Suddenly, now that I have
time to think,
things aren’t
the same
anymore.
Suddenly, things that
were factual,
aren’t.
Or
things that were fringe are
mainstream.
Case in point:
“No, of course the continents
were never all
hooked together,”
my fifth grade teacher snorted.
Even though we looked
at a map
and
could see the edges
of a potential
supercontinent
hiding
in plain sight.
Were there things
that were
true
that were
not what
we were not
taught?
Unsettling
for a ten-year-old
who then read
“Search for a Living Fossil”
in Wide Horizons
about some
fishermen in
Madagascar
who’ve been hauling the
out of
their deep waters for years,
maybe centuries.
“Wait, wait!
Aren’t the dinosaurs
extinct?” I cried.
“Wasn’t it a meteor
or a change in the earth’s axis
or an extreme temperature shift
that caused
them all to disappear?”
other sponges asked.
“They’re all extinct,”
answered the
experts.
And we wanted to
believe them,
like we believed in
Santa Claus and
his friend, the rabbit.
Now, I wonder,
what else have we believed?
Wait! You mean DNA isn’t
fixed?
Genes can be
turned on
or off
based on experiences?
Unsettling for
a retiree
who wonders
what next?
Is the world round?
And what is science, anyway?
And what pretends to be science
because it’s couched in
statistics and studies,
research and data,
but is propped up by pillows
stuffed with
sponsors and bias and money?
No wonder fifth graders
are confused.
I’m confused
by this Post Truth
world
where everyone has taken
aim,
at power,
money,
and camouflage
themselves
with the elements
of
rhetoric
that I taught so well
to so many
students.
But will
young people
recognize
the fallacies
that we had to skim
in order to
have time for the last speech or
to prepare
for the state test?
Or will they accept
and deny
without
asking the
tough questions
of adults who
are also confused
or blind
or cutting the edge?
Was I my fifth grade
teacher?
Did I ever have all
the answers?
Who possibly
could?
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