Taking Things for Granted

I taught 9th grade government to kids in an alternative high school for a year. It’s the night school for the kids who’ve been kicked out. For drugs, for fighting. Some of them have jobs and work during the day, some of them have babies of their own they care for. I have students who are under house arrest (one for 2nd degree murder) whose slips I have to sign. Neo-nazis, dealers, users. Virtually every social ill you can imagine, I have represented in my class. It is the modern nightmare distilled into a dozen or so teenagers.

A few weeks ago, I had assigned my class some book work , which they were actually working on. Two students, Cole and Taylor, kept going off task, talking to each other. As long as it doesn’t disrupt the other students, and they continue to do some work, I don’t disturb them. I overheard the following conversation.

“Yo, man, I saw this thing on like the Discovery Channel? Someday, they gonna have a train that goes UNDER the Ocean! You can get from like New York to Paris in like an hour, man!”

“Yo, dude, I am SO hungry! I can’t work, I’m weak!”

“Man, me too. Yo, you know what’d be good right now? Some Chili’s! That’s some good eatin’, yo!”

“Serious! You know what else is good? Chicken nuggets!”

And so on. I was amused at the banter. Then the following exchange made me interject.

“You know what I could really go for, man? Some scrambled eggs! That’s some good eatin’, yo! And yo, check this out, I know it sounds heinous, but check it out, it’s goooood, man! Scrambled eggs with syrup on them!”

“NO WAY! That’s gross!”

“Serious, man, I thought so, too, but my buddy did it, and I was watching him, saying, ‘Ew, gross.’ And he was like, ‘Nah, man, try it.’ So I did, and man, it was good!”

Here is the part where I started talking.“Hey guys, you’ve eaten French Toast, right?”

They stared at me blankly. “You know, French Toast? Like pancakes? With syrup?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, French Toast is just bread that is dipped in eggs that have been whipped up, and then the bread is fried in a pan; if syrup tastes good on that, it’d taste good on just the eggs, right?”

And something miraculous and terrible happened. I saw a light dawn in their eyes. Cole spoke it out loud.

“Ah, s**t man, that IS what it tastes like! No way, is that what French Toast is made of?”

I caught myself nearly asking him hadn’t he ever seen his Mom make it, remembering he lives with his Aunt. It occurred to me, that not only had these two boys never made French Toast, they’d never seen it made. They had no idea it came in any form other than a frozen box.

We spent the next ten minutes reviewing the basic steps for how to make French Toast. Cole promised me he was going to go home and make some. I fear this little knowledge will not be enough to help him in his future, though. But it made me promise myself to remember how much my four year old son loves to help scrambling eggs, and to never, ever chase him from the kitchen again.