Texts:2011 Flâneurs of the Fields (2011): Difference between revisions

<p>For one, the seeds of my theory of education, privileging study over instruction,  were planted during the recreational periods at the school. Soon after we arrived in  Locarno I understood the reason for the second of my interview questions and the good  fortune in my answer. Since I had volunteered competence at water skiing, I  discovered that I was designated a program water ski instructor when I wasn't out on a  trip. And water skiing was the really popular "Swiss Holiday" sport. The next morning I  went down to inspect. The boat was a little under-powered, but I figured that that  mattered only with over-weight novices. The setting was spectacular — the upper end  of a long finger lake, an area about 2 miles by 2 miles, framed by the southern edge of  the Alps, which channeled the winds away from the water, leaving the lake surface  almost always glassy. We were astonished to see the lake edged with palm  trees. Could this be Switzerland? Now, with wealthy masses teaming, all sorts of boats  crowd Lago Maggiore; but then ours was one of just a handful there. We would slalom  to exhaustion in the sunset, a single undulating plume tracing its way back and forth  across the lake.</p>

<p class="cent">Locarno, looking at where the school was</p>  

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<p>Of course, I had never taught water skiing before, and of my own learning, I vaguely remembered that years before I had just sort of taken to it, getting up on my  first try, barely managing to control skis that were a bit too large for my nine-year-old  scale. But no matter. I was now working with another guy my age and we would trade  off, one driving the boat and the other treading water, trying to coach each kid as the  boat pulled them up. The natural athletes got the knack quickly. A few — over-weight, sedentary, endowed with a weak grip — we tried to interest in other activities. Others  we patiently coached — try to keep the skis in front of you, slanting upwards with the  rope between them;— just now, as you rose up out of the water, you were pulled forward in a belly-flop, so keep the skis in front and try to push more of the force on your  arms down through your pelvis to your feet;— you're getting it, but this time you pulled  up too quickly and then sagged backward, so let the boat raise you up and try to keep  your arms bent a little, crouching some so you can respond to the play of forces. Sound  advice, but by itself, not enough. We would have to encourage these kids to keep  trying, and with patience, theirs and ours, generally, sooner or later, something would  click — You did it! — and the kid would have the hang of it thereafter. It was clear to us  that the kids were not really applying our advice, but rather working it out for  themselves, sometimes using something we said as a helpful hint in trying to control  their own bodies through a turbulent transition.</p>