Thank you Robert Sanderson!

Before reading this post, please take the following quiz.
Quiz

So, how did you do?

I got 74 on my first try.  Without even knowing what the quiz was about.  Yes, I can still spell Botswana and Azerbaijan from memory.  I also know that Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and that Georgia is the "Peach State."

A trip down memory lane . . .
When I was in 5th and 6th grades I had a history teacher named Robert Sanderson.  He was from England and had attended a prestigious boys boarding school.  One time he told us a story about setting a golf ball on fire and it bouncing around his chemistry lab.  He was the toughest teacher I had ever encountered at that point in my life.  He graded hard, had ridiculously high expectations, and didn't accept excuses.  He called me "postage stamp" because of my tiny handwriting.  (His requirement that our 'current event assignments' be a page long motivated me to purchase a small notebook so that my pages would not be as large.  I think I still had to write more than most of the other kids, so he allowed it.  I was surprised that he let me slide on that one.)  Anyway, he was an amazing teacher.

Rwanda is north of Burundi because my grandma Wanda runs down to South Africa.

On our report cards both History and Geography were listed.  For History we received a grade for history class, and a mark for conduct.  Since it was the same class, somehow Geography and Geography Spelling appeared on the report card.  Now spelling wasn't really my thing . . . and spelling geographically was even less my thing.  I received my first ever C+ on a report card for Geography Spelling.  While I ranted that it wasn't a real grade, it hurt.  It hurt enough that I studied my buns off . . . and learned to spell the names of all the countries of the world.

Bolivia is in the middle of South America because it is located in the bottom of the "bowl."

At the time learning names of countries, their locations, capitals, etc. seemed somewhat useful in life - maybe, someday.  (At that age I also had no idea that the names of countries could change due to things like civil wars and revolutions.  I thought that Czechoslovakia would be there forever.)  While on some level I accepted that being an 'educated, well-rounded person' involved learning a lot of random facts that may or may not ever prove useful, I was also a twelve-year-old who didn't want to memorize a bunch of stuff.  Luckily for me, I was a motivated twelve-year-old who cared both about grades and about parental approval of said grades.

Austria is Hungary for Turkey.

Now, as an adult, I could probably count on one hand the number of times that this knowledge has been actually useful, and most of them have been while playing Trivial Pursuit or trying to win a pointless argument.  In fact, until my sister pulled up this quiz on my computer, I don't think I have thought about Mozambique or Tanzania ever.

Madagascar.  I'm 'mad' to be out of 'gas' in the 'car.'

Looking back, I can now see that learning the names of those countries was in a sense just a pointless memorization exercise.  The value was not in the content itself, but in the experience of learning it.  I was learning how to learn.  The what was just a vehicle.  In fact much (most?) of what we learn in school is really the how.  As time passes the what changes.  New scientific discoveries are made (there are atomic particles smaller than electrons?!), countries come and go (what happened to Zaire?), and new ways to do things are charted (my husband discovered a new method to find the potential function of a conservative vector field in Calculus 3).

Guacamole is very similar to Guatemala. In shape and in spelling.

As time passes, the world grows, evolves, and shrinks. There is so much more knowledge overall,  much of it disproves earlier theories, and it is all so accessible - from anywhere.  Those who know only facts will find themselves left behind if they do not also continue to change.  Learning how to learn is a tool that allows for personal evolution in a changing global environment.

So thank you Robert Sanderson, and all of my other amazing teachers - especially the really hard ones - for giving me the biggest advantage in life: the ability to never stop learning.

Another fun Mr. Sanderson story: One time in 5th grade he assigned us to read a chapter in our American history textbooks.  I read 3 of the 4 sections.  We had a quiz the next day, and I missed a question over the section I did not read.  This particular question dealt with Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat.  My last name at the time was Fulton.  He asked me about it in front of the class.  I (stupidly) also said that my dad's name is Robert Fulton.  He never let me forget that mistake; I will also never forget who invented the steamboat.  The next year, he called me out of my math class in the room next door to come in and relive this mistake for another group of 5th graders.  I will NEVER forget that Robert Fulton invented the steamboat - ever!


P.S. If anyone by some random chance knows Robert Sanderson, who taught at The Oakridge School in Arlington, TX in 1992-1994, please pass along my thanks to him!