.jpg)
Miss Senstad taught mathematics in Ely during the 60s. She was a poised, confident, classy woman whose lessons were productive and practical. Two math lessons were particularly memorable. Those two in a minute. She also burned into my memory a life lesson about evaluating whom you wish to associate with. On the blackboard in perfectly crafted script was a chalk warning: He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Awaken him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him.
But he who knows and knows that he knows is a leader. Follow him.
Those lines shone from the blackboard for the entire 38 weeks of the school year. I can’t be sure if she ever read it to us, but I think I hear her strong, controlled voice reciting it as I type this.
The math lessons? One was an admonishment, the other reminder.
“Always ask yourself,” she’d smoothly but solidly state, “does my answer make sense?” e.g. 40 x 60 can’t be equal to 24,000. Not reasonable. Count the zeros. A circle with a diameter of 100 can’t have a circumference of 31.4. It can’t be less than the circumference! Doesn’t make sense. The Reasonable Test has stayed with me.
The reminder? “Of” means times -- “Per” means divide.
Down the hall from Miss Senstad’s blackboard was Mr. Kimball’s speech class. There I was given the best public speaking advice -- advice that would benefit many politicians these days. How to deliver a speech?
Stand up Speak up Shut up. While this may not have been original with Mr. Kimball, I thank him for it. It’s rather an analog to a witty Mark Twain barb “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter so I wrote a long one instead.”
In the sixty years since I was in those classrooms at Washington Junior High, I’ve heard and appreciated many maxims. They’ve come from various sources.
A boss often reminded us of the unshakable truth that “Nothing very good or very bad lasts very long.” A most sobering yet comforting nugget -- especially in the corporate world but I think most everywhere.
Philosopher Lawrence Peter Berra told us that “You can observe a lot by just watching. And you can.
Sometimes a smart reply can be a good lesson even if it’s a bit smart Axx’ed. e.g. I was in the architecture office at a food chain company headquarters one day in the 70s when the founder and chairman of the board bolted in. He was an imperious and supercilious bully who deserved the response he got from Bing, the company architect.
“How many cars can you park on an acre?” he impatiently demanded to know.
Bing looked at me and I slightly shook my head and thought, “don’t do it, Bing.”
But he did. “What kind of acre?”
“An acre is an acre!” growled Big Guy.
Bing: “No, if the acre is one foot wide and 43 thousand 5 hundred 60 feet long, you can’t park any cars on it.”
From this I learned and still remember two things. 1. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre. 2. you can end your corporate career with one honest answer.
Back to 8th Grade math class. Clearly Miss Senstad’s stretches at least three lines past Twain’s maxim maximum, but It needed all four lines to get to the incisive point. Make sure the leaders in your life know and know that they know.
If I had a classroom of junior high kids in front of me and a blackboard behind me, I think I’d write this; Just because something is a good (or bad) idea doesn’t mean there ought to be a law requiring (or forbidding) it.
But I don’t and I’ve grown old. Yet I find that even in pop music lyrics, from which I often mine amusement and wisdom, there are lessons. e.g. “Well, it’s alright -- even when you’re old and gray, You still got something to say.” I don’t know which of the Travelling Wilburys wrote that line but it’s one to remember.
Unless what you’re saying is headed toward and is being received by He who knows not and knows not that he knows not - then it’s best to skip to Mr. Kimball’s third step.
Doug Luthanen grew up in Ely and graduated from Memorial High School in 1967. He wrote a weekly viewpoint column for the Northwest Arkansas Times for four years and is an occasional contributor to The Ely Echo.
