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Flâneurs of the fields  

Robbie McClintock

In mid-June, 1958, I boarded a chartered TWA Constellation, along with a plane full of kids, most of them four or five years younger than my 18, bound for Zurich,  Switzerland. This was the start of a wonderful summer job that I would have through  1961 — a counselor, eventually program director, at the summer program of the  American School in Switzerland. The school had started a year or two before, located  in Locarno, overlooking the upper part of Lago Maggiore. Given the recent popularity  of the film, Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, the program was  naturally called "Swiss Holiday," and the name fit.

My interview for the job, such as it was, as 90% of getting the job consisted of an  inside track, centered on two questions — Was I comfortable driving a stick  shift? And, Did I know anything about summertime sports? My answer to the first was  that I loved to drive and the only cars worth driving had stick shifts. To the second, I  confessed that I couldn't play tennis and hated golf, but I swam well and loved to water  ski. Those answers seemed to suffice. I got the job, and 12 or so hours after getting on  the June flight, we landed in Zurich, having stopped to refuel in Iceland. A couple  school officials met us and whisked our herd of 50-plus kids, each trundling a duffel,  through customs to a nearby parking lot.

Seven little light blue Volkswagen buses, racks on top, were lined up there. I was  to find my nine charges, who would sit in three rows of three in the back; get their gear  packed and tied down on top; and then follow the lead bus, driven by a school official, a  Swiss who knew the way. A quick briefing informed me that we would be going over the  Gotthard Pass, a legendary route across the Alps connecting the Ticino, the main  Italian-speaking Canton with Zurich and the northern, German-speaking part of  Switzerland. The drive to Locarno would take four to five hours on a narrow road,  (vastly improved in the 1980s), and we would all stop to stretch and regroup at the top  of the pass at a rest area with a nice little lake. If you get septed, don't worry. Just  follow signs to the Gotthard — beyond Zug, it's uphill, steeply so, with lots of hairpin  turns, and there will be even more of those going down. Downshift a lot and keep the  engine RPMs up. And off we went, and after a while little voices from the back began  asking whether I'd ever driven on roads like this before. I answered — Sure. Do you  think they would put me behind the wheel on a road like this without experience! — trusting that experience was rapidly accruing and I was a quick learner, which it  fortunately turned out that I was.

"Swiss Holiday" was structured in four two-week segments, with some added  time at the beginning and the end. The two-week segments were divided between six  days at the school with recreational activities and a gesture at more earnest classes,  followed by eight days on the road in our trusty minibus, camping out, exploring our way around Switzerland, northern Italy down to Rome, southern France, and Austria. I go  into all this because these experiences, both the six-day respites at the school, and our  exploratory forays into Europe, had some lasting influence on my later work and  interests.

For one, the seeds of my theory of education, privileging study over instruction,  were planted during the recreational periods at the school. Soon after we arrived in  Locarno I understood the reason for the second of my interview questions and the good  fortune in my answer. Since I had volunteered competence at water skiing, I  discovered that I was designated a program water ski instructor when I wasn't out on a  trip. And water skiing was the really popular "Swiss Holiday" sport. The next morning I  went down to inspect. The boat was a little under-powered, but I figured that that  mattered only with over-weight novices. The setting was spectacular — the upper end  of a long finger lake, an area about 2 miles by 2 miles, framed by the southern edge of  the Alps, which channeled the winds away from the water, leaving the lake surface  almost always glassy. We were astonished to see the lake edged with palm  trees. Could this be Switzerland? Now, with wealthy masses teaming, all sorts of boats  crowd Lago Maggiore; but then ours was one of just a handful there. We would slalom  to exhaustion in the sunset, a single undulating plume tracing its way back and forth  across the lake.

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Locarno, looking at where the school was

Maps of Lago Maggiori and the school location

Of course, I had never taught water skiing before, and of my own learning, I  vaguely remembered that years before I had just sort of taken to it, getting up on my  first try, barely managing to control skis that were a bit too large for my nine-year-old  scale. But no matter. I was now working with another guy my age and we would trade  off, one driving the boat and the other treading water, trying to coach each kid as the  boat pulled them up. The natural athletes got the knack quickly. A few — over-weight,

sedentary, endowed with a weak grip — we tried to interest in other activities. Others  we patiently coached — try to keep the skis in front of you, slanting upwards with the  rope between them;— just now, as you rose up out of the water, you were pulled  forward in a belly-flop, so keep the skis in front and try to push more of the force on your  arms down through your pelvis to your feet;— you're getting it, but this time you pulled  up too quickly and then sagged backward, so let the boat raise you up and try to keep  your arms bent a little, crouching some so you can respond to the play of forces. Sound  advice, but by itself, not enough. We would have to encourage these kids to keep  trying, and with patience, theirs and ours, generally, sooner or later, something would  click — You did it! — and the kid would have the hang of it thereafter. It was clear to us  that the kids were not really applying our advice, but rather working it out for  themselves, sometimes using something we said as a helpful hint in trying to control  their own bodies through a turbulent transition.

My partner and I puzzled whether there was some way to get better at our  appointed function. We experimented, trying to teach kids to ski by sitting on the edge  of a dock, skis on the water, pushing them off as the rope tightened — it helped in some  

ways, especially with heavier kids because our under-powered boat labored too much  pulling them up out of the water. Off the dock was great for advanced skiers: we would  just stand at the edge, one foot in a slalom ski, and jump just as the slack rope tightened  and whoosh, we were off. But it caused problems with kids prone to belly-flopping or  sagging backward — the transition was too fast and they would fall too quickly, before  their kinaesthetic sense could get the feel of what they were doing.

Thinking about it, with all the belly-flopping and sagging backwards and many  comical spills, we concluded that water skiing was unteachable, but most people could  learn it by using their experience and insights from observation and suggestions from others to inform their sense of how to synthesize and control a complex play of  forces. Throughout my career in education, this experience working with people  learning to water ski has been my primary pdigm for thinking about how a person  learns and acquires a working understanding of any matter in which she will exercise  active control.

A second important set of insights came on the road. In the days between travel,  we would do a little preption, but our trips were anything but packaged tours. We  had a very rudimentary itinerary — for the Swiss instance, over the Simplon to Visp and  camp up the valley towards Mont Blanc; then more or less follow the Arve river to  Geneva and spend two nights in that area; then up to Lausanne for a night; on to Bern;  back to Interlaken; up to Basle; across to Zurich; back by way of Luzern and then the  Gotthard again. Two 18-20 year-olds would be in charge of nine 13-14 year-olds. We  had a modest budget for food, gas, entrance fees, and the like, with instructions to plan  as we went, to see as much as we could, and to return safely eight days after we  left. Our minibus had a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), occasionally one  could crank it up to 90 kph, so big highways would do it little good, and anyway those  weren't in existence in Europe then, outside of Germany. We traveled secondary roads,

navigated with detailed maps, and had to keep a bunch of rambunctious kids engaged  and interested. Except in large cities, we stayed away from organized campsites — life  was simpler in a farmer's field and most were surprisingly accommodating.

Neither of us in charge had previously visited places on our routes, or near them;  and whether the language was Italian, French, or German, our command of it was  marginal at best. The kids were adventurous, after an initial break-in period in which  they learned that they could survive, and even have fun, without plumbing, a proper  kitchen, mattresses, or any shelter, unless it looked like rain, in which case our army surplus tents often seemed to do more harm than good. Tangible sites to visit were  much preferred to museums — often natural sites, like an unexpected lake to swim in,  or a mountain field to run around on, or a breath-taking view high on a pass; and some  human sites, a rampart to clamber along, the aqueduct at Nîmes, an unusual old bridge,  with luck and a good story hook, a church or palace. Even when a bit bored, kids can  ask challenging questions. What's this? Why do they do that? How old is this  building? Why did they build it? And every bit of information can become itself a  question — What makes it Gothic? How do they know it is Roman? Why did they  destroy those images? Collective questions turned back on the kids could produce  interesting discussions — Hey guys, what do you think "Blutwurst" is? Should we get  some for dinner?

Maps, good detailed ones with hints about places coded into them, were  essential. Among our meager supplies, perishables were kept in an icebox that every  two or three days needed a new chunk of ice. We had been told that about the only  place to get blocks of ice would be in the local brewery and most towns of modest size  had one. It was not productive, however, let alone prudent, to pull up in the town center  next to the local gendarme standing there, to lean out the window, a scruffy 18 year-old  driving a minibus packed with squirming youngsters, to ask — Hey, where's the  brewery? Even if the question got an answer, it would be ill-understood, directing us to  someplace far from the town center. With a bunch of kids in tow, one quickly learns an  essential commandment: thou shalt never be lost. One could put this into practice,  more or less by following the rule: don't ask until the destination is nearly in sight. We  quickly figured out that breweries were usually near freight yards and these could be  located by looking for train tracks on a map and paying attention to the topography of a  town. So before long, as the typical answer to our query, preferably addressed to a  local laborer, we usually got something like — Turn left over there and go 200 meters or  so. You'll see it.

You'll see it! That was the key. Fifty years later we have perhaps created an  overly captioned world. Go into a big museum these days and count the ways people  are being told what to see — headphones, information sheets, iPads and smartphones,  human guides giving a standard patter. Are we losing the capacity to learn through  experience? For us in our little bus, there wasn't time to study guidebooks, negotiate  about potential destinations, and then find our ways to chosen spots. It was far better  to catch something on a map that might be interesting and then discover it on our

way — Gee, look at that. Let's go explore it! I developed a rule of thumb for using a  good map — scan it for symbols suggesting a ruin, a castle, an interesting panorama  and then see which of possibilities had the tiniest road leading to it. Once in southern  France this reasoning led us down a small road which seemed to lead into a large area  that the map suggested had nothing in it, no roads, no towns, no streams or lakes, no  distinguishing features — it must be some kind of wild park! We went up a long hill and  at the top there stretched out before us the largest nuclear reactor installation you  could imagine, huge cooling towers, surrounded by phalanxes of fencing and heavily  armed towers every 100 meters or so. An unusual, instantaneous unanimity erupted — Let's go back and try something else!.

In northern Italy, my rule of thumb proved more successful. One evening, we  were having trouble finding a suitable farmer's field. We had stopped for some quick  supper by the side of the road and drove on, trusting I'd find some place that would be  comfortable for us to sleep in our scattered fashion. Vineyards were everywhere with  no place to spread out. It got dark; the kids, always restless, began to kvetch, louder  and louder. I pulled to the side of the road and studied the map with a flashlight and  saw a marking for a ruin not too far away with a little road going to it, with lots of  hairpins turns. Off we went through the vineyards on the dirt track just wide enough for  the minibus, weaving around for five kilometers or so, the last one up a really steep  hill. Suddenly, the road ended at a wall, a high wall, a very old wall, one with  battlements along its top with a rising full moon shining through. Our headlights shone  on a door on the other side of a small, dried-up moat, a plank bridge leading to it. The  door was slightly ajar. We looked in and there was a grassy space, perhaps 10 meters  by 15, a perfect place to camp. We piled out, quickly settled down, tired kids tried  telling ghost stories while watching the moon on the ramparts, but soon everyone was  asleep.

Next morning a surprised but good natured caretaker awoke us. How did we get  here? — Well, up the little road as you can see. Then in our turn: But where are we? — Ah! You do not know! Esta Soave! El Castello di Soave! You have found a most  beautiful place. Come! I will show you." So, still in our clothes from the day before, as  a prelude to breakfast, we were ushered all over the Castle of Soave, a small, then  rather dilapidated, yet extraordinary castle on top of a high hill overlooking the town of  Soave. The castle had stood since the 1300s, ramparts and vineyards sloping down to  the outer fortifications at the foot of the hill. It had an outer courtyard where we had  slept, a small inner courtyard all encircled by well-preserved walls and battlements.  Our animated guide eagerly showed us all the secrets of the place. One could still  easily see the power structure of the whole area, intact over centuries, with its  economy there ripening before our eyes. Legend had it that none other than Dante  Alighieri had named the place Soave, on tasting its smooth, suave wine. Twenty-five  years later in an American restaurant a friend ordered a good Italian white. I glanced at  the label and there unmistakably was pictured the castle atop the hill, vineyards and  ramparts sloping down towards the town below — and memories of that night in the  Castello di Soave rushed back to mind.

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Aerial view of the Castello di Soave

From such adventures, my theory of communication and education took  root. Experience of the material world should best precede knowledge about it. — Here  is a church portal. I wonder what it all means. When was it built? Who did it? Why  would they bother? Did it get destroyed all at once? When? As we wound our ways, our  little worlds of material knowledge developed a sequence — days and places. We had  some sources of information. Guide books were not yet a big publishing genre and  generally, as I recall, for whatever country we would have a Baedeker, which still then  leaned heavily towards the pedantic, especially relative to the sensibilities of  Americans just entering their teens. We would pick up some brochures as we went  along, although they were not then plentiful. We used such sources to back fill — checking, correcting, and improving responses we had come up with ad hoc by looking  intelligently at things we saw. Opportunities built up to develop comparisons within the  sphere of things we had seen — How does this church differ from the one we stopped at  the first day out? Our information was often shaky, but our experience was both  growing and real. It was good education.

Things, I learned — material objects and actions communicate a lot about  themselves, and through themselves about life and the world, to anyone who will take  the trouble to read them. These experiences tearing around Europe with my minibus  full of kids provided me the foundation upon which I developed my interest in the history  of communication, and much in the history of educational and cultural thought. So  much in our literature records, albeit on a grander scale, exactly what we had been

doing — recording a person's movement at a time and in a place, noting what he saw  and did, so the reader can ponder the significance — Homer's Odyssey, Vergil's The  Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Cervantes' Don Quijote,  up to Twain's Huck Finn going down the Mississippi and Joyce's Ulysses with Bloom's  day in Dublin, and beyond. Life is a meaningful movement in the space and time of the  material world — an "I" linked to a "my circumstances". Formal education is too  sedentary — instead of schools let's invent pedabuggies.