Let Me Tell You a Story 1 – A Singer of Songs

If I have any credence at all, it’s because I won the heart of of the most beautiful woman in the world; fathered six great children; and I am by both nature and profession a teacher. Or to borrow a quote from a great old movie  Spartacus (Kirk Douglas, Stanley Kubrink and Dalton Trumbo – 1960)  – “I am a singer of songs – stories.”

Portrait of Louis Agassiz by Antoine Sorrel

Here is a story or song –

My speech teacher, Dr Royal Garff told me this story forty years ago.  Dr Louis Agassiz (English /ˈæɡəsi/; French: [agasi]; May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was an amazing man. As Wikipedia will tell you – he was an Swiss-American natural historian and the father of the “Ice Age,” but more importantly he was an amazing teacher.  He loved to teach people how to learn – To ignite minds.

Dr. Ahassiz undertook a personal campaign to popularize the art of scientific thinking – Empiricism. He felt that God needed help, and that an inspired teacher could set a spark that would set a dormant mind on fire (He and Sam Levenson [See First Blog] would get along, wouldn’t they?).  He felt true learning was an active “hands on” experience.  It was not enough to read about it, it had to be lived.  He wrote, “If you study nature in books, when you go outdoors, you cannot find her.”  In his mind there was a sense of learning and a sense of having learned.  The inspired mind knows when it has answered the questions — an now knows.  Perhaps an example of Ahassiz’s method would help.

Dr. Agassiz’s quixotic quest to enlighten minds took him throughout much of the world.  And one night, after his lecture, he was gently accosted by a lovely; little old lady who lamented her lack of education and opportunity. The good doctor believed wholeheartedly in his doctrine of enlightenment and assumed it was for everyone,  He looked at the aged, but eager face before him, and said, “Madam, what do you do?”

Sien, Peeling Potatoes
by Vincent van Gogh 1883

She explained that she was single and worked as a kitchen helper in her sister’s boardinghouse.  She further explained that her principle task was peeling potatoes and chopping onions.

Now Agassiz knew that intellectual wastrels rarely asked sincere questions and the yearning to learn in the eyes of the little “potato peeler” assured him his effort would not be lost. 

Learning begins with questions, not with answers.  How many people do you know who don’t want the answer because they haven’t asked the question, yet? Agassiz taught by generating questions – creating empty places, vacuum in minds that could be filled.

“Madam, where do you sit when you peel your potatoes and chop your onions?”

“On the kitchen stairs.”

On what do your feet rest?”

“On the glazed brick.”

“Madam, what is glazed brick?”

“I don’t know.” All She knew was peeling potatoes and onions.

For fifteen years she had sat with a question under her feet. Learning and escape comes from questions. Here was something she didn’t know about and Agassiz promptly admitted his ignorance, too. Then he threw down the challenge, “Madam, here is my card. Would you kindly write me concerning the nature of glazed brick?”

In every case the true teacher does two things: First, the teacher always demands that the student do their best. The second theme is the teacher has a remarkable confidence in the learner’s capacity to achieve. Teachers who do this are always remembered by name and by specific examples of how they taught confidence — not facts — confidence – new revelation of who you are as a possibility.  Agassiz helped his student discover a question.  He expressed his interest in the question, and his confidence in her ability to answer it.  Finally Agassiz step back and let “her” discover in her own best way – the  answer.

The ramped up potato peeler followed the usual route: dictionary, then the library, I guess it would be Google or Wikipedia now, but the answers she found were too shallow. She dug deeper. She defined and refined her definitions, going to museums and checking out books on geology.  Her quest, finally,  took her to a brickyard.  She had spent her time with books, now she wanted to get her hands on real bricks – nature, outside. At the brickyard, she met a watchman, a real expert on bricks. Slowly, but surely, the vacuum in her mind was filled.  The question answered.  She evolved into an expert.  She wrote a thirty-six page article on the subject and sent it to Dr. Agassiz.

Back came a letter from her mentor:

Dear Madam:

This is the best article I have ever seen on the subject. If you will kindly change three words marked with an asterisk, I will have it published and pay you for it.

The changes were made.  Dr. Agassiz made good on his promise, and along with a check for her article came a simple question, “what’s under the bricks?”  Her answer was simple, “Ants.”

She began to study ants like she had studied bricks. As Lord Chesterfield said, “There are no uninteresting things; there are only uninterested people.”  She became an expert on ants too!  She produced 360 pages of capable research — a book.  This effort was published too, and the monies she received freed her from those kitchen steps.  She said a thankful “goodbye” to her bricks and said “hello” to a world of experience.  She flew on the wings of answered and unanswered questions… 1.

What’s under your bricks?  What part of the universe do you hold in your hand? Could the answers to your yearnings, capacity and dreams be right in front of you, in your hand or under your feet.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, We will fall!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.”

― Guillaume Apollinaire 2.

1. Retold – From Royal Garff, You to can Speak, Salt Lake city: Wheelwright Lithographing, 1966.
2. Guillaume Apollinaire a turn of the century French writer and Art Critic.

These two Ted Talks by Brene Brown are 20 minutes each, but her observations on the risks of sharing, I think are worth your time. You decide.

Here the Teddy Roosevelt Quote –

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910