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As it turned out, the threat was a hollow one. In Grade 9 at Glebe Collegiate, I was allowed to fail spectacularly in every subject except English, where I distinguished myself by getting 50 per cent on the nose.
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What was wrong with me? I knew in my heart I wasn’t dim-witted and I wasn’t without ambition. But I couldn’t memorize.
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The principal of Glebe, a progressive educator, W.T.D. “Chubby” Atkinson, broke the rules of the Department of Education and allowed me to advance to Grade 10 in one subject only, which was unheard of at the time. That bold move saved me from the skim milk spout. It was 1949. I was 14.
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Meanwhile, my working-class buddies dropped away on schedule and my friends whose parents were educated glittered on with continuing success. The school system was made for them. The teaching methods were tailored for them. Our teachers were moulded in these same schools.
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The emphasis was on remembering the facts and parroting them back.
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I envied my friends who could easily memorize the material and pass the exams. Why couldn’t I do that?
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Then, a defining moment. It arose over the famous explorers. We had a test on the Spice Trade. We had to draw the voyages of three explorers, label the countries they came from, name their ships, date the voyages and destinations.
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I couldn’t remember any of it and got close to zero. Less than I got the year before on the same damn test.
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Spices. There was something blocking me. It turned out it was the Why. Why did these men risk death by scurvy, starvation, shipwreck, drowning, being gobbled up by cannibals, just for NUTMEG?
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Why were bags of CLOVES worth more than bags of gold?
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There wasn’t a word in the geography book about WHY.
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WHY all the fuss over nutmeg and cloves?
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After school, the geography teacher, a man with a voice like a chainsaw and burning eyes and boozy breath, swore me to secrecy and told me the answer.
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Turned out that rich people liked cloves and nutmeg, specially cloves, for two reasons; ONE: spices were rare; TWO: spices made women feel AMOROUS.
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I can still see his bleeding eyes and hear that voice.
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“Cloves!” he rasped. “Cloves made them HORNY! Do you understand? And you didn’t hear it from me. Now get out!”
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I knew exactly what he meant. I was 14.
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That’s why Magellan, Vasco da Gama and the rest risked so much.
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The WHY changed everything for me.
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Now the facts made sense and I didn’t have to memorize them.
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I KNEW them. I wrote the test again and passed. Today there’s less emphasis on being a parrot. They’re trying to tell them WHY. Good for them. But they’re not trying hard enough.
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And they don’t separate people into skim milk and cream any more.
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But (I risk stretching the metaphor here) they’re still furiously turning the handle.
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