By Laurie (Curry) Molnar
Meadville Tribune
MEADVILLE —
Recently, we parents were invited into my son’s third-grade class to describe an event or a person who was critical in our lives. This was part of the class’s unit on “Personal Stories,” of which there are many, in his diverse school in Geneva, Switzerland, where we live.
I entered the class with a rough outline of what I wanted to say and a bit of fear that I would bomb in front of 24 third-graders. The hero of my story was Mr. John Foster, seventh-grade geography teacher for countless kids from Meadville. This was the story that I told the kids:
“Sometimes your favorite and your best teacher isn’t the easiest one or the sweetest. Mr. Foster was a large man with a loud booming voice. He would step out of his classroom, located in the dark, bomb-shelter basement of our junior high, and he would bellow, ‘KIDS, GET TO YOUR CLASSES!’ His deep voice rattled the lockers, all the way to the end of the hall. And we would scurry to our classrooms.
“Mr. Foster wore hiking boots to work, brown pants, and a flannel, checkered shirt.”
At this point I drew a cartoon of Mr. Foster on a white board for the kids to see. I depicted him in horn-rimmed glasses and with slightly spiky hair — I couldn’t totally remember what he looked like in detail. It’s been quite a while.
“We kids didn’t understand how anyone could wear the same thing every day,” I continued. “We were very into fashion — this was 1985 and Madonna’s song ‘Material Girl’ was the most popular song. Picture me with an asymmetric haircut and wearing 30 jelly bracelets and parachute pants. We eventually understood that Mr. Foster had five pairs of the same pants and shirts: He just had better things to do than to choose a different outfit every morning.
“Mr. Foster traveled a lot in his free time and he would enhance the discussion in our geography class about rivers, borders and capitals, with stories about places that he had been. I still remember how he told us about his trip across the Soviet Union in a train. He showed us some very grainy slides — he was not allowed to take pictures from the train, but he had managed a few. In the Soviet Union, people had to wait in lines for the most basic things. When you went to a public restroom, a little old woman sat at the front of the door and for a coin she gave you one square of toilet paper.
“These were the kinds of pictures and ideas that actually stick in a seventh-grade girl’s head,” I explained. “Mr. Foster’s travel stories opened up a mysterious world for me. I remember thinking: What kind of place was that where you are not allowed to take pictures? Only one square of toilet paper? Really?”
America, state by state
“Mr. Foster’s class was very difficult. We studied world geography, of course, but we focused the most on the United States. We had to know all of the major and minor rivers and the Great Lakes. The hardest thing we had to do all year in Mr. Foster’s class was the Outline-of-the-United-States Test.”
(At this point in the discussion, I drew the rough outline of the United States for the kids on the board.)
“We had to pencil-in by ourselves — without looking at anything — the shapes of the 50 U.S. states and label their capitals. We also had to label the major rivers and lakes.”
The kids gasped. That sounded real hard. Ms. Lew, their Japanese-Canadian teacher, acknowledged that was pretty hard-core for seventh grade.
I continued on about the Outline-of-the-United-States Test: “I studied for a very long time for the test. I used up lots of paper while I practiced outlining the 50 states. Mr. Foster taught us several tricks. You could use the word HOMES to remember the names of the Great Lakes.”
I wrote HOMES on the board, and with the help of several students in the class and Ms. Lew, we came up with the names: Huron, Ontario, Michigan ...
“When the day came for the test, I was ready. California, Texas and Maine were my anchors. I started with all of the little tiny states in New England so I wouldn’t forget them all. Then I drew out from Texas and California and filled in the middle. Things got hard in the Midwest, where there are lot of borders and states to remember. Once I got the magic 48, I filled in the capitals. Then it was easy finish by drawing and labeling Hawaii and Alaska off to the side.
“I tied with another student, Elspeth Seddig, for the best grade on the test. We were the winners of the geography contest. Mr. Foster presented us with a prize in front of the whole school on the stage in the assembly hall.”
I asked the kids: “Any guesses about what prize we got?”
The kids’ hands shot up: “Money? A medal? A certificate?”
“No, a road map of the United States, of course,” I answered. “Then, since I was the grand-prize winner of the roadmap, my dad said that any time we were in the family car, I was in charge of reading the map and giving directions. Since my family liked to travel, from then on, I did a lot of map reading.”
I continued with my tale:
“Years went on and I was ready to graduate from high school, and I had decided that instead of going straight to college that I would be an exchange student.”
I paused my story to talk for a few minutes about what being an exchange student means. Several kids were very curious. They knew all about living in foreign countries since most of them came to Geneva from somewhere else, but they said that it would be much harder to do it alone — without their parents.
I agreed, but said that when you are 18, you might just decide to do it. I continued my explanation, “Well, I applied to the exchange program and had an interview and they accepted me. They asked me where I wanted to go. I was studying French so I said France. They offered me two countries — the part of Belgium where they speak French, or Yugoslavia. They gave me only one day to decide. It was the spring of 1990. I didn’t know much about Yugoslavia.”
At this point in the story, I drew a map of Europe and the kids helped me label some countries, Switzerland — easy; Italy — the boot. I showed them where the Balkans are in Europe.
I asked, “How can you find out more about a place if you need to?” Hands shot up.
“There was no Internet back then,” I insisted. A few hands drew down.
“Go to the library?” suggested a toothy, brown-haired kid.
“Correct,” I told him. “My dad and I went to the Allegheny College library to get a book about Yugoslavia. Back in those days, when you checked out a library book, you signed your name on a card in the back of it. When I opened the book and turned to the card in the back — who do you think was the last person who had signed out the book?”
“Mr. Foster!” asserted a long-haired Indian girl named Aayush confidently.
Time for advice
“Exactly,” I smiled. “Now, you’ll remember that I was a little afraid of Mr. Foster in the seventh grade and I hadn’t talked to him since, well, the geography awards ceremony five years earlier. But I picked up the phone and called him and asked him for advice. It turned out that his son had recently been traveling in Yugoslavia. He said the following to me: ‘There will be other opportunities in your life to go to Belgium.’ I found this hard to believe, since at the time, I was going to be the first person in my family to go to Europe who was not sent there with the United States Army! But Mr. Foster insisted, ‘Yugoslavia is a very different place that you may not ever have a chance to go to again. You will learn more there.’ I took his advice and became the first American exchange student to Yugoslavia from the Rotary Club.”
I explained further, “Maps continued to be important in my life. While I was in Yugoslavia, the country split up and the map changed. My college essay, written from Zagreb, Croatia, about the war that was starting there, helped me to get a scholarship to college. So Mr. Foster had given me very good advice; I learned quite a lot in Yugoslavia.”
Using a TRUMP card
“Several years after that, I entered graduate school — Russian studies. And the world map had changed again in the meantime. No more Soviet Union. The mysterious country that Mr. Foster had described way back in seventh grade, Russia, was still occupying my imagination. To pass my exams in graduate school, we had a very difficult geography test. We had to take a map of Russia and label the Oblasts and Autonomous Okrugs and their capitals. Those are sort of like states, but in Russia. Everyone complained about this exam. But I was thinking no problem, I did this kind of stuff in the seventh grade — and look on the bright side, we don’t have to draw in the shapes of the states this time! I found myself using Mr. Foster’s tricks again to memorize the areas for the example. I used TRUMP — to remember Tatarstan, Republic of Chelyabinsk, Udmurtia, Mari El, Permic Republic.”
“Did you pass?” the students asked.
“Oh, yes,” I assured them.
“And now,” I continued, trying to wind down the story, “I still think about maps all of the time because I work in international trade between countries.”
At first, “trade” was a hard concept to get across to Ms. Lew’s students, but we started in the natural place: Pokémon cards. Then we moved to “what things do people buy from Switzerland?” Easy — they nailed that one in seconds: chocolate, cheese, watches and army knives.
I asked them: “How about from your home countries, what are things that people make or grow in your country that they might trade with other people?”
“Footballs,” said Christopher from Michigan.
“Sushi,” said Aki from Japan.
“Little Eiffel towers,” said Luca from France.
A quiet Chinese-looking girl named Kummi raised her hand and said, “I am from Mongolia, and Mongolia exports copper.”
If I were the teacher, she definitely would have been my pet. Then Ms. Lew’s students wanted to know what was copper used for so we had to talk about electricity. A little boy from Malawi named Andrew asked if I had ever been to his country. I said no and he insisted on showing me where it is on the globe, breaking up the international trade game, but that was just fine.
New ‘Foster’ children
Mr. Foster would have really liked these kids. I thought we were about done, but they didn’t. They still had lots of questions about Mr. Foster:
“What happened to Mr. Foster? Did he become the principal?” they asked.
“No, I think he continued teaching,” I answered.
“Why?” they persisted, as third-graders do.
“I guess he really liked seventh-graders and geography,” I suggested.
“Was he right; did you ever get to go to Belgium?,” they asked.
“Yes, many times,” I answered.
Then came a hard question: “Did Mr. Foster know that he was so important in your life?”
Awkward adult pause, then my answer, “Well, no.”
“You never told him this story?” They were a little surprised.
I tried, “Well, life gets busy and …”
But they interrupted, “Where is he now?”
“Mr. Foster passed away a few years ago,” I explained as gently as I could. Quietness settled in.
Then toothy Christopher broke the silence with a declarative statement: “You should have told him your story.” Ms. Lew nodded in agreement.
I thanked the kids for their attention and all of their questions. I had survived Parents Tell Their Personal Stories day.
Every once and a while, USA Today or another newspaper runs an article about a study showing how terrible Americans are at geography and how most of us can’t find Japan or Iraq on a map. I say Mr. Foster only had one year to shape us — in the seventh grade — and the impression that he left on some of us is as vivid as a relief map of the Colorado Rockies.
Molnar graduated from Meadville Area Senior High School in 1990.
