The Grand Tour: Denver, Lawrence and Heading Towards St. Louis (worked on while waiting on an oil change in Lawrence, KS on July 24 and a motel in Central MO after we decided it was too hot to camp at a 100 degrees and finally posted in a coffee shop in St. Louis).

We got into Denver after a  gorgeous scenic drive through beautiful New Mexico after Linda stopped Hindstrum and me from making an offer on a burger joint in Eagle Nest, NM.  Our plan was for him and me to go trout-fishing and elk-hunting in the fall and skiing in the winter while Linda ran the restaurant.  Some people are wet blankets.  Here is Hindstrum with his first bird friend.  If this relationship is successful he will move on to live ones.

In Denver we stayed with my long-time friend Barb Najarian (formerly Stoll) who actually attended the reunion with us.  We invited her as she is a retired teacher who could ask the outsider questions and give a non-Roeper perspective to the discussion.  In addition, I wanted her to hear about Roeper from someone other than me ranting about it.

When we got to Chad’s Lakewood Grill (just another example of the flexible, hospitable establishments we encountered time and time again), Nate Chapman, ’98, from Boulder and Collin Powell, ’99, from Longmont were already there.  It turns out that we probably should have had the gathering north of Denver as most of the attendees were from the Fort Collins or Boulder areas.  Joined by Barb, we started a mini-discussion. Nate and Collin gave us lots of leads on people who are engaged or who have married.   We also talked a bit about the sense of justice gifted people have.  We also touched on the importance of making sure the school, the student and the family knows each other before the admission acceptance so everybody knows what each is getting into.  Nate recounted for Barb how he ended up at Roeper.

            Here is Barb with Collin followed by a shot of Collin, Emery, Hindstrum and Nate.

                                                                                 Nate is studying sociology at Colorado University at Boulder and enjoying life in the Rockies.

Collin is exploring areas of industry to apply his skill and interest in mathematical simulations and algorithm development.

Carpooling from the north were Adam Abraham, ’02,(Fort Collins), Julie McLaughlin, ’03, (Boulder), and David (formerly Davey) Wayne, ’04, Boulder.   Left to right in the following photo is Adam, David and Collin.

Below is Julie, Adam, David with Collin facing Adam
               

Adam is finishing up his PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Bioengineering – Osteoarthritis/Orthopedics).  He is a National Institute of Health Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow.  Adam is engaged and will be married in Sept. 

Julie is working for a lightweight backpacking company and getting the most of living and exploring the mountains.    She might be going to grad school in the fall for restorative ecology or in her words, “I want to set stuff on fire to kill invasive weeds.”  She is also proud of recently winning her Bar Trivia Championship.

David is a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Boulder who should graduate in 2013-14. His field is mathematics or more specifically, “The Algebraic K-Theory of Singular Varieties and Stratified Spaces.”

Then Lonie (Smith) Beck,’96, (Fort Collins) came down with her husband Bryan and her darling troop of sons, Noah (5), Simon (3), and Levi (2).  My congratulations to the boys on being very well-behaved and entertaining themselves  during what was a long period of sitting and listening.  Lonie is enjoying life taking care of the boys and Bryan.  Bryan is a physician.

Here are the Beck Boys with Hindstrum.   First row: Simon, Hindstrum & Levi.  Back row: Noah and Bryan.

 Below right is Lonie

                      

Susan Toll (Morrow) who left in 6^th grade after the 1974-75 school year when her father Dick took a job at DCD could only stay for a little while but she and Linda were thrilled to see each other again.  Susan did work at Roeper Summer camp, did babysit for Karen Roeper’s  Jamie and did keep in contact with Roeper kids.  She has three children age 10, 15 and 17.  She lives in Denver.

Here is Susan, Hindstrum and Emery:                                          

Below: Alumni mom Wendy Evans (mom of Shari and Kiera) with her husband Chris Stimpson lives in Westminister.  She is teaching and coaching somatic education there in Westminister.

The discussion started slowly and I think I surprised everybody with the idea that they had to talk for their dinners.  But when we got going it became one of our longer conversations at one of our gatherings. It only ended when the old folks (Linda and I) had to go back to go to bed.  In some of our other gatherings, one person would speak for a longer time and it was easy to take notes. In this one, people had more of a conversation with short passages and a lot of back and forth and jumping around making the poor scribe’s job harder.

Collin wanted to know if David Feldman knows how the Roeper experience “gets under your skin?”  It causes long-term changes in one’s life.  It should never be considered just a school.  What makes it different is that it is a mission-driven school with a philosophy that requires an emphasis on community and giving back to it.  We are “citizens of the globe” and it is always more than just about the individual.

Nate explained that he was a late-comer as he started in 8^th grade but it was still easy to absorb the values of tolerance and importance of community.  Also crucial was a freedom to explore and find out who one is and grow.

Julie added that everything seemed organic and natural not forced or artificial.  Wendy remembered the service projects in Stage II which taught the kids at an early age that there is life beyond the walls of school and that there was a relevance to the learning.  Empathy was nurtured.

Another alum (my notes aren’t clear) spoke about how barriers between student and student and adult and student were removed so honest relationships could develop.  There was a sense of equality so cliques and popularity differences weren’t as important.

Nate recounted the importance of class conversations.  Teachers allowed discussion to go off planned topic so they were more meaningful to the students. 

Collin added that independent studies were important in allowing students to pursue their passions.

Julie thought that all aspects of Roeper learning helped to encourage her to think of herself as a life-long learner.  From discussions in the halls to independent studies to service projects to in-class activities, the emphasis was on learning not achievement for getting into college.  Nate chimed in that it never seemed to be totally about academics.

Wendy reminded us that the close relationships pose a special danger if the relationship is used by a smart  student to avoid taking responsible by manipulating an adult into postponing deadlines or into becoming an enabler.  I believe she has a point and that we need to have even better, more healthy relationship which people are honest with each other and respect each other enough to demand responsibility.

The group suggested an unusual problem.  When leaving Roeper, some said they easily lost respect for college instructors who didn’t measure up to Roeper teachers.   Wendy recounted how Kiera at Oakland University was underwhelmed after having Mary Kay Glazek for English. Most found college easy after Roeper.

Julie spoke of the personal interest teachers took in the students.  Laura Panek helped her find a job so she could earn money to go on a trip.

Wendy likes how Roeper would admit a mistake and didn’t usually hide in a defensive stance.  That goes with the sense of safety necessary for growth and honest relationships.

Nate thought that students felt empowered from a variety of experiences and he focused on kids serving on hiring committees and on the Board of Trustees and what that statement made about our values of respect and community.

Adam spoke about the role of Birmingham campus town meetings and how they built community.  The group was especially impressed how we handled the trauma of 9/11. 

We spoke about how hard it is sometimes getting the community the information it needs to be empowered while preserving the privacy of individuals.   I suggested that an administrator builds up trust and credibility and then when there is a difficult situation, that trust and credibility is spent so the community knows that the situation is being handled without necessarily knowing all the details.

David got the group talking about how Roeper is on the right track when they allow students to pursue their own educational goals as much as possible.  If the student wants to take a lot of pottery that’s fine as long as she or he knows the consequences of doing that.  This is where the close relationships and empowerment of information comes in.  Julie felt that she didn’t get the guidance at times she needed to set her direction and wondered if we should put more formal, explicit procedures in place.  Linda and I stated that more of those procedures are functioning now.

David continued with how important it is that students be encouraged to think about what they like and want to do. He always appreciated how flexible the school was and how willing it was to adjust to the student. Being a math guy, he made the conscientious decision to focus his energy on math, evaluate what it would take to pass the other classes and did enough to make the ‘C ’.

I asked what they thought about how Roeper did helping students get ready for a rapidly changing, crazy world.  They thought it could always improve but it was significantly better than other schools.  An area of improvement would be in teaching how to better find and retrieve information.  They like how Roeper taught problem-solving and working collaboratively.

Adam brought up that Roeper didn’t have the technical resources for what he needed in his quest to be an engineer.  He supplemented with work in his dad’s machine shop and he got a strong science foundation at Roeper and then started  engineering in college.  What he really got from Roeper that he noticed missing in almost all his fellow university colleagues was an emphasis on humanity and how to benefit it.   His passion is engineering, solving problems and making new things and he wants to use these to help humanity with medical/engineering devices.  He credits with the helping humanity part.

Julie pointed out how she benefitted from working with younger kids such as when she chaperoned the 7^th grade Ohiopyle trip.  This led to a whole discussion on the importance of trips and the financial problems in taking kids on them.   David suggested we look into government or foundation grants to help take students on trips to broaden their horizons.

Linda and I explained how well the George Roeper senior projects are going now to help students pursue their passions while enriching the cultural and educational life of the community.  Nate thought we should do more to use the alum expertise in helping to bring new technologies to Roeper.

The issue of giving came up and the alums spoke favorably about restricted giving.  They believe people would give more if they could designate where it was going.  Happy donors would be more willing to give, give more and then some of that might even be of the unrestricted kind.

David asked about our endowment and I said it was growing.  Nate suggested we seek partnership with colleges to find funding for better technology.  Linda and I explained the hiring of the new educational technology person and how that person would be crucial in helping the community figure out and obtain what it needed technology-wise.

Some people had to go (other commitments, long drives, etc.) but a core of about 7 of us stayed late and went down nostalgia-lane.    I want to thank everybody who came and hope that the Front Range people form a Roeper group and get to know each other better.

The next day we had a leisurely morning with Barb in the cute mountain community of Morrison near the spectacular Red Rocks area.  In the first photo Hindstrum can be seen posing in front of sandstone uplifts and in the second he is meeting some of the heroes of his youth.  Unfortunately, after being inspired by John Denver, he bought a guitar and keeps singing “Rocky Mountain High” over and over again in the back of the van.  We asked him to consider “Sounds of Silence” but he responded with another verse of “Rocky Mountain High.”

Below is Hindstrum, Emery and Barb               

On the right, you can see the path Hindstrum took off down to get to the hippie town of Morrison to meet up with some of the musicians he used to play with.

Hindstrum wants you to try to identify as many as you can of his buddies on the left that he played with at the famous Red Rocks Amphitheather.     

Then it was a long haul across the high northern plains of Colorado and Kansas.  Lawrence is at the far eastern end of Kansas and we had a time zone change so we didn’t get to the Bistak’s until about 8:00 pm. Flexible and welcoming, they had prepared a delicious summer supper made almost exclusively from the fare of their amazing garden tended by master gardener Lee.   

We had much catching up to do as they left Roeper quite a long time ago.  Lea started with us in 1976 and graduated in 1986 while Laura started in 1976 and graduated in 1988 .  Nancy was a team teacher and then the LS administrative assistant from 1976 until she and Lee moved to Toledo in 1993.    After leaving us, Lee and Nancy both got Master’s degrees in Pastoral Studies and Lee continued to get a Doctorate in Ministry. Today, they are retired with Lee gardening and singing in the Lawrence Civic Choir and Nancy doing volunteer work and both doing marriage counseling classes.  Laura is doing volunteer work, teaches classes at church and taking a course on living with disabilities.   Lea is now married to Erik Herron with a 7 year old son, Carter.  They have left the University of Kansas at Lawrence for 2 years for Erik to work in the DC area for the National Science Foundation and Lea to work long-distance writing grants for U. of K.  Erik’s area of political science expertise is in Soviet and post-Soviet election and politics; an area that had them living in the Ukraine for a while.  Lea and Erik met a long time ago when they were Model United Nations high school participants in Michigan. They reconnected as each separately went on to mentor high school MUN participants as college students. MUN is truly a uniting force.  We didn’t get a chance to meet Carter but he sounds like a Roeper kid – he soaks up information, loves to learn, and can figure things out in a flash. 

Here is Lee, Emery, Nancy, and Laura with Hindstrum on the table looking for more delicious Bistak food.                                                                                                             

Our discussion started Monday evening when we got there and resumed Tuesday morning continuing until we left mid-day.

Nancy said she had an easy time coming to Roeper both as a parent and staff member as her college experience at Marygrove was based on the same assumptions she found at Roeper.  We treat others with the respect we want for ourselves.  We allow people to grow and be themselves.

She remembered the LS in the 1970’s and 80’s as a place of flattened hierarchy with many senior teachers having the influence and authority to innovate and help run things.  Annemarie was accessible and always available to talk about and with kids.  Mariann was always there to make sure things got done behind the scenes.

Laura said there was a Roeper discussion on Facebook recently in which someone else opined that respect had to be earned.  Laura disagreed as she thinks it should be the default assumption that people as human beings are treated with respect. 

Nancy suggested that balance is always needed.  We should treat people with the Golden Rule but we must remember that people are individuals and also need to be treated according to their particular personality and our experience with them.

The group all agreed that the Philosophy is a set of generalizations and must be fleshed out by folks coming together to discuss and work things out.  Schools like Roeper are needed as modern communication (and modern technology) is isolating, limiting and misinforming so people are not learning how to really listen to each other and to work together.  Roeper demands listening, intellectual stretching and authentic relationships.

Laura thought Roeper could use a class in personal communication.  Linda said we presently did have such opportunities via health classes and individual “teachable moments” in which kids were taught to listen and speak clearly about their feelings and emotions. I do think in an institution that requires almost constant talking things through in order for it to fulfill its mission, we probably could do more explicit and formal work in communication.  Nancy agreed as she reiterated that she thinks modern communication is especially problematic in preventing true communication.

Everybody agreed that Roeper had the close relationships necessary for people to get to know each other.  Without those, you have to resort to generalizations and rigid rules to deal with people and situations.  And, those are profoundly disrespectful as they deal with people as abstractions and objects as opposed to individuals.

The Bistaks thought that Roeper should always challenge kids to think harder and help others more.  We should teach that learning is never done and we always can grow.  Our message should be for everyone to get the tools of communication, to get to know the people you deal with, to treat everybody with respect and to work cooperatively to create a better world.

This led to a discussion about the importance of living in the present.  Focus on what you are doing.  Focus on the person you are talking and listening to.  Focus on enjoying your life and getting the most out of the moment.  Of course, you must be aware of the future but don’t let a concentration on it rob you of your life.

It was also suggested that we need to give time for kids to process.  The gifted kids’ minds work so fast and deep that unless we give them time and space to think and emotionally deal they will be confused and overwhelmed.

I asked them what the purpose of Roeper was.  Laura responded it was to help people become citizens of the world.  Nancy said it was for the nurturing and empowering of the individual.  Lee added that the final goal was not just for the individual but for the betterment and growth of the community through the growth and betterment of individuals.

Nancy recounted how a student in the 70’s was a super “non-math kind of guy.”  Although people tried to help him develop math skills, they really focused on helping him find what he loved to do and what gave him confidence.  His weakness in math never defined him.  That success came about because of the patience and care of his teachers and that came about because they knew him deeply and authentically.

I asked Laura if leaving Roeper was hard and she said “Yes, at first.”  College was stressful.  People didn’t treat her as an individual and the culture of acceptance, tolerance and knowing each other as individuals was replaced by  sexism and an assumption of male superiority.  But she found comfort in small affinity groups and extracurriculars became a place to fit in.

She appreciated Roeper’s opportunities for her to take responsibility for her education.  She learned how to be accountable for her decisions and how to handle freedom.   In college, other students "went  goofy" as they didn’t know how to control themselves.  Lee added that when he instructed at college he had to teach basic common sense that you would have thought kids would have learned at home or at school.

Nancy opined that we need to always help people to avoid stating things in a passive voice.   Messes don’t just happened.  People cause their problems and people need to take care of them.  There is nothing wrong with mistakes or failure as long as one acknowledges them, learns from them and moves to do better.  She hopes Roeper continues to be a safe place to do these things.

I started our breakfast discussion out with the question:  What do kids in our rapidly changing world need in order to deal.  The Bistaks suggested:

*that the tools of technology should be mastered and never be the masters.  A balance must be achieved between using technology and being a member of a community.  It is not a balance if the technology isolates one.

*the importance of service to other people and greater community needs to be taught through real experiences.  The greater community includes the natural environment that sustains us.  We should never forget that the school was not founded to just comfort individuals but to help them help fight for a better world.

* that a school should challenge when it needs to.  We need to allow kids to rest when needed but never hide.

*we have to keep looking for ways to get students internally motivated and that can be hard and messy.

*kids would be stronger if they knew themselves better and accepted that frustration and doubting oneself are natural and a part of growth.  Failure isn’t failure unless one gives up and/or one doesn’t learn from it.

Linda added that she took her 6^th graders in June to talk to alum Sarah North who works at Google.  Sarah said that Google is looking for people who have a variety of interests and passions and who know how to work with others.

We closed with someone asking why we changed the name to The Roeper School.   I explained that it was a marketing decision to give us a clear brand identity.   I also told that Peter Roeper explained how his parents had named the school City and Country to stress that urban and suburban scope of the school.

Tonight is St. Louis:  Boathouse Restaurant in Forest Park, 6101 Government Dr., St. Louis.  6:00-8:00 on July 25.