Creating Context
by Tim Horn
I could never live in a truly tropical location. I have so many friends who dream of retiring to a place where palm trees and coconuts are plentiful. They wish to lie underneath an open warm sky feeling the breeze come off the ocean smelling the salt air knowing they’re only a few yards from cool refreshing swim. I don’t want you to misunderstand or incorrectly infer that I prefer living in an igloo somewhere in the Yukon Territory, but that is not my dream.
There’s a lot to be said for living in the balmy climes of a tropical paradise. With that in mind, I have spent time in Florida, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. My memories of those places are pleasant enough; but they’re not particularly memorable or newsworthy.
When I reflect back at my most pleasant memories of life in truth they rarely have to do with the place they occurred. Nonetheless somehow the background location that silently modified or shaped the pleasant memory has become ingrained in my subconscious mind has one of the reasons those times were so pleasant.
I suspect it’s the same with anyone. While I truly enjoy music, is not a defining factor in my life. When I watch movies though there frequently is the obligatory scene with the young dramatic man newly married remembering the music that was playing when he fell madly in love with his beautiful bride.
The whims of the disc jockey helped create a trigger that could be easily associated with that wonderful memory. Thinking about that now I realize there is some music that brings those feelings to me today.
My wife and I have been married nearly a quarter of the century. Our wedding was designed precisely the way we wanted.
There is no head table where the bride and groom sat separate from their guests. All the guests were seated around tables with two seats left empty. After the ceremony my wife and I went from table to table meeting the people who were sharing a special day with us. Many of my friends she had not had the opportunity to meet and many of her friends were strangers to me. As I went from table to table I began to learn more about my wife from when she was young and the people she brought into her life.
During that time I’d been doing a little bit of theater and was a member of the Maryland Renaissance Festival’s cast. The creativity you use when all you have is a thin storyline and your imagination was truly energizing for me. One of the most pleasant aspects of my time with the festival was listening to a group called the Pyrates Royal. They sang shanties and old folk songs, the sort of thing that had always been a passion of mine. On this day though they were my guess, I made a relatively firm request asking them not to sing. I was sincere and had done it because I wanted them to realize the people they were as friends superseded my thoughts of them as incredible performers.
Despite my admonitions, my dear friend Brad Howard brought them to the front of the room and they sang. It was glorious. I think they realized, all of them, that while their singing was wonderful their presence there was the true gift to my wife and me.
You may ask what this has to do with context. I can no longer listen to them sing without being transported back to that small hall in Fairfax Virginia. Their singing there on that day created a special context for me whenever I hear them.
We never do anything more than once. Each time you eat a piece of pizza; each time you hit a home run; each time you hold your newborn child in your hands is a singular and unique experience that you may attempt to re-create.
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Each one of these adventures creates a context to be applied to all the ones that follow that are similar or even nearly identical.
As I was growing up in upstate New York, I knew in the dead of winter if my mother or father slipped off the road into a snow bank they would never have to wait for the second car to come by and help. The first car that came by always stopped.
When I grew up in upstate New York, every Sunday I family would drive to Morey’s Cider Mill where we would buy a gallon of fresh cider and one or two dozen cinnamon doughnuts. To this day, I love cinnamon donuts but they never will taste that good again. The context of safety and satisfaction were created in those early years.
That is context. As I bring a warm fresh cinnamon doughnut to my lips, I mindlessly compare the taste, texture, and flavors to those I had the first time in my old home. Interestingly enough, my wife graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst. Massachusetts. In the past several years I’ve come to understand the educational model that Hampshire has created. Their motto, Non Satis Scire, to know is not enough was an interesting thought the first time I heard it. Having studied Latin with Jane Hall at Fort Hunt High School, I knew precisely what it meant, however; that indeed was not enough.
When my wife went back for the 40th anniversary of the college’s opening we spent time with the students who were there. The college has many amazing alumni. Artists, scientists, actors, filmmakers, lawyers and doctors have gone from the school and made a positive impact in this world. The students I saw in the four days we spent there created an indelible context for the phrase, Non Satis Scire.
The driving force that resonated throughout the campus was the feeling that each one of the students was following their own path. Because each one of them was moving in their own direction their passion for learning could not be denied.
The college is part of the five-school consortium and the students were allowed to go to any of the other schools to take whatever class they felt would allow them to feed their own individual desires.
There were no grades but each student had to demonstrate mastery of arts, sciences and humanities through projects that were evaluated by their professors. Within five days, the four I spent there and the day driving home, I realized what education truly should be.
By taking what someone loves and allowing them to study it in detail you could preserve the innate curiosity that exists in all of us. The projects that had to be done were informed through the individual student’s initiative. While the project may not have been directly related to what they were studying their passion created the context.
My wife and I went to visit one of her old professors. As we were there we discussed how the school was progressing after 40 years. Much to my chagrin he mentioned that the students were not the same as they had been 30 years before.
The schools they had gone to in preparation for college had taken from them the innate spark and passion that should’ve sustained them at a wonderful school like Hampshire.
To this day that small liberal arts college in Amherst has one of the highest acceptance rates to Yale Medical School. Nonetheless, the students were not the same quality as those who would walk the campus 30 years before.
On the drive back to her home in Virginia, I realized that every teacher, every parent, every administrator, every school board should attempt to create students who could thrive at Hampshire College. Students whose passion for learning creates its own individual and unique context that be applied to the world around them.
As for me, those four days created within me the context of what true education is. That is the passion I follow to this day.
On a side note, they have a small farm shop Atkins that has the second best cinnamon donuts I’ve ever had.
