I enjoy teaching, but I'm only occasionally in the classroom. For almost 20 years, I've taught part-time at universities and community colleges and the local Air Force base. I've taught writing workshops through the Wyoming Writing Project, the YMCA Writer's Voice, and the Grand Teton N.P. Foundation.
Maybe I enjoy teaching because I can pick and choose when and where. And I don't have to do it every day.
Except at home. With my kids, I've always believed in stealth education. It's a kiss of death (especially with teens) to announce that something is "educational," as in "Let's visit Fort Laramie. It will be very educational." Responses include rolling of the eyes and groans and the cursed phrase: "It's boring." Or "I'm bored." My son has left home and now resides in Tucson where he goes to the local community college and works full-time and is learning how to maintain a relationship. I haven't heard "I'm bored" from him recently. I have heard "I'm broke" but that's a story for another time.
But my teen daughter Annie is constantly bored, or says she is. She loves to travel, which is good, but objects when I stop at historical markers of old forts or anything else that smacks of education. During the summer of 2005 on a trip from Cheyenne to Tucson, I stopped at the Ludlow Massacre Site in southern Colorado. I've wanted to see this place since reading John Reed's account of the 1914 incident in which the Colorado National Guard, called out by the governor at the behest of Mr. Rockefeller, gunned down 19 striking miners and members of their families. One Guard member was killed.
Annie didn't want to get out of the car. It was hot and she was very anxious to get to Tucson's wonderland of hotel pools and big malls and assorted shops, still 600 miles and a day away. But she grew bored sitting in my wife's Saturn and ventured out to see what there was to see. The one aspect of the site she liked was the cellar you can walk down into. It was here that women and children died, huddled together in a foxhole while the tent above them was burned by the Colorado Guard. As I told her about the incident (shortened version, lest she get bored), I could tell she was imagining what had happened in this dank hole that day. She talks about that occasionally, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it appear in one of her movie scripts.
She loves movies. Therein lie other opportunities for educational moments. We take turns watching movies. While my wife Chris likes comedies and my son, sword and sorcery, Annie and I like drama. Her favorite movie series is "The Godfather." My favorite in "Chinatown." On our most recent rainy saturday, she chose to watch "The Departed" and I followed up with "Flags of our Fathers."
"The Departed" earned the Oscar for Martin Scorcese this year. I can see why. A convoluted cops vs. organized crime flick with lots of action. The line between good vs. evil is totally blurred. And Jack Nicholson plays a complicated bad guy, one of those roles that he always seems to revel in. He provided the best educational moments in the voice-over that started the film. he talked about the race riots in Boston during the busing era of the 1970s. He also talked about the Italians vs. Irish conflicts in the city. After the movie, Annie asked me if that stuff about Boston was true and I was able to provide some additional info. I lived in Boston for a short time (1972-73) and know a little about its long history. We talked briefly about the riots and the Irish and I could see she was taking in at least some of it. She's curious, but also has a short attention span like most teens. I knew when to stop. I don't always, and she lets me know it.
Read more about Ludlow in "The Great Coalfield War," George S. McGovern and Leonard F. Guttridge, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1972.
Next post: Educational moments in "Flags of our Fathers."
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