Well that was fun....a traveling band of BrighamWehlies unleashed on the esteemed PEA campus and Boston. We managed to see two of Frederick's classes: "Death Chem", (AP chemistry essentially, but taught at the same time as first year chemistry; F says it goes at quite a clip), as well as to Intro to Calculus. Chemistry was cool- the kids got to play with fire and wear weird glasses. In both chemistry and math Thomas was stuffing his hand in his mouth to avoid yelling out the answer. He was particularly agitated about negative infinity, and then during the lab he whispered to me the answer was right in front of them the whole time!!!! Just before the tension undid him completely, his progeny asked the group: "well is that just hydrogen then?" and the teacher said, why yes it is; and Thomas took off his little orange glasses and dabbed his eyes with relief.
Poor guy, he would so love to switch places with them.
MMB saw one of each kid's classes, and Kate went along for the ride to watch her siblings in action.
Charlie had a very funny observation. He said that everyone told him Exeter would be filled with smart people, but it was here that he witnessed some of the dumbest things he had ever seen teenagers do. I will not go into details, but one story involves a PG athlete trying to make his own alcohol by leaving grape juice around for weeks. Apparently biology wasn't his thing.
The first night MMB and I went to a cocktail reception and met all kinds of people that need to be discussed. One couple had a name tag indicating they had a kid graduating in 2019. And since we are long in 2019 kids, I asked: which dorm? and they said: "Well they used to be in Webster, but they are now day students. They were so impossible to get a hold of, that we moved here." Ok so now I am interested. "Do tell" I said- "they were not answering their phones (they have two boys), so you moved here from North Carolina? "
"Yes" they answered.
"Well" I said, "wait until the word gets out....we will have kids rushing to their phones, borrowing from strangers; playing around with wires to get old pay phones to work again.. It will be so great to know what's going on on a daily basis!"
Then he drops this one..."Yes, sometimes it took more than an hour for them to call us back."
You heard me: one hour, and then Ting (father) and name can't pronounce (mother) pack their bags and move above the ice cream shop in town. Don't f&*k with Ting is all I'm saying.
We also met one very handsome English teacher who would play the part of the sensitive genius that teaches non fiction poetry to inner city kids and then realizes he loves the tough on the outside physics teacher who is beautiful, but only when her glasses accidentally come off. I was pretending to understand what non fiction poetry was (?) because he was such an improvement over Ting, and over comes MMB to bust in. She really is a terrible wing man: always giving my punchlines away seconds before the end....and inviting him to San Francisco before I can. Since he is not Frederick's teacher, I asked how a left brainer might successfully manage an Exeter English class. At PEA it is quite possible to get high grades on all your assignments, but not do that well in the class, if they think you are not really bringing it to the ol Harkness table.
He explained that it was a group effort. A bit like a life boat I think, and even if you think (I won't name names) that some of what is said is blather and you would rather be in chemistry, you have to act gung ho and get in there: baring your soul.
Because he is a long time Exeter teacher, he is very good at that thing called observation. After listening to my mother and me yack on, he said: you are very good story tellers, and your family is very forgiving. I never thought of that...but it's true we are forgiving. Either that, or just have very short attention spans.
Oh! I have to tell you about MIT!!!!
Here are some things we learned on the tour. I have made a list, because there are so many.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if you complete courses in archery, pistol shooting, sailing and fencing, you receive an actual MIT pirates certificate, with eye patch. Since 2012 only 6 MIT students have received the patch.
One student was incensed at getting parking tickets, so he and some friends worked night after night building an exact replica of a police car, and then assembled it on the MIT dome. The police were so convinced someone had stolen a police car (unclear how they thought it got up to the dome), that they paid for helicopters to check it out. Even then, they didn't catch on that the number of the car was unusual: 3.14159265.
A 'Smoot' is five feet 7 inches, the length of one MIT fraternity brother (Oliver Smoot, class of 62 and cousin of the guy who just won a Nobel prize) who was the smallest in the house. One night the boys decided to measure the Harvard bridge that leads to MIT from Boston, entirely in Smoots, by rolling Oliver over and over down the bridge. There are markings all along the bridge now (every year the fraternity re paints them). Our guide told us that police use them for actual measurements as in : "Accident at Smoot 120"! Google Calculator also incorporates smoots, which it reckons at exactly 67 inches, and uses the smoot as an optional unit of measurement in Google Earth software and Google Maps.
For any prospective applicants out there, they had some advice: If the application asks what you do for fun, just answer with what you do for fun. Don't say you unwind by teaching biology to children. Also they said you should not be able to spell out any words with the grades on your transcript. Finally, they ask that you just write the answers in English; please don't use binary code (no joke) .
It was quite a professional operation- with a glossy movie to watch while we waited for the presentation. I loved it, because it was clearly meant to make the whole MIT thing look so zany- a wacky summer camp perhaps. In fact they have a break in the year for "charm school" where they have dinners and teach the kids not to wear t shirts with "Get Nerdy' on them to the interview; and which fork to use for the clams.
But after all the talk about pranks (and there were many), our guide-(an adorable, delicate, Mexican kid, with the semi permanent smile of the ueber dorky), discussed how easy it was for students to conduct research at MIT. It seems all one has to do is write an email to a professor and make one's case; and very often the teachers say: sure- get a lab coat on. Moreover, the school often pays them. At their fingertips is this mighty machine of knowledge and equipment and cold hard cash to use with abandon. I just kept thinking how extraordinary that was- how lucky they were to have a sandbox that cool to play in.
If Frederick goes there and doesn't come out a pirate; I'm not paying.
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| He was definitely not this happy on his wedding day |
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| girls' soccer practice |
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| Dinner with family plus Will K and the Herneys |
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| A quote from an MIT writing professor and Pulitzer Prize winner. #feellikealoser |
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| Ahoy mateys; MIT pirate ship (NO FILTER USED!! amazing night) |
