April Fools Civilization

     Social Studies was one class that did not go well with memorizing the notes. And I could not figure out why – history does not change, so why was it not wise to give back the facts that the teacher dished out? As I recall, we were doing Western Studies that year – meaning Western Civilization – something that is politically incorrect these days, but I digress.

       Miss Krohn was our teacher. I think she was fresh out of college. And there was a brand new way of presenting the material that year via edict from the district or maybe it was the the state. But the premise was for the instructor to teach a unit, and then as a class, we were supposed to discuss what had been put before us and come up with some statement about the unit – and apparently the statement was supposed to be totally obvious and unanimously come to by every class across the state. When we were asked to do this the first time after the first unit – we talked (well other kids talked, I was silent) but had no clue what we were supposed to come up with – it felt more like a futile exercise in reading some person's mind. Miss Krohn finally read to us the statement we were expected to figure out on our own – it was several sentences long and seemed, to me at least but surely was not so, to come out of left field!

       I don't recall Miss Krohn ever trying to get us to come up with those statements ever again after any further units.

       Perhaps if we had put our heads together a little better we could have predicted that the terms Western and civilization would ere long be considered oxymorons?

       The only other thing I remember about 10^th grade history, besides the class teasing of Miss Krohn about her social life, being single and all, is that on April Fools' Day, when the bell rang signifying class has half over, we all got up and walked out of the room and went to the next room down the hall from us and sat down in the seats that had just been emptied by those kids who went to our classroom and sat in our seats. We had been in cahoots. Miss Krohn thought it was funny once she figured out what was going on – I think she was also relieved to see the mischief did not amount to anything more serious. The other teacher was a very elderly woman – who remained calm throughout – and I admired her for that.

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