My geography prowess is something I have always prided myself on. I have a tried, tested and true mental image of the world burned into my brain which I call upon at least a couple times a day. So when I was sitting there in FlightCenter, buying the ticket I am traveling with today, I had it all laid out. “Hmmm...” I thought, “We'll probably fly due east over the prairies and transfer in either Toronto or Montreal. From there it is straight burn across the pond, nipping the south end of Britain and touching down in Amsterdam. Yep. That's how you do it.” Let's just say Travel Agent is probably not a good career choice as the route I imagined would have taken approximately 107 hours to complete.
No friends, the way to fly from Vancouver to Amsterdam is to fly north! It's a giant arch over the arctic circle, with the apogee of the turn being the far northwest corner of Hudson Bay. That's right. The northwestern corner of Hudson Bay is halfway between Vancouver and Amsterdam! Sweet lord, I live in a huge country. By the way, it's an amazing, completely bewildering flight. You leave Vancouver right at sunset and after only a couple hours in the air, the dark of the night peels away and all of a sudden your in daylight that reminds you of noon, when it is approximately 11pm your time. When you head north in Canada, the other side of the world is really, really close. It was a bitter pill to swallow when I realized that my superior geography skills are deeply flawed; on some subconscious level, I seem to think the world is flat.
It got me thinking about why today is a pretty exciting time to be involved in education. The 'tried, tested and true' ideas we have about schooling are going to be surpassed by far better ones in the coming years. These new ideas will be so much more efficient and conducive to student learning it will make the old methods look archaic and ridiculous. Most of them are right in front of our eyes now, and will seem painfully obvious once we finally adopt them. Sort of like realizing you can reach Amsterdam by a short flight north instead of a long, long, looong flight east.
I promise that is the last corny metaphor you will find here at EducationDiplomacyAnticsCabbageRolls.
Sounds to me like someone doesn't know their 'geometry' as well as they thought hahaha sounds amazing so far!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious.
ReplyDeleteSo I am sitting having supper with Grandma yesterday, and she is telling me about the flight from Vacouver to Paris, and was saying "So then we flew over Hudson Bay, and then Greenland." And I was all "Huh?! Why didn't you stop in Toronto?" Almost started an argument over it, especially when she said was only 9 hours, and was bright out the whole time even when flying "East". Then I to remembered the earth, is indeed, round.
GO NORTH!
How many of you have flown complety around the world?
ReplyDeletepROBably none.
Thats right, how do we really, know, is it what these so called teacher teach us. They also telll us we cant wear hats in class, and use dingers to tell us when to switch to another subject. Would you trust someone that rides a moped......