September 2022
Dear Friend of Golden View Classical Academy,
One of the saddest things about high school today is that students often don’t read books, like actual and good books, that can shape their view of man and the world. When a student transfers to Golden View after a freshman or sophomore year somewhere else, it is rare that she can tell me her favorite book, let alone name any book that she read. To anyone who has read actual and good books this is a travesty, just as it is a travesty to one who’s camped under the stars to hear that someone has never left the city, or to one who’s eaten fresh fish from his own cast to hear one has never had more than canned tuna.
It’s worse than that, though, because anyone who has read actual and good books knows, even if she can’t name it precisely, that the book changed the way she thinks or improved her heart. With that in mind, I want to share a fun thing we do with an actual and good book at Golden View, a book read in 11th Grade. It is, as we say in our stale joking way, a whale of a book - Moby Dick. The thing truly is a beast, and it takes the better part of a semester to finish it, and that’s if you’re racing.
To set the tone, to commit heart and soul to completing the voyage, this is how we begin. The teacher lays in front of each student a small plate with an anchovy on it. And then, one at a time, students repeat a vow and eat the fish. Or not. It goes like this:
Teacher: “[Student], what say ye?!”
Student: “I ___________ do take this foul fish into my own self as my sacred bond. To sea! my shipmates: Death to Moby Dick!!”
Teacher: “Short draughts; long swallows mates...put your backs into it. Heave the wriggling scent of destiny above thy jowelles and taste the salt-cake of the sea!”
Now, if a student refuses (which of course happens and is of course acceptable), the student says:
“I ____________ am a land-loving scallywag. I am but a marchant stowaway and only proceed on this voyage by the good graces of my seaworthy shipmates. I eat not this fish to my everlasting shame and beg passage on the noble Pequod.”
It’s a fun affair, raucous even, and the seniors who’ve completed their voyage the year prior love to watch and cheer on.
What’s the point? Something must fix the book in the memory, some aligning seminar or essay or celebration, with a teacher who has taken the book into his own soul already, clearly and fully. No one who plays his part in this commitment and vow could ever think that Moby Dick was just another book to slog through. Indeed, I wonder if students would remember more books if they came with this kind of celebration. Of course, you’d have to assign them first.
Sincerely,
Dr. Garrow
Principal, Golden View Classical Academy
