Savages and Beasts

excerpt

The savages continued their education under the austere
eyes of their teachers who wouldn’t tolerate disobedience of any
short like water flowing in a ditch, indifferent whether dirty or
not, and these kids learned new things the Anglos thought would
turn them into good obedient citizens of an about to be formed
nation for now existing in its infancy yet claiming that it was
on the right path. Needless to underline the fact that when one
tries to harness nature one is due to fail such is the insubordinate
essence of the cosmos and such was the insubordinate nature
of these Indian children who, not only they turned obedient by
force but they also learned to dance the polka.
Indeed the dance teacher of the facility had the epiphany
to turn these brutes into the cosmopolitan Europeans just as her
societal friends were and as such no dance should be unknown
to them let alone polka. Perhaps the epiphany that struck the
dance teacher informed her that these kids could one day, as
undoubtedly as expected, dance in the famous dancing halls of
France or England, such was her fervor to prove this was possible,
needless to say that the epiphany proved to be as foolish as the
dance teacher.
And the Indian kids endured it and again and again they
tried to fit their free flowing feet in the narrow minded shoes
suitable for the dance floor, such was the lunacy of the system
which believed that a small saddle could fit on the free back of a
wild horse, or the free sky archon could be enclosed in the yard
of one and only one house, the Christian House of the Lord into
which these teachers insisted to follow their absurd goals.
“Rebecca hasn’t yet learned to tell the difference between
her right foot and her left,” the dance teacher would say for the
poor girl of fourteen whose face would turn red in embarrassment;
needless to say that the plan was doomed to fail which …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

He Rode Tall

Excerpt

The bad news was that he was a graduating
class of one. As limiting as that sounded, it really wasn’t such
a bad deal. Sure, a school with only two teachers may not have
been a world-class source of education. His teacher, Mr.
Johansson, who taught all of the subjects except music to the
ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students, was actually
not your regular country teacher. Mrs. Mayne, who taught all of
the other grades plus music to the older children, was pretty
much what you would expect of a country teacher. Nice lady. A
very nice lady. But other than the two years she spent in
Missoula at the teachers’ college, she wasn’t exactly what you
would call worldly, by any means. She was caring and compassionate,
which were wonderful qualities for a little known teacher
in the country. Mrs. Mayne had come from the community; her
parents had run the post office and general store in Willow
Springs for years. After graduating from high school, Mrs.
Mayne, who was Miss Sally Saturna back then, headed off to
receive her teacher training. Then she returned to Willow Springs
to do exactly what she loved to do the best. Teaching youngsters.
Along the way, she had married Mark Mayne, the county agricultural
crop specialist who she had met and then dated at college in
Missoula. Together, they had two little girls that would soon be
starting school.
Joel’s teacher, Mr. Johansson, was a very unusual man. Tall.
Gangly. Maybe six foot six but not weighing anymore than 170
pounds, he was always dressed formally, as if he was lecturing at
a university. There was no doubt that he was very smart. Some
say that he was so smart that he had won fellowships at university
and had actually taught at university for a number of years.
Joel had heard that Mr. Johansson had a master’s degree in engineering
from the University of Michigan, but he had never heard
that directly from the teacher. It was just what others had said. A
lot of people wondered why, at forty-some years of age, the very
private Mr. Johansson was teaching high school in Willow
Springs, Montana, but no one asked.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

Excerpt

When Ken was eleven he agreed with his mother out of
simple curiosity to know what went on behind the doors of St. Julian’s,
where the children of the privileged boarded and a few, like him, attended
as day students.
He was enrolled in a class with boys his own age. On the first day he
walked into the classroom and before he could look around to find a seat
the master said, “Aha! Master Kirkby! I see you have now condescended
to visit us. Come and stand before the classroom and let us take a good
look at you.”
Ken walked to the front of the room, holding his head high. A tense
silence filled the room as the other students stared at Ken and then at the
master.
He sat when he was told to and looking up focused on a triangle the
master had chalked on the blackboard. “Master Kirkby,” the teacher said.
“Do you have any idea what that is?”
“No, Ken said. “It’s a drawing of some sort.”
“When you refer to teachers you call them sir,” the master said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well what kind of a drawing do you think it is?”
“It’s an abstract and beyond that I have no idea, sir.”
“That is called a theorem. It is Pythagoras’ Theorem and it’s very important.”
“Why is it important, sir?”
“Without knowing geometry and mathematics we couldn’t have the
world we have.”
That struck Ken as being a particularly absurd statement. The world,
he thought, has nothing to do with Pythagoras. Fish don’t know about
Pythagoras and they live their own perfect lives. Only people think it’s
important, he reasoned.
The master asked a student to come up and demonstrate the theorem,
solving the square of the hypotenuse by adding the sum of the squares of
the other two sides.
“Now Master Kirkby,” the teacher said. “Would you care to come up
here and do that?”
Ken went to the front of the board and started to work out the numbers
from the opposite end. It couldn’t matter which way you did it, the
results would be the same.
“No,” the master said. “You have to follow it exactly as prescribed in the
book. This is how you do it.”
“But how are we going to find a new theorem or a new thing if we
simply follow what has already been done?” Ken asked.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573