Johann Sebastian Batch

Here's another story from my 10th hour Writer's Workshop class. It shows how out of touch our young people are today when it comes to cultural trivia.

So we're reading a poem, "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes. The students read it once on their own. Then I ask them if there are any words they didn't know and we clarify. In terms of the language, this is pretty straightforward poem but I ask all the same.

Me: Are there any words you're not familiar with?
T: Yeah, what's batch?
Me: Batch?
T: Yeah.
Me: (Thinking "I don't remember reading that word in this poem and shouldn't a senior know
what batch means?") Where is that word? What line?
T: (He reads the line) Bessie, bop, Batch (In the poem, Hughes was referring to the types of records he likes to
receive as Christmas gifts).
Me: Oh, that's Bach. It's pronounced Baa -k. He's a composer. You've all
heard of Bach haven't you? (Blank stares) You know, like Mozart or Beethoven?
Class: Oh.

I left it at that. Hopefully they know what a composer is, or they'll think Bach was St. Bernard like the one in the Beethoven movie.