Euclid Avenue is a landmark street, an engineering marvel, and a source of civic pride for three communities. It runs approximately fifteen miles north to south through the towns of Upland, Ontario, and Chino. It is a broad boulevard and a divided highway, and the middle is much more than a median. It is an island, or series of islands, each one about 75 feet wide and one block long.
Each island is flanked with rows of huge and ancient slow-growth trees, creating a tunnel and a park. These island parks are individually and collectively the site of holiday events, community celebrations, family picnics, and car shows, as well as a shady retreat for walking and jogging.
Living in nearby Pomona, I was familiar with Euclid Avenue, but I got a much closer look in the summer of 1970 when I was given my student teaching assignment in U.S. History at Chaffee High School in Upland.
My master teacher was a gem. John loved kids, loved history, and loved teaching. He had been in the classroom more than twenty years, and he was completely on top of his game. His classroom management skills were first rate, with a short and simple list of classroom rules; but the students were so engaged that there was hardly any time or inclination on their part to mess around. Not a moment was wasted. Everyone was on task, and John was a professional who taught from his feet, not from his seat.
And John kept up. He did his homework and believed in continuing education. He was a voracious reader of history and biography, and his summer vacations were spent at the birthplaces of our nation. His lectures were peppered with historical oddities, anecdotes, and really cool slides.
He was also something of maverick, a political firebrand, and an enfant terrible — all of which endeared him to the students and occasionally rankled the administration. He also had a wicked sense of humor and loved nothing better than to keep the kids off balance by messing with their heads.
One day he was talking about the Age of Exploration, circumnavigation, Magellan and Columbus. He was regaling the students with stories of the mariners who did not grasp the concept of a globe and who feared falling off the face of the flat earth. In the middle of the lecture he casually dropped the following sentence:
“There are still people around who do not believe that the world is flat.”
He continued his lecture with a straight face; and as I looked around the classroom, kids were scratching their heads, whispering, giggling, waiting for the punch line. Finally, this one student raised his hand … tentatively:
“Sir, did you just say that the world is flat?”
John was waiting for it and didn’t miss a beat:
“Well sure! Everyone knows that. I’ll prove it. C’mon! We are going on a short field trip”
He led the class down the hallway and out the front door of the school. They followed him like ducklings to the sidewalk where they turned left to next corner and waited for the light to change in order to cross the southbound lanes of Euclid Avenue and onto the island that was directly in front of the school.
While the students are waiting at the corner, let us consider for a moment the topic of round earth versus flat earth. Imagine you are a little over six feet in height and you are at the beach, standing at the shoreline with your toes in the water. While you are enjoying the view, a ship leaves the harbor and heads out to sea. The boat gets smaller and smaller as it moves away from you. At some point, however, it does not just get smaller. It sinks into the ocean, because the curvature of the earth has carried it beyond your horizon and swallowed it. The horizon is about ten miles for a person whose eyes are six feet above sea level.
When all the students were gathered on the island, John told them to look down the tunnel. The street begins in the foothills below Mount Baldy, gently sloping southward, gradually leveling out. As you stare down the tunnel, it appears to go on without end, rising slightly, block after block, mile after mile, straight and flat forever. The optical illusion was enough to confuse a few students and to give a hint of credence to any the flat-earthers among them.
The next day, John turned the field trip into a teaching moment. Just because a teacher — or anyone else — says something, does not necessarily make it so. You must do your own homework. There was laughter; they appreciated the joke. There was a lively discussion. The whole lesson was orchestrated to challenge assumptions, and to help the students appreciate the world view of seafaring men of the 15th Century.
They all firmly agreed that the world is indeed round, but apparently not everyone got the memo.
Near the end of the period, John asked me to take over, because the principal wanted to see him. When he got to the principal’s office, a parent was waiting for him with fire in his eyes. He assailed John with:
“What kind of a teacher are you? My son came home yesterday and reported that you believe the world is flat.”
John was about to explain that it was a joke and a teaching moment, but the dad cut him off. He was not done. He shouted:
“I KNOW THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT. LAST NIGHT I WENT TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND LOOKED IT UP.”
Tidings from Tim 