Page 24-Thursday, September 7, 1978-The Michigan Daily No breath wasted here, but silence hardly golden By BRIAN BLANCHARD We met several times a week in a 'small Mason Hall classroom overlooking the snow-covered Diag to mull over nothing less than the entire second half of Europe's history. Steve, our TA, would begin by lighting a ,cigarette, then draw his hiking boots up underneath his wooden chair before leaning into his work: a series of ill- fated attempts to inspire us - a dozen 6r so first and second-year students - to "sort of consider the Industrial Revolution" out loud and "kind of think for a minute about World'War I" for the purpose of discussion. Steve, it soon became apparent, saw juimself as a sounding board for em- bryonic theories, a moderator for ar- dent debate over society and politics in the Old World. After carefully reading the assigned pages and sitting in on the sweeping lectures delivered in the Modern Languages Building by our professor, we were to come to 'discussion sessions ready to articulate dur opinions and questions. BUT THINGS rarely worked out that way. Those who have had to sit through a typical high school English class have "seen the weary expressions worn by get our thoughts off the snowy Diag and onto the course material. HE GAVE IT the proverbial college try: asking a provocative question at the outset ("I mean, why would the Jews put up with it after the first signs of danger?"); or presenting a theory from lecture or an author ("When does Modern, like, become Contemporary History?"); occasionally he would toss out one of his own ideas ("Could Fascism, I wonder, resurface today as a government?"); a degree of success met a few attempts to bring us into the issue ("This is just really incredibly important, the Industrial Revolution. How many of you have worked for an auto company?"); finally,.he would of- ten retreat to the pages we were to have perused ("Sort of flip to page 124 and kind of see what he says about it.") Steve was stuck teaching an un- manageable amount of material to too many freshpeople. But his difficulties in getting us to respond, even to the, most general questions - anything more pointed directly threatened to ex- pose our ignorance - weren't, in my experience, unique., A few floors above Steve's room, for example, in a course placed a half dozen centuries earlier, Howie had period or concept, always a king to take to task or a revolutionary movement with which to sympathize. But what was my poor Great Books professor to do when it became clear that no one in the class had a clue as to the intentions of Herodotus and Homer? The good professor would begin every class period with the announcement that we would have to start discussing the ideas among ourselves if we wanted to learn anything. We tried. He even took a seat with us to encourage open- ness. But by the end of the first half- hour, he would be back up at the front of the room. Then, after rooting himself in front of the chalkboard, he would resign himself to talk on the nuances of Greek philsophy and the importance of libations in ancient Athens. A beaten man. NONETHELESS, at one point I stumbled upon a professor who was able to collect his wits and rely on years ,of Mason Hall experience to make sure that my three-times-a-week poetry classes didn't degenerate into ex- cruciating monologues. He didn't always make things easy ("Can anyone figure out what my favorite line in this poem is?"), but he had a talent for put- ting us at ease and asking enough set- up, sure-fire questions that, if nothing else, eventually shamed us into piping up once in a while. Even before enough class sessions have been held for students toestablish regular seats, some classrooms have developed a tradition that seems to deaden conversation. The sticky feeling - not at all like the comic hush that falls over a beginning language class when no one quite remembers how to respond to a "Wer sind Sie?" or "Comment allez-vous?" - can grow in- to a lasting inhibition, worn into the desk tops along with the doodles and graffiti. I can think of only one situation which might be a more common, contribution to truancy on campus than the sometime participatory paralysis. I refer, of course, to the class in which somenyoung sage is determined to score seven major concepts and three striking comparisons per hour. One of these classes is to be avoided like Bursley mashed potatoes. University Junior Evan Witt fails to communicate in class-a common occurrence. Calling time-out for Morocco, cowboys and cutting strings . a sort of paralysis plagues parts of this campus. The .ajority of the students don't seem too frustrated by an apparent inability to raise their hands and say something -anything-that might contribute to classroom discussion. _ta achers and students subjected to en- ess sessions in which, for some reason another, no one seemed to have ich to say. But, I had picked up the ipression somewhere that my assmates at the University would be ing with one another for attention, ick with upraised hands below which ey would sit ready to deliver answers eane from hours of textual analysis. Alas, I have discovered that a sort of ralysis plagues parts of this campus. e majority of the students don't seem > frustrated by an apparent inability raise their hands and say something anything - that might contribute to issroom discussion. PA Steve sensed that he couldn't .nt on initiative from our quarter and ed a varied approach in his efforts to similar problems directing discussion relating to the first half of Europe's history, despite a more demanding at- titude. HOWIE NEVER wore jeans and even gave a quiz or two right off the bat, so we were ready to scurry through notes and books in dramatic last-minute research efforts when he started asking questions like: "What is Latifundium?" Though Howie usually had his terms defined within the hour allocated for our, meetings, there were the same number of confused silences and heavy pauses at crucial moments as there were to be during Steve's meetings. But neither Steve nor Howie can ever know the utter immobility of a stalled English class. In history, it seems there's always another approach to a Brian Blanchard is a Daily night editor majoring in English. CLIP AND SAVE -Now FREE COPTIES*(OR 10% OFF) Featuring the Super Xerox 9200 COLOR COPIES-SLIDES PHOTO T-SHIRT TRANSFERS (20% OFF) We can put any picture or 35mm slide on a T-shirt DOLLAR BILL COPYING 611 Church Street Above Don Cisco's/Blue Frogge Specialists for Dissertations and Resumes By RENE BECKER When I was in what I once considered- to be the prime years of life, I was preoccupied with one goal-to be somewhere else. It didn't matter where, just a place with a road in and a road out. But parents, especially mothers, seem to spend most of their time spinning strings around their children as they grow-making sure the child will not move too far too fast. By adolescence, the parents' web is as thick and taut as it will ever be. So what do you do? You move through high school oblivious to instruction and classmates, formulating fantastic ad- ventures in those faraway places you've never known. You spend late nights poring over maps planning ex- peditions to places just the other side of Baggs, Wyoming where cowboys still ride horses and a buffalo occasionally roams. But I didn't just want td visit the cowboys, I wanted to be one-at least for awhile. SOMEWHERE ALONG the line you learn to cut those strings. In 1968, when I was 15 years old, I read about a colony of American hip- pies living in Morocco. The article said it was sunny there almost all the time, you didn't need much money and dope was $5 a pound. What more could I ask for? I would steal away to Marakesh for the summer. But saying and doing are different things. After all, newspaper- boys don't usually vacation in North Africa. Everything I owned went up for sale-baseball mitts, a half completed coin collection (a failure from the first anyway), a baseball autographed by the Chicago White Sox-everything. My parents never suspected my plans until my passport arrived in the mail. My parents chose, wisely, not to do anything. Rather, they let finances dic- tate my future. A week before my scheduled departure, with nothing more to sell or borrow, I came to the terrible realization that once in Morocco, I wouldn't have any money to live on. I may have been adventurous but not dumb. With little or no training in the art of basic human survival, I was for- ced to back down. But that summer I did receive my fir- st lesson in survival. AS SOMETHING of a consolation my parents allowed me to hit the road that. summer with only ten dollars to my name. Their stipulations were that I could not leave the state, I could not ask them for more money and I had to call my mother frequently.. They thought I would return in a matter of days and that would be that. To their dismay it wasn't. I was gone most of the summer and returned with $15 in my pocket. With one sweeping slash I had managed to cut a healthy number of strings. I was happy. My parents were worried. But parents everywhere were more than a little concerned about the youth of America at that time. The Woodstock Nation had been born, the anti-war movement was in full swing and formal education was being pushed and dragged through drastic changes. The roads were crowded with long-haired hippies looking for something called America. The feeling of being lost and confused was widespread espelcially among those eligible for the draft. BY THE TIME I was of college age, things were a little edgy at home. Like most parents, my mother and father had determined that the only way to get ahead in the world was with a- college degree. They were concerned that I didn't share their conviction. I can't remember a day in my high school career that I didn't hear: "If you don't go to college right after high school you'll never go." My parents predicted that I would probably get a job if I didn't go to college and would be reluctant to give up the short range financial benefits for long-term finan- cial security-my father was a banker. They also argued that I would be lonely. "Your friends will go on without you, and as the years go by, you will feel more reluctant to try to catch up. You won't want to mix with those .younger than yourself." They promised that once I had a college background I could travel anywhere and do whatever I wanted-"but college first." I thought about their advice a lot. All I had seen and done made me doubt their story. But could my parents lie.? Yes. To stop me from moving to Colorado when I was seventeen my mother told me she had a terminal illness. She said I might not ever see her again if I left. She asked me not to leave. A request I couldn't refuse. IT WAS THAT episode which almost convinced me not to go to college. But I realized that although sometimesI *S8W ONLY 665-9200 CLIP AND SAVE Expires 12/31/78 misdirected, parental love is strong and they have my best interest at heart. They had been there and back, or so they would say, although I always felt they had never been where I wanted to go. I went to college. Paris would wait. My first term in school was bearable. But by the end of the second term I was totally disenchanted with higher education. Again the parental confron- tation. "If you leave school you'll never go back. Your friends will go on without you-they will graduate. You won' want to go back to school-everyon will be younger than you. You would be an outsider." But those friends who, during high school, had detested their parents life style and vowed "never to be like my father," seemed well on the: way to taking over the family business. They would be accountants and lawyers. I blamed college for the change in their tune. I wanted to learn but college seemed corrupt. MOST IMPORTANT at that time ws my need for adventure..I had finall reached the point where I could cut all ties with my parents and friends. I still wanted to be a cowboy or a truck driver or just a vagabond. There were a lot of places to see, new people to meet, ,a completely new life to live everyday. Since I can remember, in whatever)I read or heard, acknowledged wise men talked about youth-the best years of life. I didn't want to waste it. I didn't want to look back at age forty and say, I should have done this or that. I wanted to say I had done it all and have no regrets. Leaving school was a little difficult for the parents to handle and sometimes a little tough for me. School is an artificial environment, clean and protected. The real world can be dirty and offensive. It's easy to look like a fool. But it was mostly enjoyable and profitable, although not financially.)I hitched out east often, picking up odd jobs along the way. I was a migrant worker, a general handy-man, an oc- casional saloon musician, a factory worker, an anti-war protester-any- thing that sounded interesting. I HAD A FEW serious jobs. I was ?a computer operator in a bank, I started a wholesale lobster company (a worthy enterprise which failed due to a crooked partner-a valuable lesson); and I was a jet refueler for an airlines. And I travelled, by thumb, foot, bus, train and plane. I like to think I know San Francisco and Manhattan as well as I know my home town-Detroit. I've been to Europe several times but I never did get to Morocco. When I decided to come back to school it wasn't because I was tired of being a vagabond, and not because I wanted a degree. Rather, I returned for an education. Not necessarily a. college education, but a learning experience. JUST LIKE ANY adventure down.a dusty road a university can provide the opportunity to hone your own instincts, to sharpen your perception. I was wrong to think that college, by nature, was a corrupting influence. What I gained from my extended semester break was a different per- spective. I'm perhaps more cynical. I question more. I learn more. My parents' predictions never came true. Tue campus is loaded with studen- ts over twenty, I don't feel out of place and those younger than I don't seem bothered. My old friends are still frien- ds although married and with children. We are somewhat distant, but that r r ." a 9 ev $$$$FAMO WELCOME FRESHMEN Try Daily Classifieds comfortable atmosphere for elaxing and meeting new people HAPPY HOURS every TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY nights )US FOR: 15C HOT DOGS every FRIDAY 2-5 p.m. (while they last) STUDENT CO-OP HOUSING: " Group living on North and Central Campus " People sharing work, decisions, good times " Room, board, utilities, laundry and more " Cnvinnt nf nt lenct C Imn nvr dorm rntes i-'