Three Dont Tango 14

The car wont start. I have to keep it up at the top of the hill and bump start it on the way down. A couple of days of this, and I realise I really do have to go  and see Douggie.
Douggie is supposed to be a farmer. He lives on this farm right on the top of the Mendip hills. Opposite the farmhouse is a range of empty farmyard buildings. There are also empty fields, but somewhere out on the southern slopes are four cows. That's the extent of Douggie's farming. He now mends cars instead.
"They're pets really."
"I've never heard of anyone having cows as pets."
"They were pets when the kids were young. They kids used to ride on their backs when they was bouncing frisky-like, and so they got to be members of the family. I tried selling 'em, but my daughter kicked up such a fuss, we still got 'em"
Douggie gets up, straightens his back. "I guess I better go get 'em. 'Tis time for their milking." He rubs his oily hands on a cloth.
"Gosh, do they deliver enough milk to sell?"
"Taint much. 'Bout one can for the lorry."
"What about my car?"
"I'll see to he later on. You give me a ring in the morning."
Of course, now I've got to walk home. Bloody cars.
The following morning the car is in pieces and is likely to be in pieces all week. Some part isn't working, and a new one has to come from the Outer Hebrides. Meanwhile, I need to hitch into town.
The car that stops for me looks worse than mine. It's held together with bits of string. There are windows missing, and the engine makes a hell of a racket.
I frown, but the driver is clearly proud of his machine. "'Er's a good ol' bitch, and no mistake," he says proudly, hitting the dashboard with the palm of his hand.
Suddenly he takes a left turn where I least expect. Where the heck is he going?
At the next crossing he shoots straight over without looking. I cringe down into the seat. This bloke is a maniac. He takes the next bend on the wrong side.
"Where are we going?" I mutter nervously, trying not to look out the front screen, as we lurch round another blind bend on the wrong side of the road.
"We be a-goin' to Frome o' course," he says, smiling at me.
"But why are we going in this direction? Frome's over there?" I point way over to the right.
"I aint going down that there road."
Good grief, here comes another bend. I'm going to be dead long before I get into town. To hell with the shopping. Shopping isn't worth getting killed for.
"That there road's no good. 'Taint safe. There be a nasty bend on that they road."
"But there are nasty bends on this road," I bleat, trying to keep low in my seat.
"Ah, but last time I went down t'other road I hit a car coming t'other way on one of they bends. Did no end o' damage to my car. I'm not going round one of they bends again. Now I comes this way. Much safer."
I'd catch the bus if there was one, but we get one bus a day at half past eight in the morning, and it comes back again at six in the evening.
We finally make it into town. The car is parked alongside some cattle stalls. I clamber out, feeling that parts of me got left behind on some of the bends. I need something to restore my brain to sanity.
I guess it's country logic. If a car crashes into you on a bend, the bend is to blame, not the driver. That's peasant-think. Peasants are like animals, they run on instinct, not thought. Birds are the same. They just react to instinct. When the light starts to go, they line up on the wires, getting their strength together, and then one day they're off, travelling thousands of miles down some instinctual set of railway lines to the south. That's the way they are programmed.
Peasants think the same way. 'If 'twere good enough for pa, then tis good enough for me'. If something goes wrong, it cant be anything wrong with the system, it has to be something outside the system.
Sure thing! The bends on that other road are dangerous. These bends are okay. That is, until he hits something going round one of them. Maybe then he'll have to drive into Shepton Mallet instead.
Don't you just love all this instinct stuff!

* * * * *

The following day I'm back at the farm talking to this pair of legs sticking out from under another car.
Douggie slides his way out. "I think she's alright now. I've just got to mend her black eye. I've got a new headlamp in the stable, then I'll do a quick test. Your car is round the back. Let me finish this here first. I'll only be ten minutes."
When the new lamp is fitted he gets into the car, starts her up, and reverses up the drive. Just as he reaches the road, his wife turns into the drive in her car and
there is a godalmighty thump, and a whole heap of tinkling glass.
Oh shit! I hide behind the stable door and have a fit of the giggles.
Douggie drives back to the stables trailing a lopsided bumper. He is quickly followed by his wife who's car also now sports a black eye.
"You'd better take your'n afore he gets a black eye an all."

* * * * *

The next day is Cephren's school open day, but all is not well.
"I don't know what's the matter with the headmaster. He's hopeless. He doesn't seem to know what he's doing. I think he's a fool."
"You think everyone's a fool," mutters Annabel.
I start to ask him why he doesn't teach the kids some pretty basic things like their tables.
"What good is learning things by rote? It's a waste of time. Whoever heard of anyone reciting their times tables in real life?"
"Yes but one doesn't learn one's tables so one can recite them, it's a quick reference for doing some maths. Six eights are forty-eight. If you can remember that you don't have to keep adding up six lots of eight every time you need to know the answer."
"Anyway, I know a lot of what I teach is a waste of time," he cheerfully admits. "That's the way it is. I shall carry on teaching things because that's what the local authority tell me to teach, and because I want to get promotion to a bigger school."
"Yes, but shouldn't you be teaching the kids to solve problems? You know, do some thinking?"
"There's no point in teaching children to think. You don't have to think to solve problems. You just learn how to solve them. What's thinking got to do with it?"
I'm a bit at sea here. What the heck is he talking about?
"What's the point of teaching children to add? You need to give the kids real situations. Show them how many children there are in the class and how many desks there are. Do we have enough, or too many. Something practical."
I knew it, this bloke's an idiot. Has he never heard of algebra? Obviously not. Should I raise a question here?
The trouble is if you don't teach principles, you don't teach children how things work, or how to use short cuts to solve problems. In fact, if everything is practical, you can only ever solve problems you have been taught to solve. When you hit a new situation you are going to be stumped unless you have been taught how to draw conclusions from various principles and from other situations.
"Yes but, suppose you teach me how to mend that car over there…"
"Right. Something practical. There's sense in that."
"Yes, but if you teach me how to mend one type of car, but don't teach me how cars function in general, I'll only know how to mend one type of car. I wont have a clue how to mend a totally different car."
"But how many cars do you own?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"But unless you are going to be a garage mechanic why do you want to know how to mend someone else's car?"
I look puzzled. "But suppose next year I buy something different."
"Then learn how to mend that."
"Yes but if I'd learned the principles behind how a combustion engine works…" I trailed off into silence. It was clear he wasn't listening and wasn't interested.
Apparently if you correct children when they go wrong you will put them off doing the things they are supposed to be learning.
"So how on earth would you teach a child to play the piano?" I asked. "You wouldn't teach scales, and five finger exercises."
"Good heavens no. That is the way to destroy their creativity. We want to teach them to be creative."
"But how can they be creative if they haven't any control over where they put their fingers? All they can do is bang about and get frustrated which is going to do more harm to their creative forces than learning to control their fingers." But he can't see what I am talking about.
In the car going home I tell Ann about the guy who drove me into town by going along a road where he hadn't had any accidents. "The bloody headmaster is like that bloke. He's a ruddy peasant, only interested in peasant thinking."
"I know. The man's a fool," muttered Annabel.
I smiled.

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