Something incredibly wonderful happened to me this week. I
met Frank Oppenheimer.
He said some things that spoke to my soul from years of
observing kids in rich learning environments:
“The Exploratorium was conceived as a place to teach and
learn, primarily because these are things we all like to do. It is the way we
bring up our children, take our friends to the top of a hill to see the view,
or call out, when we are walking through the woods ‘Hey, look, there’s a deer.’”
“This show of reality represents a basic honesty that is
surprisingly important effect on learning.”
“No one flunks a museum.”
There is a stack of books from the library that I am working
my summer way through. Summer reading was one of my all time most
restorative activities during my active teaching time. I did not consider the
summer break well started until I had spent at least a few days that first week
nose deep in a novel from breakfast until supper or even lights out bedtime.
When I was growing up, my mom would occasionally request the
removal of my nose from a book to get something done. During my university
days, I reread The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings each year during my summer job
bus commutes. Then I taught for 8 years before starting my family and so I had
time to create a July tradition around summer reading. Family changed some
aspects of this (no more dawn to dusk reading) but this summer I have reveled
in it in a new way.
In late July, my husband got a total knee replacement and I
had hospital and home time to spend nose deep in books again.
In the early 1990’s my husband and I enjoyed the opportunity
to visit San Francisco
for a conference related to his work. I checked out Frank Lloyd Wright
buildings and discovered the Exploratorium. I could not believe such a
wonderful learning environment existed. I tried to get there every time we went
to San Francisco
and have recommended it to many people as a highlight of a trip there. We
planned a family holiday to San
Francisco expressly so my kids could experience it.
When I discovered a biography of the man who “made up” this rich world I
knew I had to read it.
In the pages of Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens; Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up I found a kindred spirit in Frank Oppenheimer.
Biographer, K.C. Cole has communicated her “perceptions” of this physics and
education genius so that I feel I truly “understand” his life and times.
Perception and understanding were key to Frank’s educational approach. Cole had
the advantage of working with Frank over many years and experienced the
development of the Exploratorium first hand in the role of a writer. She had contact with him right up to his death from cancer in 1985.
Her description of Frank’s early life, his experiences
related to work as a young physicist on the Manhattan Project with his more
famous brother Robert, his eventual blacklist for his stand (with the
scientists involved) on not using the bomb which included suggestions for international
atomic energy oversight and his eventual high school teaching job in Colorado
all lead to understanding the cosmic synergy he brought to the development of
his “woods of natural phenomena”.
Frank’s science was a life philosophy, a way of looking at
the world and wanting to know more. Knowing more could only lead to better
people and society. In his view there were no stupid questions and ultimately
with time to touch, listen and observe, patterns were revealed, connections
made and looking for answers brought understanding.
