Count Your Blessings

At the beginning of a new school year, the university where I teach has a freshman convocation. It's a fairly typical academic ceremony - boring but sincere speeches exhorting the students to work hard, dare to try new things, spread their wings, blah blah blah. If you've ever sat through a high school or college graduation you've heard the same stuff.

But there is one thing different about these convocations. For the last two years we've had something called a 'common read'. Basically, each incoming freshman class is required to read a selected book. The book is then worked into the classes they take. For example, an English professor might discuss the prose and composition of the book. A history professor might place it into historical context. A sociology professor might talk about the norms and customs of the characters. And so on across all the freshman classes. It's one way to help ensure that all the freshmen share a common experience, and it gives them something to talk about with the new people they meet. All in all, it's worked out well so far, although care must be taken when selecting the book. For example, seveal schools picked obama's book Dreams from my Father (insert your own snarky comment here). 

At our school, the first common read in 2008 was "All But My Life," by Gerda Weissmann Klein. It's the story of a young girl in 1939 Poland who spends six years in a Nazi concentration camp, losing her home, parents, brother, and even the friends she made in the camp. It goes on to chronicle her liberation by American soldiers, including the one who became her husband of 50+ years.

As part of the common read experience, the freshmen were encouraged to write an essay about their response to the book. Based on the essays and subsequent interviews, fifteen were selected to go on an all-expense paid (thanks to the generosity of some fine donors and sponsors - no tax dollars were used) trip to Poland and Germany, visiting the sites mentioned in the book. They met and interviewed Mrs. Klein. At the following year's convocation, they made a slide, picture, and video presentation chronicling their trip and the effect it had on them. The photos of the concentration camp and the description of what took place there really hit home with the audience - the incoming freshmen. It brought home that there is more to life than cell phones and video games - that there is a nasty, brutal world out there. The fact that kids just one year ahead of them actually got to experience it, even if only second-hand, was a real eye-opener.
 
Last year's book was Ishmael Beah's "A Long Way Gone," the autobiographical story of a 12-year old boy from Sierra Leone who became a homeless, wandering refugee at age 12, and who was conscripted into the army at 13 and introduced to a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter. He was repatriated by UNICEF at 16, engulfed in the war again a year later, and finally ended up in the U.S. It's a truly disturbing account of how easy it is for a normal boy to be transformed into someone addicted to cocaine and killing.

Again, fifteen of our students went to Africa to see things for themselves (they actually went to Ghana, which borders Sierra Leone, because Sierra Leone is still too violent). And again, they made a presentation at this year's convocation. The most touching part was when one student described their experiences at an orphanage. The students spent several days there helping to build a new school. During that time they met and formed attachments with many of the kids, most of them between 4 and 10 years old. As pictures of the orphanage and the kids flashed behind them, this one young man told how the kids clung to him when it was time to leave, crying and wailing. He broke down as he told his story. It's hard to imagine, but over 1000 18-year-olds sat there in total silence, many of them crying as well. There were even a few tears among the faculty.

This year's book is "The Road of Lost Innocence," by Somaly Mam. As a 9-year-old she was sold into sexual slavery in Cambodia. Fifteen freshmen will be selected to travel to Cambodia this year for a close-up (but hopefully not too close) view. I can hardly wait for next year's convocation. I think I'll pack two handkerchiefs instead of one.

The point of all this is not to traumatize the freshmen, but to make them aware of the wider world outside of their currently limited sphere of experience, and to help them realize just how truly blessed they are. Many of them have had a tough life already, but this helps them put that into perspective.

It also does the same for faculty members who think they have problems...