Education -
Real life - My favourite memory
I attended the Barrie
School in the Washington, DC area from 1948 when I entered as a toddler
through my high school graduation in 1963. I later had the privilege of
serving as the school's Headmaster for 22 years. Founded in 1932, Barrie
is one of the best known and most highly regarded Montessori schools in
North America.
Among all the day's I spent
at Barrie as a student, one stands out as the most vivid.
It was May of 1954, the end
of our fourth-grade year in which our teacher, Hazel Small, had gotten us
so excited about Greek and Egyptian mythology that we could barely talk
about anything else. She arranged for a special experience to tie our
study of the Iliad and Odyssey together. We left Fern Place early in the
morning and drove to Annapolis, where waiting for us in the water was a
replica of an ancient longboat with fifteen burly men at the oars. It was
as if our dreams had come to life. We were ushered aboard and cast off for
a day under the bright sun pulling at the oars beside these wonderful
sailors. With Miss Small's guidance, we watched how the waves affected our
progress and experienced a delightful rest from our labour when the wind
set the sails.
It took almost no effort to
imagine ourselves aboard an ancient ship, off to a fantastic adventure.
Late in the afternoon, we pulled up on a sandy beach and unpacked a dinner
right out of the Iliad: a roast of lamb which we rubbed with garlic,
herbs, and olive oil and set upon a spit over the coals. As the sun set,
we ate our feast slowly with spring onions, pita bread, grapes, honey, and
feta cheese, and we drank grape juice from leather wine skins. As we sat
by the fire, Miss Small stood beside us, dressed in a beautiful white
cotton robe with a full hood that framed her face in the firelight,
playing the role of an ancient story teller.
As she softly recounted the
familiar words of the Odyssey, we felt a direct and powerful connection
with the far distant past. Don't tell me that history is not alive! I've
sailed a long ship across wine dark seas and sat at the foot of Homer's
daughter and heard her tell the tales of great men and women, gods and
goddess.
That moment in my life and
others just like it will stay with me always. At Barrie, learning for me
was more than repetition of facts. It was an adventure that sparked my
imagination and set in motion a quest for knowledge that has become an
intrinsic component of the adult that I am today.
by: Tim Seldin
Courtesy of www.montessori.org
|
