Adam Current ’11 – Waking up today was unlike any other day of my life. Coming from a small town of 6,000–that’s one stoplight per 6,000–I’m not used to hearing the frequent roll of the above ground train. hank goodness for ear plugs! Where was I?
As I stepped out into the crisp air, dressed and ready to teach, the first thing I noticed was the sounds — not the buildings. In the cornfields, sound dissipates as it travels, unimpeded. Here, however, the skyscrapers themselves create a soundscape of metal and glass, as the sounds of traffic and people bounce like an echo chamber. As a sidenote, they trap smells as well, but that would constitute another post.
School, school, I was supposed to blog about my school, right? Kenwood Academy is a 7-12 school located here in the humble realm of Chicago. Demographically, it is a complete reversal of the Fountain or Montgomery County areas. At those schools, the African American population is typically measured as numbers on your hand and not percentages. Today, I was fortunate enough to feel what it is like to be a minority. That may sound weird, but it is weird in a good way.
The students were very friendly. In many ways, teenagers are teenagers, and the only major difference was the culture itself. Okay, that is a major difference. I’m still not used to watching students go through a metal detector when walking in. As a native of a cornfield, that was a major shock. Otherwise, they are so friendly that I wonder why a metal detector is necessary.
I have to be honest that my mind is foggy. I am writing this at 10:07 local time, or 11:07 Indiana time, which means bed. (After student teaching, bed was typically 10:30 if I could help it.) Tonight we ate at a Polish Buffet, and I fell asleep on the bus ride back.
