Curiosity Killed the Cat
Posted: Thursday, March 27, 2008
by Sharri
dancing leaf
A Fairy Tail
"But why should I WANT this?" asked King Kris, examining the flat, plastic-wrapped square of yellow. "I mean what IS it?"
The peddler man looked at him with crafty bright eyes. "Ah! Your Majesty has not come across the miracle of DAFT cheese slices before?" he cackled. "Only think what pleasure awaits your taste buds!"
"And," continued the peddler, flinging wide his leather case, "with every pack of Daft cheese slices, I am giving away these beautiful cards with pretty pictures in glittery paint, ABSOLUTELY FREE!"
"They ARE nice," agreed the King, turning the card so that the light caught the glitter. "Free, you say?"
"With every pack of DAFT cheese slices," the peddler re-iterated, offering the small plastic packet to the King. "They are absolutely perfect for making sandwiches; quick and easy! lay them between two slices of bread and send the kids off to school with them!"
"Skool ?" echoed the King, with a puzzled frown. "What's that?"
The peddler stared at him. He felt weary. He had struggled over the almost impassable Tailor Mountain which separated the two kingdoms, in the hopes of opening up new markets. And now he seemed to be getting bogged down in having to explain even the simplest terms. "School," he said patiently. "The place where you send children during the day."
"The meadows to play?" hazarded the King. "The market to trade? The fields to help their parents? The library to read?"
"No, no, NO!" said the peddler, a tad more impatiently. "The building where children go all day to be taught."
"Tort?" queried the King.
"Where children are taught to read!"
The King looked around at the little princes and princesses who had gathered curiously around him. "Children do learn to read," he agreed simply. "But they don't have to go anywhere to do it. Nobody has to tort them."
The peddler glared around him at the happy children with rosy cheeks and bright eyes. "You meanthey don't GO to school?" he asked disdainfully. "They just run wild? But how do they learn?"
"I suppose," said the King, carefully considering the question. "I suppose they tort themselves."
"Wellhow do you know if they learn enough?"
"I'm sorry?"
"How do you test their knowledge?"
"Test them? Why should I want to do that?"
"To make sure they have learned enough."
"Why I suppose if they found that they needed to learn something new they would just go and learn it, wouldn't they?. How do I know what they need to learn? That's their business."
"Oh, but in my country," exclaimed the peddler, "in my country, the teachers DO know what the children need to learn. And how much they should know, and how they should learn it."
The King stared at the wizened peddler man in the grey garb clutching his leather case. "What things must the children learn?" he asked in bewilderment.
The peddler drew in a long breath. "All our children are taught maths," he said firmly. "Fractions, decimals, percentages, algebra, trigonometry...."
"Pardon you."
"What?"
"I said, pardon you you just sneezed."
"I did no such thing! . I said trigonometry."
"Oh" said the King, none the wiser. "carry on."
"Now, here's a typical question," said the peddler, taking pen and paper from his case. "If 10 men can dig a trench in 4 days, how long will 7 men take to dig a similar trench?"
The King smiled around at his children. "Well?" he said. "Answer the question."
Prince Rupert leant against the arm of the throne and looked up at the impressively decorated ceiling. "Well," he mused. "It would very much depend on the men."
"Oh, yes!" little Princess May interjected. "If it was old Sam, and the weather was wet, and he started telling stories - then it could take weeks!"
"I think," said Princess Louise seriously. "I think it would very much depend on the soil structure, for whether it was sandy or rocky would make a lot of difference."
"And if they came to archaeological remains of historical importance, of course they would have to use a lot more care and take longer!" said Prince Hom.
"All good answers," the King nodded wisely.
"But wrong!" squeaked the peddler.
"Wrong?"
"Wellat least not right!" the peddler prevaricated hastily, thrusting his mathematical workings at the King. "You see the answer can be worked out using the Rule of Three. And if 10 men * 4 days = 7 men * x days then the inverse rule of three gives x = 10*4/7 = 5.7 days!"
"5.7 days?"
"Yes!" said the peddler, firmly.
"Well! As you seem so surejust 5.7 days? That seems very precise. No ifs or buts or maybes?"
"5.7 days," the peddler said again.
"Hmm." The King wrinkled his brow, thoughtfully. "That does seem very clever. To know how long it will actually take old Sam and his team to dig a trench when you've never even met them. Really, most clever. Almost like magic. And you say you learned this at Skool?"
"School is a very important institution in our country. It trains children to become useful and educated citizens."
"I see," said the King.
"Father!" said Prince Rupert , eagerly nestling against his father's arm. "Father you know how curious I am?"
"I do!" said the King, glumly looking at the palace cuckoo clock in pieces on the table.
"Well, I am curious about this strange land across the mountains," continued the prince, his intelligent eyes alight in his sun-browned face. "I WOULD like to see it and find out if there is anything to learn from it! Please father. Mayn't I go back with the peddler?"
The King clapped him on the shoulder affectionately. "Well, well! That's a capital idea, Rupert!"
He turned to the peddler. "I shall buy a ton of your plastic cheese on condition that you take my son back to your country and take good care of him while he is there."
"Yes, your Majesty," smirked the peddler, bowing deeply. "I am sure that Prince Rupert will be impressed with our wonderful country."
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Prince Rupert hugged each of his brothers and sisters in turn, and waved to the crowds of people who had gathered to see him off.
Despite the feeling of adventure that upheld him, his heart grew a little heavy. He would miss his friends, and their happy life helping their parents and playing in the meadows.
He shook hands in turn with the old ones with whom he had spent so many hours talking and asking questions, then he heaved a sigh and turned to his mother and father.
His mother looked red-eyed and brave, and merely wrapped a scarf around his neck and kissed his nose, before turning away.
His father patted him rather too hard on the back.
"Good man. Good man. Take care and remember to write. Off you go then."
Bundling his pack on his back, he walked with the peddler up the steep mountain slope. At the edge of the shady copse, he turned and looked back once more at the pleasant green fields dotted with rose-clung white cottages. Then heavily he turned and followed the peddler into the trees.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Dear Mother and Father,
I arrived last night, after an arduous journey over the mountains.
The nights were the worst. We heard wolves howling in the darkness, but we kept the fire well-stocked and they kept away fortunately.
It was very cold on the top of the mountain. We saw snow on the peaks and we had to wear extra furs. I took some very interesting cuttings of some mountain plants which I intend to study, but the peddler was in too much of a hurry to let me explore as much as I would have liked.
When we reached the highest peak, he waved his hand to the north and showed me his kingdom. It is SO BIG! A black, smoking carpet blotting the valley floor. As we got nearer I could see that hundreds no thousands of houses sit back to back along paved streets. The only bit of green I saw was brave little dandelions pushing through cracks in the pavement. It doesn't LOOK as pleasant as our own beautiful kingdom.
And the people! I have never seen so many people in one place, jostling and jogging each other, calling in loud, brutal voices, pushing and shoving and looking so serious and unsmiling. I said hello to some, but they did not even LOOK at me! It was very curious like they couldn't see me. They all look very busy though, so perhaps they are a little cross like mother on washing day.
I didn't see any children. Perhaps they are in this Skool the peddler talks about. But it seems so strange not to see children helping their parents in the market or talking to the old people who stand so lonely on the street corners.
The peddler's house is I know I mustn't grumble because it is good of him to take me in - but, father! It is small and airless and there are these white balls that contain powerful chemicals and are meant to smell of lavender, but somehow smell just how lavender does not smell. His wife is a thin woman of sharp appearance who wears spikes on the bottom of her shoes. She lights up paper in which she rolls pipe tobacco and puffs quickly and nervously. She keeps sending a servant out with mysterious messages to "buy high" and "sell low".
We had strange foods for dinner. There was something that was pretending to be potato but tasted like slop. And there were sausages though I couldn't taste much meat in them. It wasn't very nice, but it was all "processed" like the Daft cheese slices. Processed foods seem to be important here.
Now I have been sent to bed in a little room, where the door touches the bottom of the bed. It smells dusty and the sheets are cold. But I suppose things will look better tomorrow.
Your loving son,
Prince Rupert .
P.S. Give my love to everybody and tell them I miss them. And tell the servants to give the pigeon who carried this letter some extra grain!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Dear Mother and Father,
This morning the peddler woke me up and told me that I must get dressed and go to Skool. I dressed hurriedly and went downstairs. The woman was sitting puffing at her tube of tobacco and filling the room up with smoke. It made me cough.
"You must eat," said the peddler.
"I never eat first thing in the morning," I relied politely. "I will eat later."
"That is not possible," the peddler insisted, pushing me into a seat opposite the smoky lady. "You cannot eat at skool."
"Not eat?" I echoed, in surprise.
"Not until lunchtime," amended the peddler, "when you will be given lunch in the canteen with the other children."
He pushed a cardboard box towards me. I looked inside. There were pieces of sugared cardboard in the box, but I did find two plastic toys! I watched as the peddler and his wife soaked the cardboard with watery-looking milk and then I asked if I could have a piece of fruit.
The peddler's wife looked surprised and said that of course she ought but she was so busy. And fruit just went off SO quickly. And would I like a fruit bar? Fruit bars turn out to be the sugary cardboard squashed together with some raisins. I declined. The peddler said I must have a drink.
"Because drinking is not allowed at Skool?" I asked.
"Well not until lunchtime," he answered, looking a little discountenanced.
It seems a strange thing not to eat when your body needs food, nor drink when your body wants water. Nevertheless, I took the peddler's advice and drank some water. It tasted metallic and chemically. The peddler says that it is the Kloreen which makes it healthier and that it tastes better when mixed with some sugary concentrate of orange.
The peddler then took me down the road to Skool. There were lots of children on the streets THIS morning! They were all dressed in the same colours and they all carried huge, heavy bags on their backs, that made the smallest ones bow over. They were all walking nay slouching towards a great, grey building with dirty windows. Not one of them was skipping, father!
We walked in and after meeting a man with a long cloak and a severe expression who asked me my age, I was taken to a hot oxygen-starved room where thirty other children sat at wooden chairs pinned behind wooden tables. They all stared at me as I arrived. None of them smiled.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"First thing today," said the teacher, "English. Get out your books children."
Prince Rupert smiled. Ah, his native language. Perhaps they would discuss the evolution of their language, as Father Dixon did, stroking the language with the fingers of time.
Perhaps they would be playing word games as he did with the other children, daring each other to spell longer and longer words until they all collapsed in laughter at the absurd attempts!
Or perhaps they would be creating stories as they did with the Storyteller, their faces burning with the heat of the campfire, offering their tales to the stars.
He peeped into the book of the boy next to him.
"Write out this list of words, putting the words in alphabetical order;
Gadget, zest, journey, naked, unawares, bestial, zest, anxiety, rely, table, lose, odd, identical, habit, party, method, yearn, quick, envy, scoff, farewell, above, abhor, concern."
"Why?" he asked the boy. "Is this a game?"
"No," grumbled the boy. "It's just to do, that's all."
Prince Rupert watched as the boy struggled to produce a list in the right order, continually crossing out and blotting the paper with bad-tempered ink.
He read the next question.
"Write out each of these sentences, using the most appropriate word from those given in brackets.
The sailor was (left behind, deserted, isolated, marooned) on an uninhabited island."
The boy was puzzling over this one, chewing his pencil top with worried teeth. "Which one do you think?" he whispered over to Prince Rupert .
"Oh any of those would suit very well. Surely they must be all right? There can't be a WRONG answer in there."
"No," fretted the boy, glancing at a neighbour's work. "There's always just ONE right answer."
Just one right answer? Rupert thought in surprise . How could that be? Surely there were as many answers as questions in the world. And more. For there were always ifs and buts and also maybes. But this was like 5.7 days one answer said with such certainty. Was there a sort of magic?
"Please," he said to the teacher, standing and bowing politely. He wandered up towards where she sat at a table in front of a black board. "Please, what is the answer to the question about the shipwrecked sailor?"
The teacher scanned the book next to her. "That's for me to know and you to find out," she said tartly. "Go and try to work it out and I will tell you the answer when I mark your paper."
Prince Rupert stared at her with a puzzled frown. "But I want to know NOW," he pointed out, in case she had misunderstood.
"If I was to tell the answer to everyone who asked, THEY" and here she waved her hand at the rest of the children, "would all be up asking me too. Go and sit down boy."
"Well, can you tell me how I might find out," he asked in a polite tone.
The teacher stared hard at him. "READ the instructions!" she said sharply. "I can't be explaining everything to everybody."
"No - just me," said the prince, looking around at the quiet children.
"NO!" the teacher said sternly.
Prince Rupert stuck his hand in his pocket while he thought, and was pleased to find some of his plant samples there. He took them out and laid them on the corner of the teacher's large desk.
"What are you doing, boy?" she asked sharply.
"These are the plant samples I collected from the top of the Tailor Mountains . I wanted to study them. Can you help me?"
"Put them away AT ONCE," she roared, crossly. "THIS is an English lesson. We will not be studying botany until next year."
Prince Rupert slowly replaced them in his pocket and went towards the door.
"WHERE are you going?" she demanded.
"I thought that I would get a little fresh air. I have obviously upset you, so perhaps it would be better for us to meet later when we are quite calm."
The teacher's gasp was hidden under the gasps of the children, as the young Prince walked out of the door.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"No, no your Highness," said the peddler, taking him firmly by the elbow. "In this country you HAVE to stay in the classroom and you DON'T argue with the teacher."
"Really?" Prince Rupert looked at him in surprise. "You can't walk around the other rooms and talk to the other teachers?"
"No!"
"Even if the teacher in your room seems cross and unhelpful?"
"Yes!"
"How am I to learn then?" Prince Rupert asked in puzzlement."At home we are encouraged to move around the world with eyes wide-open and ears alert, curious as a cat."
"Well, here you will be taught all you need to know Your Majesty. All you need do is sit down and do the work which the teacher sets, don't argue, don't ask questions listen and never talk back." The peddler put his hand on the classroom door, and turned to the boy. "Now, I've had a word with the teacher about you you being foreign and that and she has agreed to you rejoining the class."
He opened the door of the room, and pushed Rupert in to face the bank of curious eyes. The teacher sniffed and pointed silently to the empty chair. Prince Rupert slid in to the seat.
"You rejoin us for our Art lesson, Rupert. Please pass Rupert pencils and paper, Rosemary. Thank you. We are drawing a scene from nature anything you like, trees, mountains, streams just try to be as accurate in your presentation as you can be."
The children bent their heads over their sketch pads in silent concentration. Rupert thought hard and started to draw a flower that grew on the mountainside in his home country. He drew its stamen and sepals and the tiny drops of dew sitting on its petals. He failed to notice the teacher peering intrusively over his shoulder. Only her sharp voice recalled him. "What is THAT!"
Rupert looked at his drawing with reasonable pride.
"That's the loberoti," he answered quietly, feeling pangs of homesickness stabbing his lungs.
"A flower with a FACE?" The teacher's voice scratched at his nerves.
"Certainly or so it seems to me. As I walk down to the meadow to play in the early morning, this rare flower nods her head at the edge of the mountain track. She is friendly and beautiful and I think she smiles at me."
"Flowers do not have faces," the teacher spoke with authority. "Flowers can not SMILE at you. You have ruined a perfectly good picture." She snorted disdainfully and passed on to criticize the next child.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Dear Mother and Father,
School lasted all day, and when at last it finished and I was allowed to leave the airless room, I had to take more "exercises" and "tests" with me to do in the evening as "homework".
The peddler asked about my day and when I remarked that it had been a very interesting experience but one that I would not gladly repeat, he laughed and said that I had to go again tomorrow! And the next day! And the next day AND the day following that! He said that in this country it is law that children go to school 5 days out of 7. Oh, father. This seems such a strange way of living."
"Dear Mother and Father,
Skool no school as I have learned to spell it is a curious place. Everyone there seems to think that they know what is good for me. Indeed, I have not got any choice in what I learn, for how long I learn it or who I learn it from! I seem to have very little to do with my learning only curb my boredom as I sit trying to listen to the teacher setting "exercises" and "tests". It seems important to "get good grades" but I'm not sure why as it seems to have very little to do with learning. Last week a boy in the class learnt by heart all the dates that this country's monarchy have reigned. He passed the history test with full marks. Yet, when I asked him today, he confessed that he had forgotten, because it wasn't important now. It's a curious way to learn.
Today we did Geography. This is the study of the world, and so I wanted to tell them about our country, with its high mountains and deep river valleys. I wanted to discuss with them why the weather is so different, for here it drizzles with rain so much more. I wanted to ask them why their rivers are so straight and why the banks are so built up. But the teacher said that we couldn't talk about a country that wasn't even on the school books. I don't think that they believe that it's real unless it is written down."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Many years have passed since our eager hero crossed the top of the Tailor Mountain , and the young man who stands looking at the plans on the tabletop is of a very different appearance. He has grown, yes surely, but has lost his stocky good health and has grown like a flower deprived of sunlight weedy. His sallow acne-marked skin shines with a yellowish tinge in the weak sunlight. For too many years he has lived away from his own country and a great longing was now on him to see his home again, to take up his rightful place as ruler, to enrich his people with his hard-won education; an education that has spoiled his handwriting, curbed his curiosity, stifled his creativity and ensured that he had lost all his former interests.
He taps the plans with his finger.
"The men will be finishing the last portion of road today, by my precise calculations," he says to the pallid overseer. "I will set out on the new road which I have caused to be built between the two kingdoms on either side of the mountain." The overseer opens his mouth, but the young man continues his lecture. "This road will improve communications and trade to the greater benefit of both countries." He smiles in self-satisfaction. "It is now 3 months, 10 days and 2 hours since I ordered the men to start building this great road. This is a memorable day!" The overseer trembles and shuts his mouth. Prince Rupert looks along the road. "Ah progress," he murmurs, and sets off with a stout stick and an asthmatic wheeze, to follow the paved-white road through the rich green mountains.
As he walks he amuses himself by whipping the heads off any flowers still standing since the white-snake has torn up their pretty beds. The way is long, but the journey time was halved and much less arduous and wild than when he had come as a boy. Self-satisfaction buoys up his weakness, until he comes within site of his beloved home - and there the road stops, the workmen sitting amongst their abandoned tools.
"What?" gasps Rupert, much shaken at this unexpected turn of events.
He draws out his mathematical calculations from his back pocket and peruses them deeply. No he had been right! Of a certainty the road should be finished. His calculations had been very precise, employing the magical Rule of Three. And yet here sit the workmen and the road peters out in to the heather. He feels shaken. It goes against everything that he has been taught! Mathematics provided one right answer. And yet it was wrong!
Just then he notices three young women sitting in the grass just beyond the end of the road. They are chatting happily with the workmen, their faces glowing healthily, their eyes bright, their wits sharp.
"Who are you?" he interrupts. "What are you doing distracting the workmen from the building of this highway?"
The young women turn to look at him with grey laughing eyes. And the first replies, "We have come to protect this rare flower, the loberoti. This is the one place in the whole of the country that it grows and we must protect it from the harsh paving slabs that would crush its dear face."
Prince Rupert looks in bewilderment at the flowers by her side. "Flowers don't have fa." But then he stops as the pretty petals curl shyly and the dear mouth smiles upon him.
The young Prince shakes his head slowly. "The road should have been finished by now, "he moans mournfully. "My calculations proclaim it so. Is mathematics then a sham? Is there no certainty? Is it how I believed before I started my "education" that there are always ifs and buts and maybes? Is there no certain answer?"
"Answers are dead-ends," responds the girl wisely. "Questions open possibilities."
He stares at her simple, friendly face, then down at the green and pleasant valley below, spread out like a child's toy farm. Then he stiffens and looks behind him.
And down his road, before his despairing eyes, he can already see them coming pallid-suited peddlers bringing processed food and processed ideas; tight-faced teachers bringing rigid rules and boxed mentality; obtuse officials bringing children-prisons and conditioned servitude.
Down the long anaemic viral pathway they march - to conquer by control.
by Sharri McGarry (Home educator and master story teller) visit www.dancingleaf.co.uk
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I liked this article, because from my own experience, school and college really sucked. It wasn't about true learning. It was about learning how to be stupid, how to cheat, and how to obey our slavemasters. How to be happy as a caged animal.
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