| 3/13/2008 10:28:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | The Beat: Doctors, foreign exchange, school food and early release
Monroe school board member Dr. Mary Frantz, along with her husband Dr. John Frantz, are featured in a new book called "White Coat Wisdom" by Stephen J. Busalacchi. The book is a compilation of interviews with extraordinary doctors discussing their profession and why medicine is more than just a job.
The Frantzes, both in their 80s, are truly remarkable physicians. Both have a long-standing dedication to their patients and to their community. They continue to practice - for $5 per hour. As Dr. Mary explains in the book, she would rather work for free, but the insurance company requires they be paid in order to receive benefits.
The chapter on the Frantzes is an interesting read - they discuss medical school, their careers, raising their family, their time in the Peace Corps serving in Afghanistan, their views on health issues such as drinking diet soda, smoking and the lack of exercise most of us get, and their community involvement.
The book is published by Apollo's Voice in Middleton. For more information, or to buy the book, visit www.apollosvoice.com
• One of the panelists for last week's World Languages Week forum at Monroe High School hit the nail on the head in describing the benefits of spending time in a foreign country.
"It's something that you will always have and always remember," Adam Welander told the assembled foreign language students.
He's precisely right. Studying, working or traveling in a different country is one of the best experiences a young person can have.
It opens your eyes and your mind and in the end, makes you a better American. It allows you to meet people you would never otherwise encounter and find out how truly good and generous most folks really are.
It forces you to get out of your comfort zone and deal with the unusual and sometimes difficult situations that will inevitably arise - like, what do you do when you're 17, traveling with a friend in Italy, don't speak Italian, and through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, end up outside a locked train station in a small town on the coast of the Mediterranean at 2 a.m. with nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go. (And in case you're wondering, we slept on the train platform, using our backpacks for pillows with the sound of waves lapping nearby, until daybreak, when we found a police officer with whom we could patch together a conversation using enough French, German and English to explain our predicament and who helped us find a room to rent.)
Yes, these experiences are something you carry with you, and remember fondly, for the rest of your life.
Kudos to the foreign language department for organizing the forum. Anything our schools can do to encourage more "worldly" experiences for our students will benefit them tremendously in the long haul.
• An interesting tidbit from the AP wire this week: An eighth-grader in New Haven, Conn. was suspended, banned from a dinner for honors students and stripped of his position as class vice president for buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate at school.
Apparently, the New Haven school system has a zero-tolerance policy on sweets. The district banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a school wellness policy.
Wow. It's great that a school district wants to encourage healthy eating habits, but this is pretty extreme. Maybe a detention would have been a more fitting punishment?
And maybe the district should examine what it's serving in its food service program instead of coming down so harshly on some pubescent kid with a sweet tooth. The district's breakfast menu, posted on its Web site, lists some questionable breakfast fare in terms of nutrition. Strawberry Pop Tarts? High sugar cereals like Cinnamon Toasters, Apple Zings and Tootie Fruities? You may as well dump some Skittles in a bowl and pour milk on them.
When you read wacky things like this, it makes you appreciate the Midwestern, common-sense approach that - for the most part - prevails in our area's school boards.
• Monroe school gets out at 1 p.m. again on Friday so fans have time to make it to Madison to see the girls basketball team play in the WIAA state semifinals.
Go Cheesemakers!
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