By Mark Trahant
I like to disappear behind rows of books. I walk past shelves, my thumb touching titles I haven’t seen before, searching for treasure, a chance to discover a treasure discarded by a reader and dismissed as "used."
It’s more than the books I crave; it’s the stories inside. I am searching for a forgotten history, some obscure work of fiction by an author I’ve always wanted to read, or a long-forgotten verse by Ogden Nash.
"A regular poet published in a book,
And an excellent book it was,
But nobody gave it a second look,
As nobody often does."
But, occasionally, someone does. We find a book that explains our past, a book that helps us think about who we are or what we might become.
Once I found a book like that. It was a rare find from an old store, given to me by friend. This book even had official status, a government how-to-teach, how-to-think. It’s title: "The Course of Study for The Indian Schools of the United States." Subjects included general hygiene, how to pick a trade and writing tips; just a few things one ought to know before beginning a life’s work.
Consider the concept: A course of study for everything; a primer for life. Everything one ought to know neatly bundled together in a simple formula for success in your work or your life.
This is what the authors of that education primer set out to do. Bundle together their collection of ideas and tips for teachers – and I suppose students – so that they could refer to the pages again and again as instructors led young minds on a journey.
This primer was published in 1901 – a century ago – and many of the ideas are outrageous. "A teacher’s first work should be to put her schoolroom in as nearly perfect condition as possible. The temperature and purity of the air should be the best possible under existing conditions. The windows should be kept open all day. Lowered a little from the top and raised from the bottom ever so little insures good ventilation."
"Why?" You might ask. The authors cited the science of fresh air.
"At least once each session doors and windows should be opened for ventilation, if pupils are present; (every individual needs 98 cubic feet of air in each direction). Marching or some other exercise may then be engaged in … fresh air is the great natural disinfectant, antiseptic, and purifier."
These sentences might seem harmless today, but they reflect a deep-seated racism, a lack of understanding of what might be possible for the American Indian students who attended the government-run boarding schools. You see the entire education system was designed with the notion that each student had a limit. These students could be trained, not taught. Made into workers, not thinkers. Limited patriots, not full citizens.
Writing was taught for two main reasons: To teach young American Indians how to write letters home, or to communicate with merchant and to fill out forms. Indeed much of the course-work focused on handwriting techniques, instead of what one might say. Even worse: some of the more talented boys, the book predicted, should be encouraged to consider printing as a trade.
A limited course of study. A primer for life. A world of limits. Boys should print. Girls should write letters home. And the world of ideas should blow around like dry leaves, outside some window, always out of reach.
Fortunately every generation finds folks who get quite good at catching blowing leaves; people who discover how to collect ideas. These are the people who rewrite life’s primer, creating new rules that break limits from the past.
Perhaps the very notion of a primer like that is impossible: There’s no way to anticipate every challenge and print answers in advance. And, even if such a primer could be done, the rules inside would be useless the second they were captured because our world moves so fast.
And what if we were to rewrite the primer? What are the things a young journalist ought to know about today? What approach could we take that might help a young person think about this craft called journalism?
I have written down ten ideas that have worked for me. Stuff I would propose for a journalist’s primer for life. This is a different kind of primer, not just a how-to report or edit, but a guide to life, a way of thinking about journalism.
Here’s what’s on my list:
- Tell me a story.
- Never a day without a line.
- Crash, burn, and fly…
- Get off the freeway!
- See Crazy Horse in the rocks – or follow someone who can.
- Drive friends crazy.
- Indian Time.
- A word to the wise: Epistemology.
- The amazing workshop as seen on TV.
- Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
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