My landlord, Mister Rich was contacted by a school administrator to visit a Baltimore City Academy with a language immersion program, to speak to the children on Career Day. I wished him Godspeed and thought to myself, “If this school has to solicit businessmen for this, then they must have an orphaned student body—I better fix him something nice for dinner…”

When I asked him how Career Day went he groaned and said:

“I had twenty minutes, but half of the class got there ten minutes late, so was down to ten minutes, which is fine, because they only have a five-minute attention span.

“One of the boys actually understood my job description as given. The rest just looked at me blankly, so I went about discussing how I chartered my school course to achieve my goals. Again, the only kid that seemed to pay attention was the one who understood what “consulting” means. Speaking of which, despite the fact that this was a language immersion school, none of the kids could answer their teacher when spoken to in the language they had been immersed in. They literally had no English skills and had failed to absorb the other language.

“There was no discipline. At one point, a child that was coming in 15 minute late began to open the door and another one rushed the door—these were both girls—and jammed it shut on her food. This girl’s foot was being smashed in the door and the teacher is telling the interior girl to stop…that was quite a distraction.

“Again, the only kid with a question was the same boy—that kid is going somewhere and I don’t know where—who asked me how much I made. I framed my answer in terms of what people in my line of work make as associates, managers, partners, etc., and I kind of felt sorry for the teacher when her face went blank as I answered the question. The kid that answered it, though, he was happy with the answer.

“It would be nice if the Kid who had a Clue made it out of Baltimore and into business.”