Saturday morning we heard some great news and our buttons are popping. Our grandson, an MD in his second year of residency at County Hospital in Milwaukee, spoke at a conference of doctors this week in Chicago. He is going to be an Ophthalmologist. He showed a video of him doing an eye operation. The operation was videoed by his twin sister who is a video specialist working with the National Autism Society.
The video was shown on facebook, but it is not for the faint of heart. There was quite a bit of blood and cutting an eye isn’t exactly pretty. There was also a picture of the 10 speakers at the conference, and my grandson was the only American. The other doctors were mostly of Indian descent and some wore turbans.
Talk about proud grandparents and parents, their mother was in the hospital three months for them with a difficult birth. I always thought foreign students were smarter than our students but she says that is not the case. Our grandson has studied every possible moment for the last 10 years. His mother, a school teacher, says that our kids are just not willing to work that hard.
That brings up the question, are our schools teaching the importance of contributing to society, or just what are our schools teaching? Are they teaching respect for others, and being cognizant of times that they can help others? These things can be more important than readin’ and writin.’ I am amazed, though, that when I approach a door with my walker, quite often a young person appears from nowhere to open the door.
As you get older these things seem to be more important, and knowing how to do calculus becomes less important. Young people will never learn these things unless we make a conscious effort to teach them. I often think of a baby as a blank slate. We teach them everything they know. Way to go Amanda and Adam, we are so proud of you. What good looking young people.
PS: I shall never forget seeing an Indian man and his 12-year-old son talking as they were shopping together at Christmas time. You could just see the affection and respect, they had for each other.
—James Neuhouser
