By Thom Calandra
Copyright © 2007, Thom Calandra
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY AUTHOR
My son's middle-school class was preparing a little geography lesson in honor of Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who discovered a straight line does not lead to Punto Bay from Punto Aye. The class, which
is taught in French by a native French speaker in a California classroom, does a thing called Then and Now. Back then, the teacher says, they thought the world was flat. And today? "Well," one of the kids
volunteers (in French), "today we know the world is flat." The kids laugh, which to the teacher, a Belgian woman, is light comic relief, a
sign the kids' geography is not entirely skewed. If this little French mob can
riff on the facts, they must know the facts, mais oui?
Teacher has her hands full, teaching geography in French to a classroom of 11-year-olds who believe Nickelodeon discovers America each and every morning, in English thank you very much. Mademoiselle, loyal to her
language, must now summon the courage to tell these kiddos it wasn't really Christopho Colombo who discovered America but instead someone who spoke French, maybe Celine Dion. After my garçon told me
about his geography lesson, I imagined that different classrooms
might custom-warp the globe to fit their contemporary living rooms.
Such a lesson might go like this: Back then, everyone was convinced the world was flat. Today, we just think it is because of fiber-optic cables, the
world as one village ... and oh, Fed-Ex and UPS deliver anywhere in the cosmos in 24 hours.
ź At the temple, the priests' geography lesson might be: Then, we prayed the world was flat. "Oh Spiritu Sancto, please tell us the world is flat! Otherwise, what
do we preach on Sunday?" Today, priests pray for round. "Lord, please keep the world round as a pizza-pie. Otherwise, what do we preach on Sunday?"
ź At the United Nations, the diplomats might see it like so: Then, we hoped the world was round when everyone else saw it as a pancake. Today, we know it is round, and we hope it stays that way ... except for a few small countries we'd like to push off the edge.
ź With the French, the grown-up ones, anyway, we find a people willing to debate whether the world really should be round (oh those pesky French!), just as any respectable Provence chef is willing to debate whether a bouillabaisse absolutely must use shellfish to be a proper bouillabaisse, or any French audience will debate whether the government should allow filmmakers to dub their French language films into English instead of subtitling them. Or if Nick.com should air in France in its original English instead of getting the French dub. Or even whether Celine Dion should have been born in the Latin Quarter of Paris instead of Quebec. They'd love to change the world, those French, but they don't know what to do.
ź Finally, it is the quantum physicists, and more than a few theologists, who will tell you there is no debating all of this. The world is neither round nor flat. What is, as we come to accept many years beyond middle school, if we're the accepting type, just is. Oh, such bliss.
Next time you draw a line from Punto Bay to Punto Aye, or even from the ATM kiosk in your local Safeway to the produce section of the supermarket, try connecting your dots in another lingo, even if it's Nick .com ... or the language of bouillabaisse. Hey, just spelling that one is enough to ward off dementia for a year or two. See you in Punto Bay.
About the Author
Thom Calandra’s novel “Pablo By Numbers” was excerpted in autumn 2007 on the StockHouse.com group of web sites in Canada and the USA. Thom was
a co-founder and a columnist and broadcaster at CBS MarketWatch.
"Flat World"
