Act I, scene 1: The setup
The night of the parents meeting on “The New Math,” back in the mid-60s, the guinea pigs stayed home: uninvited. So I cannot recall the dialogue verbatim. Yet the way my father always retold the tale, one remarkable line stood out: “If you’re planning to help your children with their homework, then start studying from Day 1. Otherwise, you’re toast….”
Now, I couldn’t actually swear to it. Yet I seem to have a vague recollection that the approach to our French Instruction in Junior High had a similar pedigree: with a fancy name and a distinct history that set it apart from old-school ways. (With a bit of research, I should be able to fill in the _____________ here.
Already, the term “Audio-Lingual” seems to be making its way from off-site storage into my central processing unit. Before I plug it into a Google search, though, one thing is certain: I can remember the dialogue from “The Library Trip” as if it were yesterday.)
Jean: Dis donc, ou est la bibliotheque?
Paul: C’est tout droit. Tu y vas tout suite?
Jean: Oui, il faut que j’aille chercher un livre.
Paul: J’y vais aussi.
Further research, no doubt, will cast the method in a favorable or unflattering light. Yet for now, as we approach La Cioccolateria desiring to greet Grazia with a warmth sufficient to our continuously developing affection, I dearly wish that my Italian textbook had a “Reunion” Scene with enough lines, sufficiently memorable, to surf the shoals of unwanted silence.
I know I’ve told this story before, but I vividly remember my dad sitting at the kitchen table with me, doping out base twelve or the like and answering my frustrated whining with the comment, “They’re teaching you to think.”
No great story has a shelf-life by which it expires. I always loved this one of yours.
The way the scene of instruction goes with my Dad at the helm, the New Math was like a foreign tongue. He never felt at home with it. But he’d work with me on a problem for as long as it took to solve, listening intently to whatever I could explain of it. Then, at some unknown and unpredictable point, he would say something. Usually it wasn’t the answer to the problem, yet it would show me the way to the answer. I can’t say this always happened. But it happened often–often enough, at least, that we both trusted in the process. Worth pondering, I suppose, what Dad was teaching and what I was learning. Thanks for bringing back those memories.