Bridging The Gap

 

Marcene Holverson, me, Bryan McCorkle, my mom

All teachers and students begin with the same type of relationship.  The one knows something the other does not, together they work so that both know the same thing, and for the majority of those thus engaged, the relationship progresses no further.  This is not to say that teachers and students do not care for one another, often quite deeply, but there is a gap existing between them that, while narrowed by this and that, is rarely bridged so that a new type of relationship is formed.  But what happens when it is bridged?

The Pontifical Nature of Teaching

All teaching is pontifical in nature, which is to say, it involves bridge building.  As I wrote in another post, "Matters of faith and religion connect the human with the transcendent, and a teacher, no less than a priest, is a pontiff, which, as the Latin root pontifex reveals, is a bridge builder.  Teachers help to connect students with ideas, with others, with themselves, and at times even with what lies beyond it all."  With Marcene Farley, there was another bridge being built during my senior year in high school, although we were both unaware of its construction or where it would lead.

Marcene arrived as the new Latin teacher for the start of my senior year and was called Miss Holverson back then, having not yet met her husband Mack.  She did the things that a good teacher does and then some, including taking my friend Bryan and me to the state Latin convention.  This, of course, required Roman attire, and Marcene participated right along with the rest of us.  Then again, she clearly had a penchant for dressing up in class, but this was all part of her strategy for helping to build that bridge between her students and the life of ancient Rome.

 

The Other Side of the Desk

When people become teachers, they often speak of moving to the other side of the desk, which is to say they gain a new perspective on what goes on in a classroom.  Nearly everyone knows what it is like to be a student, but the view is far different from the position of teacher.  Fortunately, I had in Marcene a teacher who was also a colleague.  Although we never taught in the same school, we talked many times over the years, often at length, about issues in education and with our particular students.  We shared triumphs and heartbreaks in a way that only teachers can, for teachers are involved in that most human of enterprises, the shared journey of discovery, and like any journey, there are both pinnacles and pitfalls.

I was fortunate to speak at Marcene's invitation on a number of occasions once she had moved back to Illinois was teaching at Pekin Community High School.  Three times I had the opportunity to address the Illinois Junior Classical League convention when she hosted it at her school and performed my presentation of Cicero at the Eta Sigma Phi convention at her alma mater, Monmouth College.  I was always pleased to speak at her invitation, and there was an excitement for both of us.  We were able to reconnect not only as teacher and student, but as colleagues, and it was clear that the bridge was extending far from what it had been when I was in high school

 

De Amicitia

Cicero (106-43 B.C.) wrote a treatise on friendship called De Amicitia, or "On Friendship."  A passage I have quoted often says this.  "Qui esset tantus fructus in prosperis rebus, nisi haberes, qui illis aeque ac tu ipse gauderet? Adversas vero ferre difficile esset sine eo qui illas gravius etiam quam tu ferret."  (De Amicitia, 22).  "How great would be the benefit in good times if you did not have someone who would rejoice in them as much as you?  Indeed it would be difficult to bear adversity without someone who would bear it even more gravely than you."

Marcene was with me when I was named 2014 Indiana Teacher of the Year and she was with me again when my son and I saw '80s hair band Stryper near where she lived.  In fact, she was the one who yelled to leader singer Michael Sweet to get his attention, which led to the first of my many interactions with the rock star.  It was no surprise that she would do this.  After all, she once talked with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister about his Latin tattoo!  Cicero was right in what he said, for both of those moments were all the better for her being part of them.

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Dee Snider and Marcene

When her husband, Mack, passed away, I traveled to Illinois for the funeral.  I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  I was there to support my friend in keeping with the second part of what Cicero wrote.

And I was there for Marcene's retirement party at the end of the 2021-2022 school year.  There was a constant stream of people for hours that Saturday afternoon as former students, their parents, and colleagues came to show their love for a woman who had touched so many lives in such profound ways.  My only quibble with the event is about one of the gifts she received.  Someone gave her a mug that says, "I came, I taught, I retired," but that last part only expresses a momentary fact of history.  The mug should have read, "I came, I taught, I shaped lives in ways I will never know."

 

Hidden Treasure

 

I recently thought I had fallen into a real life version of a Dan Brown novel or the Nicholas Cage move National Treasure.  As I scrolled through some of my picture uploads on Facebook, I found one of the title page of a book I had forgotten I owned.  I knew instantly where the book was, and given what it was, I could hardly wait to pull it from its shelf.  When I did, I discovered something even more amazing.  

My Currently Favorite Collection

I am not a huge collector of things, but I have enjoyed collecting fountain pens, miniature Mustang cars, and the complete discography of certain rock and metal artists.  My favorite collection at the moment, however, is of English translations of Vergil's Aeneid.  In the fall of 2021, I launched a website listing every English translation of the epic poem in chronological order from the first in 1513 to the most recent.  I wrote about that website in a post called "Mr. Holland's Aeneid," which explains that the new website Aeneid Translator would include a color-coded system to indicate the translations that I actually own.  Until recently, my collection totaled thirty-seven translations, including every one from 1937 through 2021.  Just the other day, that total climbed to thirty-eight.

As I was scrolling through some old pictures on Facebook, I ran across one from the title page to a translation of the works of Vergil.  Since the picture was in my photos, I realized that I must own the book and immediately remembered

not only that I did own it, but where it was in my bookcases.  I ran to that particular bookcase, pulled off the volume, and began to explore what I had.

The Excitement of Discovery

The oldest translation of Vergil's Aeneid in my possession is the 1685 translation by John Dryden, but it is a 20th century edition.  Prior to my recent discovery, I had thought the oldest volume in our personal library was the 1794 edition of Cicero's De Oratore that I had purchased at an antiquarian bookshop in Florence, Italy.  This forgotten edition of Vergil published in 1770 bested that by twenty-four years.

It is the dream of book lovers to discover a long lost work.  Indeed, this idea forms the core of one of the best-selling books of all time, Umberto Eco's The Name of The Rose, but let us be clear.  I did not unearth on a bookshelf in my Indiana home the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics.  Still, just as children enjoy dressing up and playing as their favorite literary or movie characters, so I enjoyed the thrill of discovery when I realized just how old this volume was and what it contained.

As you can see from the title page in the picture above, this book contains the prose translation of Vergil's works.  It is, in fact, the first of two volumes (someday, perhaps, I will procure the second), that cover all of the Roman poet's works, the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid.  The prose rendering is that of Joseph Davidson, originally published in 1743.  As you can see from the opening page to the first book of the Aeneid, this is more than a simple translation.

Each page contains the Latin text, a section titled Ordo that puts the Latin into more traditionally English word order, Davidson's prose translation, and then copious notes.  After the double discovery of the oldest book in my library and a translation of Vergil I did not remember I had, a third thrill of excitement came when I noticed that in Davidson's comparison of the opening lines of the Aeneid with those of Homer's Odyssey, he cited Alexander Pope's translation after giving the Greek.  I have a good friend who is Beowulf fan, and he and I love to tease each other about who was the better poet, the Beowulf bard or Alexander Pope.  For my money, Pope will always win.  I have loved his heroic couplets since I was a senior in high school, and his translation of Homer, particularly the Iliad, is one of my favorite works of all time.

Holding a first edition of Pope's Iliad translation from 1715

These discoveries alone would have been enough to excite a bibliophile, but something even better was hiding in these three-hundred-year-old pages.

The Chief Design of Education

At the beginning of his book, Davidson includes an essay "To Those Gentlemen Who have the immediate Care of Education," and in it he lays out an understanding of education that has been held in various degrees by most people in most cultures, is espoused and practiced by some of us today, but has for too many others become a lost treasure.

Davidson refers to those of us who are teachers as "faithful guides, who, no doubt, will, in whatever author you teach, guard your pupils against the influence of any thing that has a tendency to corrupt their principles or morals" and then goes on to show why Vergil is such a suitable author for this purpose.  According to Davidson, "There is a peculiar tenderness and humanity diffused through all his writings, which never fails to make the heart better, and sends away every well disposed mind from the reading of him, equally pleased and improved.  He animates the soul to the love of virtue, by setting before us the most noble examples; corrects the passions, by showing their fatal effects, when indulged to excess, or when directed to improper objects; makes us feel the peace and serenity they bring, when conducted by reason, and regulated within the bounds of prudence and moderation.  From him we learn the force of piety, and what powerful incentives to fortitude, and every heroic virtue, arise from the belief of a deity, and a providence supremely wise and good.  In a word, every image, every description, every character he exhibits; his fables, his allegories, his episodes, all are calculated, not only to please the fancy, but to instruct the judgment, and form the heart."

If that sounds quaint, outdated, or even inappropriate for the modern classroom, we have sad proof of how far we have drifted from the true purpose of education.  It is about far more than teaching mere facts, the sufficient memorization of which can be determined by an exam, and Davidson states this pointedly.  "To teach boys to understand an author's language, is, you know, but the least part of your duty.  To acquaint them with his spirit and virtuous design, to form their taste aright, that they may be able to correct his faults and relish his beauties, feel the force of his pious or humane sentiments, and learn to copy out his heroic characters, and imitate his generous examples; in a word, to teach them to be sound critics on life and manners and to distinguish the true from the false, ... this is your honourable province, and the chief design of education."

Isn't that asking too much of our teachers?  It is if we insist on placing foolish burdens on them under the guise of professionalism.  Earlier in his essay Davidson had explained why he had produced this particular edition of Vergil's works.  "If it gives you some relief from the more disagreeable and burdensome part of your work, it is only to leave you freer and more disengaged in the execution of what is the principal business of education."  Davidson knew, as have most people in most societies through the ages, that education is a grander enterprise than the mechanical drudgery into which it can be corrupted.  He went on to say, "You, by your very profession, are solemnly engaged to teach and exemplify goodness to mankind, at a time of life when they are most capable of being taught, when their docile minds may easily be moulded to every shape of goodness, and are susceptible of the most durable impressions.  [T]he legislature may enact, and the magistrate may execute salutary law; but what will all avail, unless the foundations of national virtue be laid in the right forming of the heart at first?  If the fountains be foul and impure, all the art of man will not make the streams run pure and unpolluted.  The Scripture tells us, that the tree must first be made good, and then its fruits will be good also; but if the tree be corrupt, the fruit likewise will partake of the corruption.  Indeed experience shows us, that the best education is not of itself sufficient to establish the mind in an habitual, uniform course of integrity; yet the same experience evinces, that nothing is of so much importance towards effecting this great end, as to give the mind an early turn and bias to the right side; and that, without this, all other means, humanly speaking, will have but a weak and transient influence."

The legislature may enact, and the magistrate may execute salutary law; but what will all avail, unless the foundations of national virtue be laid in the right forming of the heart at first?  What, indeed.

When Alps on Alps Arise

 

So pleas'd at first, the tow'ring Alps we try,

Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

But those attain'd, we tremble to survey

The growing labours of the lenthen'd way,

Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

The blog post I wrote as I concluded a 30 year-career in public education took its title from a poem, so it seemed only fitting that this, my 200th post and the one reflecting on my first year in private education, should do the same.

I Had No Idea

In the 1997 film adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel Contact, Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) becomes the first human to travel through a wormhole to encounter extraterrestrial life.  Dr. Arroway is a scientist who only believes in facts and what can be proven through science.  Yet when she encounters the majesty of the far-flung heavens, she stammers, "I had no idea," as she realizes that perhaps a poet would have made a better first ambassador from earth.

This fairly accurately captures what I have felt throughout this school year.  I had no idea.  I had no idea education could be like this.  I had imagined something like it and had even been told by others that it existed, but until I experienced it for myself, I could not truly appreciate the wonders.

Any endeavor conducted apart from or even in opposition to Jesus Christ can seem good and nice.  Hamlet, however, well distinguished between what seems to be the case and what is.  As he famously railed against his mother in Act 1, Scene 2,

Seems, madam!  Nay, it is!  I know not 'seems.'

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,

That can denote me truly.  These indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play.

But I have that within which passes show.

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Indeed, with this first year at Guerin Catholic High School, I have experienced that which passes show, that which goes far beyond the trappings and the suits of academic achievement that amount to little more than new clothes for the emperor and that have brought about more woe than we would like to credit them.  I am talking about education rooted in the person of Jesus Christ and pursued for His glory.

Undoubtedly there are those who are having trouble reading at the moment, so enraged have they become by my comments casting aspersions on taxpayer-supported, government-run institutions of education.  Yet I will stand with Hamlet in preferring that something be rather than that it seem, a sentiment that goes back to Sallust and before him to Cicero and before him to Aeschylus*, and will state again and unequivocally that anything enacted apart from Jesus Christ can at best seem good.  Of course, I am far from the first to say this.  God inspired Solomon in Psalm 127:1 to proclaim, "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain," and Jesus Himself put it more directly when He stated, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

One of the best and most recent articulations of the implications of this truth came from Dr. Helen Freeh in her article "Pursue Truth, Find Her, then Do Something."  In that piece, Dr. Freeh says what has needed to be said for some time.  We cannot continue to hope for a better outcome from our schools merely by re-arranging the pieces of a broken game.  We must rediscover the purpose of education, one that is rooted in objective and transcendent truth, and then not the disembodied concept of truth belonging to the philosophers, but the fully incarnated truth who is Jesus Christ.

Golden Streamers of Glory

Since the day I visited St. Theodore Guerin Catholic High School to interview for the position of Latin teacher, I knew that something was different about the place.  We use the phrase genius loci to describe the atmosphere, the feel, of a particular place, and it was clear even as I waited in the front office for the principal that the spirit here was none other than the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, for as I flipped through Impact, our school's biannual magazine I came across an article by a student who said that the highlight of his career at Guerin was the junior retreat during which he had grown closer to Jesus.  I was struck by the spiritual depth of the young man's comment, and that was but a foretaste of what I would come to experience.

The metaphor I have used most when trying to convey to friends what I have come to sense at Guerin is the image of golden streamers of glory.  It is difficult to put such experiences into words, but time and again I have perceived almost physical, golden streamers blowing through the hallways of our school.  I could point to the happy faces of the students, the genuine joy of the faculty, or the selfless support of our administration and parents as the reason, but then we would have to wonder about even the source of those.  After a moment's thought, the reason for all this is quite obvious.  What else should one expect in a school where Jesus Christ is glorified and the words of the Great Commission to teach all that He has commanded are taken seriously?

Inside the front door of our school

The Sound of Music

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) has been my favorite poet since I discovered him in our Brit Lit class my senior year of high school, and I chose the words from his Essay on Criticism at the beginning of this post to open my valedictory address to our senior class.  The context shows that when Pope describes hills peeping over hills and Alps arising on Alps, he is describing the daunting scene that often confronts us after we have begun an exciting journey, yet I take those lines now in a different way.  I think of Maria in The Sound of Music.  As I conclude my first year of teaching at a Christian school after retiring from public education, I see majestic hills yet to climb, hills filled with the sound of music, and I look forward with renewed vigor and enthusiasm to attempting their ascent with the wonderful students and faculty at St. Theodore Guerin Catholic High School as together we follow the One Who prepares the path before us.

*In Seven Against Thebes, line 592, by Aeschylus we read, "ou gar dokein aristos, all' einai thelei" "οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι θέλει."  "For he wants not to seem but to be the bravest."

Cicero wrote in De Amicitia 98, "Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt."  "For there are not so many who wish to be endowed with virtue itself rather than to seem so." 

In Sallust's Bellum Catilinae 54 we find Cato the Younger being described as someone who "esse quam videri bonus malebat," or someone who "preferred to be good rather than to seem good."