REFLECTIONS ON A LONG AND BLESSED LIFE NO.41: HOSPITALITY A WONDERFUL VIRTUE

 At one level it was just another dinner invitation. At another level it was a profound reminder of the great virtue of hospitality. We chatted on the phone working to agree when we would meet for a simple meal and deeper conversation. I offered pizza at our home. She said, “How about coming over to my place? I can grill some steak. I have a really nice bottle of wine just waiting for you.” It took me less than 5 seconds to respond. “When should we arrive?” When I hung up the phone I reflected upon hospitality. This is a custom expressed at all levels of society from the most primitive tribe in Africa through the oval office in the White House to China’s imperial palace. Every society has its own centuries-old (and ever newly emerging) ways to answer the question: “How do you show hospitality?”

I reflected upon the graciousness of my host. She is a single woman, living alone. Her business takes her to assignments all over the world. Her schedule is full. Yet, she didn’t hesitate to say, “Come on over.” I think I know where some of that hospitality comes from and I want to honor it. I know that she attended a Lutheran elementary school and that her father was a Lutheran parochial school teacher. So she and I share that mutual background. And I believe that hospitality was a key virtue I learned in Lutheran elementary school. I experienced it as people invited my large family over for many events. My Mother demonstrated it when I suddenly brought a softball team of high school guys into our home unexpectedly and within minutes she was setting the table and frying up scrambled eggs. So my memory is that the Lutheran school of my day and those who taught in it really believed that hospitality was an essential aspect of Christian living. And, of course they had ample Biblical support for teaching it.

Am I correct in judging that hospitality expressed by inviting people over to one’s home for a meal is a diminishing experience?  The number of times that Jane and I are invited into someone’s home for dinner is far less than it was for my parents. When we are invited out it is often (not always) an invitation following one we had initiated. At the same time it is true, of course, that having a meal together with another couple at a restaurant is far more prevalent than when I was child. In fact, to the best of my memory that never happened for me until I was 21 years of age.

So customs around hospitality vary greatly from culture to culture and are ever-changing. In the midst of that the command of Jesus to extend hospitality not only to our friends but also to those often excluded does not have an expiration date. In a recent class which I taught at my church I challenged all of us to this particular act of hospitality: “Invite to your house for a sit-down dinner an individual or a family who is of a different color, ethnic group, or speaker of a primary language other than yours.

So this evening Jane and I will have a special treat. We will have a grilled steak (and grilling steaks is not permitted at the retirement community in which we live) a glass or two of good wine, lively conversation, and even keeping a tab on the Cubs vs. the Indians…. all instilled in the heart of a young girl attending a good Lutheran elementary school.

(For previous Blogs on the topic of Hospitality see “Hospitality To Strangers” 7/19/09 and “Gracious Host” 3/27/09 at Mel’s M∧Ms.com or melsmyths.blogspot.com.)

MEMORIES OF A LONG AND BLESSED LIFE NO. 40 REMEMBERING STUDENTS

Obviously teaching is all about students. My hope and prayer was and is that somehow or other my teaching has some effect (however minor) on each of the students I teach. Every teacher has the vision that students will be shaped, however slightly, by their teaching. In my days of retirement I now once in a while just try to recall the names, faces and traits of students who at some time or other sat in my classroom. My list runs from those fourth through eighth graders in Tracy, California through that very small band of grades one to three in Glendale, through the grad students I taught at the Concordias, through the students I taught through an interpreter in Hong Kong to many others all around the world. . But today I want to again go back to that very first classroom of some 32 kids at St. Paul’s, Tracy, California.

I will just select 4 boys for this blog and 4 girls for my next blog and let them be both individuals and also examples of tens of others who figuratively sat at my feet as students. For some unknown reason one of the first to pop into my mind is “Denny”. I recall his unrivaled enthusiasm for life. He was small for his age. He had a rough life as the son of a single mom who dearly loved him and struggled with a couple of jobs to have the tuition to send him to my school. Denny was always full of optimism and energy. He was convinced we would win any basketball or softball game we ever played. He was sure he would do well on tests. He energized me and I will always remember that when I went back to Tracy 50 years after I had taught there he was the middle aged person who still showed up all decked out in a smart jacket, shirt and tie and still with a zest for life.

At the other end of the energy spectrum was “Larry”. He has been abandoned by his birth mother and cared for by a wonderfully loving aunt and uncle. Studies were a bore to him and he did poorly. He was not interested in any sports and seemed unaware of his classmates. I wondered what would ever become of him. Yet, some years later we were living in Hong Kong and received a telephone call from him! He was in the US Navy, had a short leave in Hong Kong, heard about us being there and somehow or other not only located our telephone number but ventured north of Boundary Street (the limit for US servicemen) to come see us. He was full of life and looking positively toward the future. He had much praise for his years at St. Paul’s.

Tim was an only child. Both his parents loved him and wanted only the best for him. They even persuaded me to use some of my summer time to take him and a couple other students on daylong trips to the California gold country and there learn about the early days of our state. Some years later a former high school roommate of mine who had become a pastor told me that he’d had a call to conduct a funeral in Tracy, 500 miles from his parish in San Diego. . He got to talking to the funeral director in charge of the memorial. It was Tim, who upon learning that the pastor was Lutheran, told him about his Lutheran school experience and a teacher named “Kieschnick”. He sent warm greetings to the person he claimed had had a life-long influence on him.

Richard Hamlow was in the sixth grade. My relationship with him was influenced by another factor. I was a very close personal friend of his parents. Thus he often saw me in his home in a very relaxed atmosphere where his parents often shared a few beers with me. They always called me “Mel”. His parents, however, made it very clear to him that it was not appropriate for him to do the same. They made sure that Richard always referred to me either as Mr. Kieschnick or as Teacher Kieschnick. While I was his teacher I never heard him express any interest in becoming a pastor. But after I left he made that decision, graduated from the seminary and then served faithfully for many years until his retirement as a parish pastor. Richard was the first of many of my students who chose to enter the rostered ministries of various churches. While I, of course honor every occupation in which people find their vocation, I am also pleased that many chose their vocations as professional ministers of the church.  And Richard was the first.

REFLECTION ON A LONG AND BLESSED LIFE NO.39: BEGINNING MY CAREER AS AN EDUCATOR

 When the day after Labor Day arrived in 1950 I was ready for my first day of teaching. I had decorated the classroom. I made sure the desks, which were bolted down to 2 x 4 runners, were all perfectly aligned. I had carefully prepared a set of watercolors and brushes for each student. I had tried to memorize the names of the 32 students in my room in grades 4-8. I had bought extra gel for the clumsy purple ditto copy trays. Of course, I was somewhat nervous but also quite confident. After all I myself had gone to grades 1-8 in a two room Lutheran school. I had had a full year of internship teaching grades 1-4. I was excited and ready to roll.

I loved teaching and I loved my kids and I think I did a fair job. Now some 65 years later I remember especially one teaching activity that went very well. Tracy was a town of about 10,000. We did a total classroom project across grade levels. Students got themselves into self-selected groups with each group choosing one aspect of the city to study and report on. The groups included: making a map of the city, meeting with the city’s Director of Recreation, meeting with the Chief of Police, going to the big tomato processing plant, interviewing the editor of the town weekly newspaper etc. Each group did its homework and then reported to the entire classroom. As various city leaders heard how “those kids” from St. Paul’s Lutheran school had interviewed their colleagues there was a very positive reaction.

I used an organization design for teaching that I had learned from my father. Religion, social studies, music, and art were taught to all 5 grades at once. However, reading and arithmetic were taught grade by grade. I had the kids from each grade come to the front of the room, gather around a table and we studied and learned together. Meanwhile the other classes were busy with workbook assignments. We focused on the basics and our kids really excelled way above state and local norms on standardized tests. I think I was reasonably effective but I never did consider classroom discipline to be one of my strengths. We faced the realty of widely different student abilities with not too much trouble Since we were multi-grade the brighter kids could join the grade above them for specific work and the weaker students could get reviews by listening to the lessons taught in the grades below them.

The 1950’s were days when the whole paradigm of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod schools was changing and my school represented the new realities. We made the switch from when all children in the school were Lutheran to an enrollment predominantly non-Lutheran. We moved from children paying no tuition and all costs being covered by funds from the congregation budget to charging tuition and receiving very little (if any) congregational financial support.  My memory is that our tuition was $10.00 a month.

Fund raising was a pretty new thing for Lutheran schools then but it was central to our financial viability. Thus at least once a month I was joined by boy students as we used a borrowed truck and went throughout the city collecting newspaper which, of course, we sold. My other fund-raising methods were not at all creative and not very effective. I now often wish I could go back to those days and do a better job.

When I compare my experience with my colleagues of today I see great differences. All my students were white and native speakers of English. Pick-up permission slips from feuding divorced parents was unheard of. Peanut butter allergies were not yet on the agenda. Cell phones and computers were distant dreams. It was usually assumed that if a student and a teacher had a conflict the teacher was in the right. Mandatory state tests were nowhere on the horizon for non-public schools.  “Titles” were names of books and unrelated to government programs or requirements. LGBTQ were random letters of the alphabet.

I was accountable to a School Board made up of congregation members (all male). They were very supportive (though I had to agree to disagree with the chairman of the Board who refused to have his 3 children in our school vaccinated against any disease).

Naturally, I have some regrets: I had a few kids with some relatively serious behavior/adjustment problems and I wish I had been more helpful. I did not teach enough creative writing. I wish I had challenged the brightest kids more. As a principal I was seriously lacking in providing support to my teaching colleagues. During my years at Tracy I had two first-year teachers. I do not think I visited their classrooms for even one day. I did not seek classroom aides for them. The best I can say for myself (and that is not much) is that I was available to them and stood behind them when they had any issue with an unhappy parent.

The boys in the school would probably be in agreement that the best thing that Teacher Kieschnick brought to their school was that (for the first time) the school basketball team had uniforms and was actually allowed to play a game or two against another school team. They and their female classmates would also applaud that sometimes when we got into really close soccer games recess time just kept getting extended until one team of the other scored the winning goal. And I do hope and pray that every one of my former students went away convinced (and still believing today) that God loves them.

As it turned out, I ended up spending only 6 years of my over 50 years as an educator being a classroom teacher. I enjoyed it and to this day have nothing but the greatest respect for the “ordinary” classroom teachers who just happen to be among the most important change agents on this planet.

REFLECTION ON A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE NO. 38: TRIPS

Graduate work at summer school passed very quickly. Then it was time to head out to St. Paul Lutheran Church and School in Tracy, California for my church-assigned duties. My memory is that the congregation offered to pay my bus fare from my home in Texas to Tracy. I chose to go by a route other than bus. As I did quite often, I checked the newspapers and found a car that needed to be delivered to California: a beautiful two-toned brand new Pontiac. A friend from Texas joined me. We went from Chicago to Central Texas to San Francisco all without incident other than one stop by the Highway Patrol in Arizona. I think they had seen me speed down a long hill but were too far behind me to track the exact speed. So I was stopped, the officer examined my papers, I told him about my “sacred call “and he wished me well and sent me on with his blessings (and no ticket).

This was my first of quite a few trips between Texas and the Midwest, always by some means other than public transportation or my own car. I had been at St. Paul’s school only a few months when the PTA very graciously raised money as a gift to allow me to visit my fiancé, Jane, who was teaching in Michigan. I always remember Mr. B telling the parents “I know Mr. K. Let’s not buy him a ticket; instead let’s just give him the cash. I bet he will come up with an alternative plan.” He was right. I joined a group of men (found through a newspaper ad) and again we drove straight through. I did have one stress-filled hour. We arrived in Salt Lake City around 1:00 am. Of course, there were no freeways in those days and we needed to drive through the heart of the city. The driver said, “Watch me. I am going to drive through this whole city without stopping once,” And he did, though it meant just running through the many red lights we encountered. The Mormon gods were with us and we made it safely.

After a wonderful Christmas with Jane, a friend who was the coach at Concordia College in Oakland found a car in Detroit that needed delivering to San Francisco. Again we drove without spending a night in any hotel. However, we did have a New Year’s Eve incident. Just after midnight a car was suddenly stopped in front of us in the middle of the road and another car was coming up the mountain to meet us. We had a minor collision. The highway patrol arrived but they said they were too busy on this New Year’s Eve to write up an accident report. They ordered us to go the county court house in the next city and write the report. We went to the courthouse arriving around 2:00 am. We had to wait for the lone official there to first perform a wedding ceremony for a couple which had decided at midnight that they wanted to get married at once. The other party involved in our accident never arrived (we think the driver of that vehicle actually did not possess a valid drivers license). We went on our way and got stopped in California (maybe we were speeding) but then it got interesting. We told the officer about our deal on delivering the car. He asked for the name of the company to which we were headed etc. etc. etc. Then I showed him the papers. “WOW !” he said. ”You are lucky. This guy is famous for bringing cars into California illegally and changing registrations in an improper way. You are one lucky gentleman. I will not confiscate this vehicle.” And he sent us on our way rejoicing.

There are other stories of this kind of travel. Jane and I drove a vehicle from Ft. Wayne to Muskogee, OK because our new car had been nearly totaled on the way to the wedding and had to be repaired in Muskogee. Once we drove an almost new   Cadillac from Detroit to Orange County. The air conditioner went out in the middle of that summer heat, but again we made it.

They say that the journey is as important as the destination. But my destination was the more important because it was time for me assume my exciting new role as teacher of grades 4-8 and principal of St. Paul’s Lutheran School and I was rarin’ to go

REFLECTIONS ON A LONG AND BLESSED LIFE NO. 37: GRADUATE SCHOOL

 Graduation was great. Having Mother and Dad there from Texas was greater. Having Jane accept my engagement ring was the greatest. And 4 days later I began the next chapter; graduate school. Graduate school had always been on my long-range plan but I had no idea as to when I would start that. Dean of Students Huegli had other ideas. In my college senior year I was student body president and Dean Huegli and I met for a full hour every day Monday through Friday. Shortly before graduation he told me “You are going to grad school and you will start this summer.” He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern U. and that is where he wanted me to go. So I followed his orders and applied. It seemed like I had a somewhat reserved response from Northwestern. Then suddenly I received new communications not only welcoming me, but urging me to come. Apparently Dean Huegli had made some contact.

When I told him I had no financial resources he again stepped up. He arranged for me to live on campus at Concordia (at no cost) and work on campus facilities upkeep during the summer. When I needed course fees I approached my cousin Ben Jacob. He came through (all be it reluctantly) and loaned me $100.00.00 with me paying him back $10.00 a month for 12 months. I figured that was a pretty high interest rate but I paid that and Ben accepted the full $120.00. In fact I paid it off ahead of tim out of my $180.00 month salary.

I studied psychology and had excellent courses. Two were outstanding. One was called Human Personality and I remember getting certified to administer and interpret the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Another course was Diagnosing and Treating Mental Disorders. Tough and very good. One important lesson I learned: Work very carefully and long on the symptoms and only then make a diagnosis.

A couple of minor aspect of life during those summer months: The first was that I had a very enjoyable time playing summer softball. The quality of pitching in the games was very low and at the end of the summer I was informed that I had won the batting title with an average of well over 400. (As I said, the level of pitching was very low.) The other incidental has to do with one of the two gentlemen with whom I shared rides to and from the university. That friend’s name was Don Dinkmeyer who was working on his doctorate in psychology.  Twenty-five years later we “met” again under some stressful circumstances. He had developed and was aggressively marketing a parent-training program and called it Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP). It was based very heavily on the PET skills. In fact it had so many almost exact concepts, words and steps as PET (I was then working with PET) that we seriously considered legally charging him for plagiarism and copyright infringement. Eventually we decided against that and I am glad we never had to jointly appear in court.

Summer was soon over and I needed to get to Tracy, California to begin my teaching ministry, the next phase of my long and blessed life.