back around: “IT’S RED!”

His mom and I laughed, and I told her one of the best benefits of teaching: it keeps you humble.  At no point can you pretend you are above it all when there are people around you who remind you constantly of your ordinary-ness.

This reaction has happened half a dozen times in as many months, and I haven’t been able to narrow it down to one factor or another.  First I thought it might be an evergreen allergy, as it was near Christmas; then I suspected calamari, which I had eaten twice before having the reaction; but this time I had had a lunch of whole-wheat pasta, and the near-constant drizzle of the last 48 hours has prevented me from going outside at all.

So, another call to another doctor, and another appointment.  It’s as if my body knows the warranty’s about to expire.