At Age 23, My Little Stalingrad

By M. GARRETT BAUMAN

COMMENTARY

When I taught my first community-college class in 1971, the United States, as it is today, was bitterly divided over a mismanaged war, new cultural values were ramming into old ones, and our sense of community was infected by ideological hatreds. There may be a lesson for us today in my experience as a naïve 23-year-old entering that classroom of mostly criminal-justice majors in Rochester, N.Y.

For nearly 30 seconds, they listened respectfully as I outlined