Monday, October 14, 2013

Wood Bloxom

WOOD BLOXOM
1889-1983

"I have seriously mixed feelings about Bloxom.  I liked math, and did well in it. Also, he was entertaining. On the other hand, he told a story one day about a little girl who grew up normally, ... until, one day she had learned all she could.  Her brain was full and she couldn't learn any more. So, she just stopped developing. That was it.  Well, he told the story in Trigonometry.  Every day I wondered -- feared -- that that was it. I would stop learning today.  It is modestly funny now, but it was not at all funny back then."
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Hi Buddy. Thanks for your nice email. What I really need is a "brain implant" my sister told me recently. :-)

Funny, how these memories of Emporia work. I had this dream last night that we were all back in Bloxom's trig classroom. A sort of dream-like reunion of sorts. Anyway, you were recounting to Wood and the class his story about the little girl who's brain became full and she couldn't learn anymore.

What you feared would happen to you back then, had happened now. You'd stopped learning. You'd stopped developing as an attorney and that was that. Wood nodded knowingly to you and turned to all the rest of us. "You see, now the sun is shining here in Emporia."

I woke up with the feeling that it was the same with me. I'd learned everything there was to learn. But with this twist: I didn't need a MFA in writing from Columbia because writing can't be taught or learned from anybody other than yourself. Once one learns that there's nothing more to learn about then perhaps that's the beginning of true learning?

I like how you've kept learning. Publishing. Helping to found a law school. Your volunteer work with KSTC/ESU. I've seen your photo there on their leadership/scholarship page. Very good, Buddy.

Perhaps that story that Wood told us was really about himself. After all, he'd been teaching geometry and trig since before my mother went to EHS back in the '40s. Maybe he felt like he was in a sort of rut with that room, the blackboard, the cabinet with all the geometry models, the years teaching the same thing.

But Roger Hartsook once told me that Wood picked up on the so-called "new geometry & math" that Alderman was teaching in his class on the east side of the building. And Wood learned something new about the old math that he was seemingly stuck with. So perhaps the "story" he told us was actually a story about himself... and then later on breaking out of that rut and actually learning something new?

Oh well, don't pay any attention to me. Just a story within a story. But you got me thinking about Wood all those years ago. :-)




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