Salt... (A Confession of sorts.)

Salt: Years ago I began reading books that would make me a better history teacher. Not just books like What Great Teachers Do Differently by Todd Whitaker (mentioned in one of my first blog entries) or Prentice Hall's Brief Review for Global History and Geography, I began reading books that would teach me more history. My older brother had given me a book, Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky which is a fascinating bend of culinary writing and history.

My Story: I started reading Salt about six years ago—I know when for a specific reason that I will reveal in a moment. I started reading it because I love to cook. I started reading it because I love to eat salty foods. I started reading it mostly because my older brother—whom I have placed on a pedestal all my life—gave it to me. I started reading it because I am a history teacher, and we history teachers read books about history, right? This book has become a bit of a humorous joke in my life, but actually exposes an embarrassment for me as well—I'll address the embarrassing element in due course. You see, Salt was so interesting to me that I began talking about what I was reading to anyone who would listen. It's a side effect of a drive I have to talk through the ideas in my head to "try them on for size". I am told my need to verbalize my excitments can be interesting, odd, annoying, endearing. Maybe all of the above. (It is not lost on me that I am exposing in this post the very impulse behind "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot.") It's just that I have to share even though I am more an introvert than extrovert. It's just the uncertainty... that I need to work through the ideas out loud...

Salt Mine Dining: Wieliczka, Poland

Inside My Head: Did you know that there was not enough salt production in early America such that we needed to secure salt stores with France before engaging England in war? It takes nine months for salt to penetrate the center of a parmesan wheel that sits in a brine bath. Sandwich, MA was the site of a large salt works, but was unable to produce enough salt for the population that was already settled by then. A nasty concoction of food stuffs is added to briny water to congeal a scum that is scraped from the surface to clean the salt bath. There are caverns of salt underneath Europe that were used for recreation and entertainment. And on and on and on...

My Love: I loved the stuff I was learning from Salt. My 8th grade students then—who are currently in their first year of college and thriving despite having me inundate them with with my randomness—stated they loved the tangents that were possible in history class and in my class specifically. They were hungry for anything, everything, and egged me on to prepare lessons that went off the path. They suggested a lecture on salt and cooking. A ha! I knew the trap—get Brother Pete off task and he'll throw his hands around and be the lunatic. But a known trap is no trap at all.—and  so I prepared a single break away class (we were ahead of the other classes by about a day or two in a project that was grade wide) on the role salt played in early American history. It was a really good lecture. The Q&A it spawned was lively. Students thanked me for honoring their request. Real relationships were forged from these side conversations. Several of them still write and visit and the infamous salt class is still a story of humor for us.

My Shame: But the embarrassment. I haven't finished Salt. It's been six years and I am on page 328 of 484 (The actual text stops on 449, the notes add another 35 pages.) My brother teases me, but actually intones judgement in his jests. I think I have lost his respect a bit as I chip away at a few pages each summer while on vacation—my progress as slow as my reading speed compared with other avid readers.

The Full Confession: I am on page 140 of 223 of The Genesee Diary by Henri J. M. Nouwen; 25 of 138 of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (A second reading) by Shunryu Suzuki; 140 of 212 in It's Your Ship by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff; 95 of 212 of Like You'd Understand Anyway by Jim Shepard; 86 of 444 of Manhunt by James L. Swanson. In my nightstand I have "the short list" of books to read soon, some of which include Six Frigates by Ian W. Toll, John Adams by David McCullough, Father Joe by Tony Hendra, The Wrong War by Bing West, and Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham.

The Problem: Don't misunderstand me, please. I finish a lot of books. In the last few years I have digested scores of graphic novels, dozens of science fiction stories, countless news stories. It seems finishing non-fiction, and especially historical non-fiction is a stumbling block for me. I become paralyzed with the potential lesson plan, the impact and method of delivery for my students. The connections and possibilities of the read slow me down to a painful rate of reading, day-dreaming, note-taking, and rereading. I lose the story, obsessed with the lesson, and become bored with the book, or worse, I become angry with myself.

The Solution: And so I began to hide (until today) the full lack of progress I am making on these books (I AM still reading them). I was wallowing in tortoise-reading, but there was a solution, read something else, that I wouldn't feel the need to teach. I ask my students what they are reading, and I read their stuff. It's more fun and I don't get bogged down in the lesson I need to teach. I become the student, and so... I can just read. If they ask me for a book in return, I try to offer up one that is a fair trade. Ah! What fun it is to trade recommendations with them. I have been recently exposed to The Things They Carry by Tim O'Brien, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and last spring The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. Here's a few examples of Maugham's writing that I liked so much:

The Razor's Edge: "That wonderful day, with the brilliant sunshine, the coloured, noisy crowds, the smell of the East, acrid and aromatic, enchanted me; and like an object, a splash of color that a painter puts into pull his composition together, those three enormous heads of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva gave a mysterious significance to it all. My heart began to beat like mad, because I'd suddenly become aware of an intense conviction that India had something to give me that I had to have. It seemed to me that a chance was offered to me and I must ale it there and then or it would never be offered me again."

Larry Darrell is wandering, reading, listening, being. All for some need to find answers to the questions that often have no clear answers. He retreats from the path that was cushily laid out before him as a member of "good society", and follows his own meandering trail. "Almost all the people who've had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance, yet looking back it seems as though I couldn't but have met them."

Maugham places himself inside is own thinly veiled account of Larry Darrell's life (there is much speculation who Larry's real identity is, but no definitive answer). Maugham says, "You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you." To which Larry says, "You may be right. I don't mind if I make mistakes. It may be that in one of the blind alleys I may find something to my purpose."

I know my purpose is, in part, to be a teacher. I know that I meet roughly 100 strangers each year in my classroom, many of whom become my teachers. Although not guiding me as experienced teachers, they are the many blind alleys that offer a few treasures of insight and joy...