The ice cream women of Seneca County

Little did I realize that a major medical problem experienced by a loved one would result in my writing about a young woman working at an ice cream stand some twenty years later, but such is the joy of the human brain – it can arrive at all sorts of crazy connections. In 2003, my wife began undergoing some major behavioral changes; a resulting MRI detected a golf-ball-sized tumor on the covering of the frontal lobe of her brain – a meningioma. During the time before this discovery, she started having a craving for Oreo flurries, with chocolate ice cream, extra Oreo pieces and three whole cookies on top. The young women who served at that time were curious about my unusual choice; when I explained, they were both intrigued and concerned about my wife's condition. Until and after her successful surgery, the girls were very supportive and kind towards me, and thus began the tradition that continues until this present time. I cannot say enough about the current crop of workers; although they know nothing about why I still order these Oreo flurries, they continue to show the kindness and tremendous good nature that their predecessors did. As I have grown older (and the girls seem so much younger) I have read a great deal about "this current generation" of young people – how they are unmotivated and undisciplined and how they are so into the modern era of the electronic world that they have lost the ability to communicate with others, particularly those of a decidedly older generation. These girls are not like that at all! Thus, I began to wonder; why are these young women so nice? Is it simply a matter of good business – be nice and you may get a decent tip? Be nice, and the customer may come back at a later time, which will improve the business. Be nice and my personal mistakes may be overlooked? Are these girls of Seneca County raised in some special manner or is their behavior indicative of many of this generation? And so, I decided to ask them. Clearly, I am not trying to write a major sociological study: 1) I don't have control groups with whom to compare my SC (Seneca Country) girls. 2) I admittedly don't have a large sample size from which to draw overreaching conclusions. All I have are thirteen nice young women, ages fifteen to twenty, who were willing to answer an extensive questionnaire. 3) I am not a sociologist. Note: Parental consent was given in all cases, and no real names of the respondents are being used; likewise, the ice cream establishment will be known as the Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe. The owner of the emporium, to be known as Ms. X, has been very helpful in coordinating contact with her employees, giving me the history of the Shoppe and threatening the girls with dismemberment if they don't cooperate (the latter is a bit of hyperbole). The questionnaires were divided into six main sections: 1) Education; 2) Social Media; 3) News & Current Events; 4) Social Issues; 5) Religion and 6) General Information. In retrospect, I will admit that some additional questions should have been raised in most of these sections; in some areas, I feel that I have simply skimmed the surface without getting some of the depth I might have wished for. I also feel a great follow-up interview with each of the girls would have been helpful; however, 1) I began this project in mid-August and by the time the results arrived some of the girls had already left their jobs to concentrate on school and 2) I was afraid some of them, as well as I had gotten to know them over the ice-cream season, might have thought it a wee bit creepy to being interviewed alone with an 84-year-old! Education First, all but one of the ice cream workers resides in Seneca County; that one person lives very near the Seneca/Wyandot border. Two of the girls have graduated from high school, seven are Seniors this year, two Juniors and two Sophomores. Nine of them attend city schools (Columbian or Calvert) and two are at county schools. Of the two graduates, one (Tori) is a freshman at The Ohio State University majoring in marketing; the other, Ashlyn, attended Heidelberg for a brief time before deciding she really didn't know where she was going career-wise, so decided to drop out; she is now considering reenrolling somewhere to study psychology. Four of the girls are planning on college but are undecided as to their career goals; Willow and Ari will attend nursing school, Karina wants to study biochemistry at Heidelberg or OSU, Chloe is looking at a career in Radiology/Ultrasound technology while Megan is interested in Medical Imaging. Kennedy and Gwen are both planning on studying Criminology at either Tiffin University or Bowling Green State University while Carolyn wants to attend OSU in political science. I'm struck by the fact that all of these young women are continuing their educational pathways but I am not surprised. Over this past "ice cream season" I have been impressed by how bright and articulate these workers are. Having retired from forty-two years of university teaching, I have a pretty good idea of who will be a good college student; I would bet that these girls will do very well in their post-high school studies. I then asked the girls to list their three favorite classes followed by their three least favorite. The results are interesting, especially when compared to national averages. First, 8 (62%) of them listed at least one art course (art, ceramics, sculpture, painting) as one of their favorites – no one listed art as a least favorite class. This is not surprising; national surveys show that art in some form provides the most enjoyable and stress-relieving classes in the curriculum. A major surprise was finding that 6 of the 13 students list some form of math as a favorite (46%). Nationally, math (algebra, geometry, pre-calculus) rank as the least-liked courses in high school; in fact, Algebra I is the most failed course in the nation! Now, this does not mean that all of the ice cream girls like math; in fact, 7 of them (54%) posted math as a least favorite activity. Among other classes that were liked were history (4 or 31%) and English (again 31%). One student each voiced an approval for sociology, Chinese, Honors Chemistry, Criminal Justice, Religion and Publications. The question then arises, why do students like a given class? The answers vary but are what we would expect. In general terms, the classes hold a specific interest for the student or else the teacher is successful in conveying the excitement of his or her subject matter. In most instances, the latter was true – good teaching is critical to driving the interest of students. There is absolutely no question in my mind that teachers are among the most important job holders in the nation – likewise, they are the most poorly paid for what they do. Disliked classes? Well, one somewhat disgruntled student reported that 90% of her classes were bad! It did not surprise me that along with the 54% who dislike math, we also had 6 students (46%) who dislike science. Unfortunately, I did not ask the girls to be more specific: "science" could be biology, anatomy, chemistry, physics, environmental studies or some other specialty class. My guess is that the math-based sciences such as chem and physics were the most disliked while biology would be loved by all (you can infer from this that my forty-two years in the classrooms were spent teaching a variety of biology courses! Other classes that were awarded the red-ink trophy were: Spanish (3), Anatomy (2) and one each for English, chemistry, choir, business, yearbook and "Skills for Life." A very important question that should be asked by high school teachers is "do my courses help students make career choices?" When this question was asked of the students, their answers split pretty evenly. Seven of them (58% - 7 of 12 since one student didn't respond) stated that classes definitely inspired them in a career choice. When you look at their earlier responses we see that one student (Gwen) listed criminology as her favorite class and she plans to major in that field in college; another student (Carolyn), already enrolled at OSU in political science stated that Government & Politics was her favorite class, while Chloe listed anatomy as one of her best classes and a deciding factor in her pursuing radiology and ultrasound technology as a possible career. Other students had a more negative view of their high school studies (42%). One stated that she was "not inspired" by her school days, while another reported that "classes didn't help at all." There is a direct correlation between academic success and extracurricular activities. As stated in a University of Bridgeport study: "Exercise of any kind can increase blood flow to the brain, which helps the body build more connections between nerves. Moreover, by strengthening these connections, individuals see increased concentration, enhanced memory, stimulated creativity, and better-developed problem-solving skills." Our young women were no exception. Eleven of them (85%) participated in athletics, with most of them engaged in two or more sports. Highest on the list was volleyball (5), cheer (4), basketball (4), track (4), softball (3) and one each in tennis, swimming and soccer. Nationally, 42.9% of high school girls play at least one sport; our select group of girls were well-above that average. Non-athletic activities were also very important to our responders. Four of them (Tori, Karina, Kayle and Sidney) are members of the National Honor Society, and I am certain that several of the younger girls will soon be elected to that group. Four are members of their Student Councils (Carolyn, Tori, Kennedy and Gwen), while others are active in Key Club, Class Officer, Yearbook, Biology Club, Teens for Truth, the School Musical, SADD and Teen Court. All this does not surprise me. I have come to know these girls as positive, outgoing and well-spoken. They are the type of students, male or female, who will be class leaders. I then asked the girls if, during the course of their high school experiences, they had ever experienced negative inputs such as bullying or physical, emotional or sexual harassment. Of the twelve who responded, ten stated they had no personal experience with it though several "hear about a lot of it." One girl said, "No because I don't let people walk over me." Good attitude. The other two students had experienced harassment. One told me a brief story that concluded with the words, "It hurt." The other said she had suffered "a lot, over a boy and her body." Obviously, bullying and harassment in any form is an affront to all of us – except to those doing it. Personally, I hate answering the kind of question I next asked the women: "Where do you expect to be in 5 years? In 10 Years?" Why do I hate answering questions like that? Well, as mentioned previously, I'm 84. You can draw your own conclusions! Anyhow, in five years the answers were pretty straightforward. Nine said "in college" while 4 said "finishing college and looking for a job. Going along with the trend of young people getting married at a later age, I thought it interesting that none of the young women referred at all to marriage or family. At the 10-year stage, that changed, although 9 still focused on a job with such comments as "enjoying my career" (Carolyn), "working my way up" (Tori), "An amazing job" (Megan), "being a nurse" (Ari), "working as a dentist or pediatric oncologist" (Karina). Pretty impressive group, I would say. Three (Gwen, Sidney, Kayle) combined job and family with Gwen stating, "hopefully still working in my dream career field (Criminology) married and possibly starting a family" while Kayle wants "a steady job and being married with one kid." The final question I threw at the young women was: "Were you and your classmates encouraged to be politically aware? Aware of LGBTQ+ issues? Aware of current Global issues? Very briefly, 11 of the girls (85%) stated "current events were well covered," "very much so," "yes, kept current," "Yes, in history & government." Of great interest is that all eleven of these responses came from city schools. The comments of the two girls at county schools were, "issues not talked about," "no one talks about these things." This I find rather sad. But again, remember that this sample size is very small. Earlier, I mentioned a question about dealing with bullying and harassment. I believe we all realize that a large part of that involves online activity, so the next major area of questions dealt with the students' social media experiences. Editor's note: This is part one of a series of several parts.