Ava Cashman: What is your favorite restaurant in West Hartford or the local area?
Catherine Schieffelin: West Hartford is tough because it’s so hard to find parking. When I do come into West Hartford, I think my go-to is Savoy or Max Burger. I love Savoy because I love pizza, it’s got good drinks, you can bring the family and not feel like a jerk bringing kids to a restaurant. And it’s just fantastic. I love that place. The Betty Ravita pizza is my go-to—it’s the one that has the fig and hot honey drizzle on it. So Savoy is probably my go-to, but I’m a big, like, takeout person, hang out on my couch with my family and just do takeout.
AC: Favorite TV show?
CS: That’s tough because I watch a ton of TV. In the past year. I really got into “The Bear,” which I love, on Hulu. I love “Succession,” which was an intense show, and probably one of the best shows that’s come out in the last five years. I was really into “Reservation Dogs,” also another Hulu show. I actually just finished one called “The Gentlemen” on Netflix. It’s a Guy Ritchie show—he did the movie “Snatch,” he’s British, he has a really kind of quirky fun style, great dialogue, the characters are complicated and weird. I always love “Arrested Development.” Love “Veep.” I go back to “Seinfeld.” Those are the ones that I love just kind of watching on repeat.
AC: What is a quote that you live by?
CS: So, right behind you! That one there by Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” I came across it in an article or an essay written by Jonathan Safran Foer, who was the Symposium author that I brought in. And he wrote this piece about the attention deficit in our world today, as we’re drawn more into our devices and how challenging it is to have really genuine conversations and connect with people, especially strangers. And so he had quoted her in that and I feel like I live by it. I put it up there as a reminder just to constantly be paying attention and to be listening to people and to be open and to be looking for those connections.
AC: I think especially as a journalist that would apply, because the job is to listen to and hear people’s stories. And then, do you have a favorite KO tradition?
CS: I love Class Night. Class Night is always fantastic. Every year I’m blown away by what the seniors share with us the night before they leave. And there will be kids who come out of the woodwork and you’re like, “That person does dance?” or “That person has this amazingly insightful thing to say about their experience at KO?” or “This person sings? Why have they not been involved in singing groups at KO?” So it’s this wonderful kind of love fest, for the class, for the teachers who are supporting the kids. I just wish more people saw it, that more people went to it. But I also appreciate the intimacy of it, that it’s this special event for the whole senior class, for the juniors to see, and then for families and faculty too. So I love Class Night. I do love the tradition of the KO News seniors deciding the next year’s staff. It’s a task where students are really put in that role of making huge decisions and also delivering those decisions to underclassmen. I think that can be a really difficult thing to do, but I think it’s a nice kind of role and responsibility for students to take. I love ushering seniors through that process and new kids onto the staff. I’d say those are probably my two favorites.
AC: If you could only take three things to a desert island, what would you bring?
CS: My three family members will be one. I’d bring my dog, because even though she’s a pain in the butt, she could maybe help us on a desert island. So Stella the dog will be invited. I’d take my twins, and I’d take my husband, that’s number one. If they count as my three, I’ll just take them. If I can bring other stuff, I’d bring a Kindle that has thousands of books on it that’s solar-charged, just that I could be constantly reading. I’d bring a deck of cards, like, we play a lot of cards in my family, so something simple like cards.
AC: What is a film that you could watch countless times and never get tired of?
CS: That’s also an incredibly tough question, because I teach a film class, and every year I ask the students to come up with a list of their top 25 favorite films at the beginning of the course and at the end of the course return to it. And so I’m constantly updating my list. Every time I’ve taught this course, I’ve been updating my list. There are a lot of movies out there that I love but aren’t the rewatchable movies you know? I mean, I love the movie “Parasite,” but I’m not gonna sit down and rewatch “Parasite.” But I love it. It’s a masterpiece of a movie. The one that I probably have just watched the most, that I come back to every single year, is “It’s A Wonderful Life.” It’s a holiday movie, it gets shown on TV around Christmas time, but it was the movie that my parents watched with me when I was a kid. It was this tradition—we’d watch it every year—and I’ve watched it probably 35 times, and I never get sick of it. It’s got so many wonderful characters in it, from George Bailey to his wife, Mary. It’s all about giving as much as you can to others, and in the end, that’s the only thing that matters, right? Like even if things get really really bad, as long as you’ve dedicated your life to helping other people, you’ll be saved in the end. So I love that movie. I showed it to my kids for the first time this past year, and my daughter loved it. My son was like, “Eh, okay.” I think it’ll grow on them as they get older. So that’s definitely my most rewatchable movie. I love Wes Anderson movies. Like I saw “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and it just hit me at the right time in my life. And even though I don’t know if most people would consider it a very rewatchable movie, I love it. I go back to that one a lot too.
AC: What’s one item in your office here that you can’t live without?
CS: My computer. It’s my life. The actual answer is my computer because I do 90% of my work on it—that’s not true, like so much of my work is done in the classroom with kids, but I’ve gone completely paperless in my classes, and so everything is on the computer. So, if I didn’t have it, I’d have to completely change the way I teach.
AC: What song would be the soundtrack to your life?
CS: Also an impossible question! I love music, and I love listening to music. My husband and I, the thing that drew us together when we first met was music. And the first time we were actually hanging out, we got into this crazy Beatles conversation. We looked up, and everyone else had gone off and done other things, and we were just sitting there talking about the Beatles, and the whole world had disappeared. We’ve always loved talking music and listening to music together, so for our wedding – and this was back in 2010 – we created this playlist. I must have given out CDs to people, and we came up with specific songs that were really important but also had a kind of ‘wedding feel’ to them. At each of the tables, we had a different album cover, so I’m constantly thinking about music. For different parts of my life, there have been different songs that have kind of captured the moment. Our wedding song, the one we danced to, was “Sweet Thing” by Van Morrison, and I feel like that’s just such a beautiful song. It’s got the refrain where it says, “I will never grow so old again,” and how love will keep you young. It was this great message. So we danced to that, and I love that song. And the song that I think of a lot as a mother, that kind of stage in my life, is “Sons & Daughters” by The Decemberists. It’s bizarre. I love the Decemberists. They’re this very literary, quirky kind of folk rock band. They have this song called “Sons & Daughters,” which I think is actually about people resettling after a nuclear apocalypse. It’s all about how we’ll all come to this new shore and we’ll resettle and life will be wonderful after this devastation. But, it is highly singable. It’s got singing in the round. It’s a song that I played for the kids when they were young, and they loved it. They used to go to the University of Hartford magnet school, and so I’d always always drop them off and then come over to KO in the morning. And I just have memories of driving them there and listening to that song, and everyone’s singing their different parts, and it’s great because I have a son and a daughter, and it’s just really joyful. For some reason, I think of that song as kind of that next period of my life. As they get to be teenagers, I don’t know what my song is gonna be. Who knows.
AC: As an English teacher, you explore a variety of topics, from literature to film to print journalism to podcasts. Across all the classes you teach, what lessons or outlooks do you hope students take away from your classes?
CS: So I put this Susan Sontag quote up, it hangs on my wall, and I feel like it kind of encompasses what I want students to get. It says “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager,” which I love. It came from a commencement address that she gave a number of years ago, and I love that motto of just pay attention, be eager, don’t let life make you complacent. To be open to things coming your way, and be passionate. If you’re thinking about any of the classes that I’m doing, with podcasting, with films, with stuff we’re doing in English class, just kind of being open to learning. It was almost going to be my commencement message last year. I was throwing around a bunch of different ideas, and one of them was just the art of listening and the art of paying attention.
AC: If you could host a podcast on any topic of your choosing, what would your dream podcast sound like?
CS: So you’ve listened to some of these podcasts that I love, because in a class I teach I’m just going to give different models of things that I think work. So I feel like my podcast would either be a really research-heavy podcast where there’s lots of interviews that you’re doing around one big question or topic. Like a “Radiolab” or “This American Life,” where you’re talking to lots of different people and trying to get different angles and perspectives on one thing. There would be lots of different people that I’d talk to, and it would bring in many voices. Or, something like the first season of “Serial.” I felt, in Sarah Koenig, a very kindred soul. And I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just because I’m a middle-aged woman and I like the way she does journalism. But again, it would be a lot of conversations, a lot of research, and interviews. I don’t think I would be very good at just, like, a sit-down interview with a celebrity. That’s not me. I’m just not a great conversationalist on the spot, so I feel like I’d love to do hundreds of hours of recording of interviews and then edit it together in a really creative way.
AC: What’s your favorite thing to do on a day off?
CS: Sleeping in late, if I can. Drinking lots of coffee. Reading a book with some coffee. Playing some New York Times games on my phone. And then going for an afternoon hike with my family. That’s my ideal day. It’s pretty easy.
AC: As the faculty advisor for the KO News and thread, what do you enjoy most about working with student journalists and bringing publications to life?
CS: I love the relationships that I form with students. You get to see them in such a different way when they’re really driving the production of whatever you’re making. I love the student choice, and I say this to the KO News staff every year, that the paper is what you shape it to be. But there are no rules saying that the paper is always going to be this way or have these sections. New people bring new ideas and change the form of that publication. So, for example, your “18 Questions.” Someone was asking the other day, “Who’s going to take over and do 18 questions after Ava’s gone?” and I was like “I think maybe you should!” And we didn’t have a reviews department before Jaden DiMauro decided to bring that in. And it changes, it morphs, some things stay the same. But I love the way that students bring their voices, their opinions, and their passions into publications, whether it’s the paper, whether it’s thread – like you created it from nothing. So being in the role of advisor where I can just support, providing some structure and some guidelines, but really letting students take the lead – I love that.
AC: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
CS: I don’t really remember any special words of wisdom or advice that anyone gave me. What I remember is just the people that kind of served as mentors for me. I remember them and their presence and the way that they listened and the way that they asked good questions and helped me figure out what to do or helped me be more self-reflective. I have these wonderful memories of these people, but not necessarily the words of wisdom. I feel like sometimes the best guides or the best mentors or people that impact you are the ones that don’t tell you what to do or give you the advice, but the ones that help you discover it yourself. That’s why it was so hard for me to write a graduation speech, because I’m like, “What do I have to say?”
AC: If you could teach a class at KO on anything, what would it be?
CS: The thing is, I’ve had so many opportunities to teach what I want or to take something that I love and create a course out of it. And I’m really lucky in that. So I was like, “I love film, and I’d love to teach a class on that,” and they were like, “Great!” Or Mr. Kyff was stepping down from journalism, and I was like, “Wow, this seems like a big undertaking, but it seems really fun,” and they were like, “Great!” With teaching creative nonfiction or teaching podcasting, there was just the support to do that. So I feel like I already teach the things I love. It would be fun to do something like a music and poetry class. To bring in my passions for music, and I don’t even know what that would look like, but analyzing different songwriters throughout the years. That could be really cool. Although, I feel like I’d be stepping on Mr. Jones and Mr. Baker’s toes a little bit because they’re the music history experts.
AC: If you could bring in any author, journalist, songwriter, or podcaster to campus for a KO symposium, who would you invite?
CS: Also a very hard question. I always keep the Symposium question on my mind because I don’t know when I’ll do it next. But it’s always fun to think about it. I love the writer George Saunders. He’s up at Syracuse, and he’s just a brilliant writer. He’s really quirky, he’s a teacher, he’s humble, he’s funny. He’s written a range of different things, short stories, a massive book called “Lincoln in the Bardo.” It’s part history, part play – really creative storytelling. I recently have really gotten into this author named Rebecca Makkai. She wrote this book called “I Have Some Questions for You,” and you’ll understand why I like it when I tell you the description of it. So it’s about this woman who went to a boarding school – I think in New Hampshire – and was a little bit of a fish out of water there. And during her time at that school, her roommate was murdered, so she carries with her this trauma from high school. She, in her midlife, is a mother, but she’s also a podcaster, and she does a podcast on film. She gets invited back to this boarding school, to do a winter term class on podcasting and to work with the students on podcasting. So she goes back to the school, and while she’s there, the students are real go-getters, and one of them says, “I want to investigate the death of your roommate way back in the day in the 90s.” And so she supports the student to kind of dig into the murder of her roommate. They thought that the case was closed and there was someone who was imprisoned for the murder, but there was more digging that had to go on. So it’s fantastic. I love it. She also wrote an earlier book called “The Great Believers” about the AIDS crisis in Chicago, which is really interesting, and it moves back and forth in time. Both of her novels do that – the ones that I’ve read, they move back and forth between either the 80s or the 90s and the 2000s. So cool. So Rebecca Makkai would be great. She actually is married to a guy who teaches at a school that one of my college friends works at, so there’s a loose connection. I would love to bring her on campus. I think she’d be really interesting and students would love the books. They’re super readable.
AC: For all of us Wyverns graduating this year, what is one thing you wish you knew before heading off to college?
CS: There’s so much I wish I knew. I wish I knew that sometimes it takes a while to find your people. It’s such an exciting new chapter, and you’re off on your own and really feel independent, for a lot of people for the first time, which can be kind of scary, too. I’m also kind of an introvert, so I had a hard time when I first got to college, just being as open but also as patient as I would have been if I went now. Knowing that it’s okay if you don’t find your people immediately, and to be patient and just be open to lots of opportunities. I wish I had done more in my freshman year. It took me a little while to get comfortable and find that.
AC: What celebrity, fictional character, or public figure would you want to be best friends with?
CS: Sarah Koenig would be pretty cool. I’d love to have just, like, a meal with her. I feel like Greta Gerwig would be really cool. Oh my god, lunch with Greta Gerwig would be the most insane experience. I love her movies so much. She’s probably one of my favorite directors working right now. The character in “I Have Some Questions for You” could be an interesting fictional character, her name’s Bodie Kane, she’s the one who does the podcasting and film. She would be fun.
AC: What’s the best advice you would give your high school self?
CS: I stressed a lot in high school. I mean, I still stress. I think I’m less anxious. But I think if I could go back in time, and just talk to myself, I’d say – it’s so cliche – but just don’t sweat the small stuff. That life is much bigger than this. It’s hard to get outside of your own bubble and your own experiences. But I would just say don’t stress so much. Work hard and throw yourself into the things that you love, but don’t stress too much.
