MEMOIRES OF A TRAVELHOLIC
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On the last day one of my male students went to visit one of his new friends, via the rooftop entrance. When he stepped from the roof into the room, he needed to find a place to put his foot for stability. He chose the top of the toilet in his friend’s bathroom. The toilet was old and broke from the foundation. Of course, the students weren’t going to say nything about the broken toilet, but the maid reported it to the front desk which immediately notified the teachers. Now here is the problem. Was my student totally responsible for the accident or was the student in the room equally responsible because he had invited him to enter via the rooftop? The hotel didn’t care who was responsible as long as someone paid for the toilet. So our last night in Paris was spent negotiating the price of a toilet instead of going to he “Drug Store”. My student had money in his Emergency Fund, but the other student was really “broke”. After we finally negotiated the best price for a toilet, the other teacher involved loaned her student half of the money to be paid, and I deducted the other half from my student’s Emergency Fund and paid for the balance. This whole procedure took the entire evening, and all the students who were not involved could not go out of the hotel unattended. All the students in both groups were really penalized since they spent the entire evening sitting in a boring hotel lobby waiting for the problem to be solved. Good-bye “Drug Store”, Hello “Boredom”. Traveling with students means that you t they are up to. You can barely close your eyes to sleep.
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About the Book
Dr. Kuhn has written a book about her life and travels as a foreign language teacher. In essence, it is a book of memories, autobiographical in nature. She describes many of the 45 trips in detail, but she also groups many of the trips togeher. In 1973 when she began taking students to Europe, she had a good background of working with students and knowing how they think and act. (or so she thought) There is an interesting list of things to take, where to put the items, where they can be bought and the prices of the items. There is also a list of personal rules and regulations that were required of all students. They were called Mademoiselle’s Rules or Mlle’s Rules. Then there is a comprehensive list of Trip Procedures, giving all the do's and don’t's of traveling. Students were allowed to "sample" beer and alcohol as long as their parents had signed a permission slip, but students will always try to outthink the teacher and circumvent the procedures. Dr. Kuhn describes many of the things that went wrong on both student trips and adult trips, along with things that didn't seem funny at the time, but in retrospect seem humorous today.
About the Author
Dr. Kuhn started out her career thinking that she would like to be a wholesale model. She tried that for 3 months working for Guilbert Originals in Chicago. Then one day it dawned on her, "What would she be doing at the age of 45?" Deciding against a life of modeling, she chose to pursue a career as a foreigh language teacher. She has a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Cincinnati, a Masters Degree, a Specialist Degree, and a Ph. D. all from Miami University, Oxford. She taught English, French, Russian, and Spanish at Fairfield High School. She was also Head of the Foreign Language Department. She began traveling in foreign countries in 1958 and completed 44 trips to Europe, the Near East, Africa plus a trip around the world. In 1973 she decided to take her students to Europe during the 10 day spring break. When she retired in 1992 she took up knitting and specialized in Modular Knitting. She had 9 of her modular knitwear designs published in InKnitters Magazine until it went out of business. She then turned her attention to decorating ready-made purses by attaching her modular designs to the purses.She published her newly decorated purses in a book, "Pursnicketies - A Modular Knitwear Experience." She now gives workshops on how to use modular knitting to its best advantage.