Textbooks

As my mother read aloud, the words leapt off the page, transformed into heroic imagery.

“Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,

With all the speed ye may;

I, with two more to help me,

Will hold the foe in play.

In yon strait path a thousand

May well be stopped by three.

Now who will stand on either hand,

And keep the bridge with me?”

These lines, read to a five year old from Poems for the Lower School, were an inspiration. Despite them being clad in dull olive brown covers inscribed with “Stuart Martin, NTHS, 1919 ” What a glorious introduction to the world of textbooks which I came to hate! Apart from a Geography of Canada textbook with it’s coloured maps and a photo of the Venetia Group which showed Pine Island in Lake Rousseau where we stayed one summer, the rest were either deadly or just plain pitiable.

So 27 years after my rapt engagement with Macauley’s Horatius, I was faced with a dilemma. I was forced to name a textbook which my students in an education course would be required to buy. Recommending books to others to read is one thing. Forcing them to buy a book is quite another.

The criteria came to mind quickly though. A volume that would likely resonate through time. With interesting and rich insights and provocations to haunt the reader. A reasonable price. And pertinent to the themes of our course. The chosen book was a paperback anthology with essays by the likes of Northrop Frye, Marshall McLuhan, and Siegfried Giedion, who for some reason always wanted to be known as S. Giedion.

I hope the students kept the book and read it again when exams where over and essays handed in. Maybe their children will be inspired by Jacqueline Tyrwhitt’s description of a visit to Fatephur Sikri. And at very least, if they still have it they will find that their $2.00 investment is now selling at the online bookshops for $25.00.

Joy

Not the kind that is “to the world” and sung by choirs worldabout at Christmastime. The personal kind. To be experienced as a song welling up inside oneself. Yesterday the first notes came when I sat down in the bus. Almost across from me were three young children. The little girl with her father, and the two boys with their nanny.

The older boy caught my attention immediately with his curly hair, clear bright eyes, and loving kindness to his young brother sitting in a stroller. The little girl was full of mischief and good humour. And the father was in animated discussion with the nanny.

As we moved along from stop to stop the five of them were blissfully unaware of all but their own good fellowship. In my imagination I pieced together the relationships. The older boy and the girl had obviously been buddies in a day care or entry level school class. The group had met by chance on the bus. The father and nanny were immigrants I would guess. He of Asian descent, and she with roots in Africa.

The little one sat enchanted with the chatter, laughter and actions of big brother and friend. While the two adults enthusiastically swapped experiences about their journeys to this foreign shore.

French, English, smiles and laughter mingled. And joy was no abstraction. It was bubbling up within.