Thankfully I'm not dreaming about school yet.
That tells me I'm getting too consumed with the small things. The great thing about August is that there is time to go about doing this at a fairly reasonable pace.
It's now the part in the scheme of planning where I make a giant list of everything, absolutely every thought, however it comes to me. I was completely rigid about how and when I'd think about teaching in years past when August rolled around. No longer. It's the only time of the year when pure lackadaisical thought is king.
Now when ideas come to me, I am much kinder to them, and much less rigid about it all, and it's a natural and relieving thing to see what has made its way to this big list. I see that I do know what I am talking about and begin the process of organizing it and making it better again. Because of this, I've been lately inspired by a hodge podge mix of things through history and things in the world now. So I'm sharing a little of both.
I just made a power point based off of the book Back in the Day: 101 Things Everyone Used to Know How to Do by Michael Powell. I was so drawn to this book because it describes methods for living in a daily life that we don't have. I am always referencing these skills in order to make history approachable. We don't have or require the same skills today to keep pace with modern life when compared to people in earlier times in history.
People today don't always necessarily know how to thatch a roof but back in the 1400s, you'd better hope people were dotted throughout the population who had that skill, otherwise your existence would be dismal and muddy (more often than it had to be). Things like plowing a field, fighting in a duel with pistols, defending a castle, felling a tree properly, treating people with leeches and maggots. You can see a theme here. People were teaching each other survival skills. It was pretty important to know how avoid the boiling oil in a medieval skirmish or you wouldn't make it out of it.
Can you imagine what a person from the 1400s would do if they saw the workings of a toaster? Or a computer? Or a car? I don't want to even get started on history's perspective on tanning beds. I think the common person from that time (not the visionaries who probably predicted these things, but everyone else) would completely unhinge. My history teacher in high school asked us once if we knew how to describe the workings of a toilet. He posed the question that if time travel was really possible, would we be able to head back to an earlier time with an appliance and actually explain it?
Kind of. But not really.
Specialized skills now abound but he was making the point for general intelligence of people in this time period. He also asked us to think about what future societies might say about America in the year 2000. Yikes.
I am truly impressed by the things people used to have to do because in this current 21st century existence (and with my limited strengths regarding mechanical handiwork) I know this is no place where I'd excel. At least not naturally. People worked really hard to eke out a living. I'm sure I'd make do, but it would be rough going for a while.
 |
| A medieval doctor (complete with the beak full of herbs to avoid the stank of the times) |
One time in class were discussing medieval medical practices and it was pretty grisly. Salt in head wounds? Amputations with a sharp ax? The account of dental work that I encountered had its own special cringe factor as well. When we got an account from a Muslim doctor, one of my students had to put her head between her knees in the hallway. Oops.
I'm sharing it here. I don't think it's overwhelming, but what I have learned in my second year of teaching is that a heads up about what is coming is appreciated by most of the class.
“They brought to me a knight with a sore on his leg; and a woman who was feeble-minded. To the knight I applied a small poultice; and the woman I put on diet to turn her humour wet.
Then a French doctor came and said, "This man knows nothing about treating them." He then said, "Bring me a sharp axe." Then the doctor laid the leg of the knight on a block of wood and told a man to cut off the leg with the axe, upon which the marrow flowed out and the patient died on the spot.
He then examined the woman and said, "There is a devil in her head." He therefore took a razor, made a deep cross-shaped cut on her head, peeled away the skin until the bone of the skull was exposed, and rubbed it with salt. The woman also died instantly.
I asked them if I was needed any more, and when they said not I came home, having learned of their medicine what I knew not before.”
Usama ibn Munqidh, 'Autobiography' (c.1175) (Usama ibn Munqidh was a Muslim doctor)
Here is another account of the things that were suggested by an Italian doctor. Whenever I read things like this, it is very evident to me that America really is a society based on rational and scientific thought and that people have learned much more about the human body since the 1200s.
“When you get up in the morning, stretch your limbs, so that the natural heat is stimulated. Then comb your hair because this removes dirt and comforts the brain.
Wash your face with cold water to give your skin a good colour and to stimulate the natural heat.Clear your nose and your chest by coughing, and clean your teeth and gums with the bark of some scented tree.
Exercise in moderation, because it is good to be tired; it stimulates the natural heat.”
Taddeo Alderotti, 'On the Preservation of Health' (13th century) (Alderotti was an Italian doctor)
So, I've learned distinct lessons. History is brutal and it can be seen, but there's also a time to move it right along, which I am doing now towards a topic that is not as gross as salted head wounds.
When reading Powell's book this morning, I learned the most about how to care for a man's powdered wig. We've all seen pictures of men through certain centuries in history looking dignified and untouchable in a formally coiffed and perfectly centered wig. I think it's so dramatic and silly, and yet, the dignity is what they were looking for. Now in America people want to stay young, but the powdered wig tells us citizens of the past were anxious to be seen as advanced, accomplished and wise.
I cannot imagine how disgusting it must have been to wear one of these wigs. Here's why....
(from Michael Powell's book...)
Louis XIII of France first started the fashion for men wearing elaborate wigs in 1624. Here’s how to tear a strip off French royalty.
Pick a budget
17th and 18th century wigs came with big price tags. The economy option was horse or yak hair. The human-hair wig often cost as much as the rest of the wardrobe put together.
Pick a color
By the 18th century, fashion dictated that your wig must be as pale in color as you could make it. This meant wig powder, and lots of it. The powder could be colored shades of white, purple, blue, pink , or yellow.
The powder was made from potato or rice flower, with ochre or soot for coloring. It would have been set into an oily base material known as pomade. The pomade would help your wig look shiny, but it stained any clothing with which it came in contact.
Pick a scent
Wigs were generally not washed. Powder scented with lavender or orange oils would have been essential to help cover up the odor.
Pick a length
In the early 18th century, the longer your wig, the more ostentatiously you would be displaying your wealth. Short wigs were a sure sign that you were a tradesman, unless you wore a bobbled wig, in which case you were most likely a clergyman.
Used or new?
Infestations of lice would have been a perennial problem. There was no effective way to rid your wig of them. The only option was to tolerate the situation for as long as possible, then sell the wig and get a new one.
There was a roaring trade in second-hand wigs, as these were the only affordable options for the lower-classes – lice and all.
What's funny about this right now to me is that at some point in the future, there will be a very direct need for me to open this power point and explain the structure of these realities to students. I anticipate interesting conversations, and a fixation on how gross having lice can be. There will inevitably be a person who wants to tell a story about a time when they got lice when they were little (if they are socially confident enough to want to do this) and that they didn't get to go trick-or-treating when they were six.
People start to get sickened and unruly with kind of grossed out looks on their faces, and there's always someone who rises out of the masses to serve as a human thesaurus, thinking up all of the best synonyms for lice. Colleagues teaching English would be proud.
Then other people want to add something about a family vacation where they think they heard someone talking about how they had lice and they almost got everyone infected at a restaurant. Just rambling stuff like that. At this point, I will, again, move things right along.
Lice are completely disgusting to me as well. Sick. I have to move on and I need to be current.
Last week when I spent time at Augsburg, I watched something online about art critiques. There was an emphasis on a pattern of formal questioning that draws out every student. We watched this too because Alston was known for having a very difficult time in school, and it was the first time his teachers saw him interacting with something in a meaningful way. I like his honesty and his shock that art could be all about chickens.
Last week at the conference we also spent time discussing historical texts. It was hard work to mine through all of those sources and interact with them. Intellectual discourse takes skill and focus and courtesy and intention. I learned good skills and worked with people who were impassioned about teaching and the world. Teachers are an interesting breed. They like to communicate and see possibilities and perform and they also sometimes need to get in a last word. They are used to being listened to and in control if they are worth their salt. So, the dynamics were pretty amusing sometimes and I learned again the value of being teachable and having a different lens when you see someone else's side.
We studied The Four Freedoms painings by Norman Rockwell, which were painted after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. They directly relate to a speech that was given by FDR to the American public and the free world in January of 1940, when everyone had eyes trained toward Europe and the Blitzkrieg in London. I love Norman Rockwell. This week if I got to invite anyone in history to a dinner party, I'd invite him. Here are his interpretations of the Four Freedoms. Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom of Worship.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom from Want
(Do you see Rockwell in the corner?)
Freedom from Fear
Freedom of Worship
Another thing, completely unrelated to history but inspirational too, was seeing 'The Rainbow Connection' sung by a little boy playing a ukulele on a beach. I think what is striking about this little kid is that he acts so removed and focused while singing. He doesn't look at the camera, and you can tell he really loves the song. It's so GOOD to be able to see people doing things they care about and are good at doing. And it's especially sweet in an 8 year old.
I'm closing this post today adding some of the best quotes I've been inspired by in the last week.
"Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety." - Rene Doumal
"A (success) = X (work) + Y (play) + Z (keep your mouth shut)." - Albert Einstein
"Like all weak mean he laid exaggerated stress on not changing his mind." - W. Somerset Maugham
"True creativity often starts when language ends." - Arthur Koestler
"Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations." - Deborah Tannen
"Life loves the liver of it." - Maya Angelou
AND....
Last of all, I have been inspired again by Matilda by Road Dahl. It's a quick read, and Road Dahl writes like a man who understands how to write like children think. I love books like Matilda, George's Marvelous Medicine, and The BFG. Reading this book is a walk down Memory Lane. Revisit books from your own Memory Lane too! It is, after all, the magical month of August, and there is probably a porch or shady spot in the grass waiting for you and that book somewhere in this inspiring world.
No comments:
Post a Comment