Proust in the classroom

I love cherry blossoms, and we live a stone's throw away from Branch Brook Park. At dusk I got my nose dusted yellow from sniffing hundreds, maybe thousands, of flowers.

Photo by Cathy Elliott-Shaw

As I sniffed one tree's flowers, then the next, hundreds of people were taking photos in the ethereal light, the sun sitting snug just below the horizon, a bulging moon high up in the east.

We are (mostly) visual creatures. We analyze light, look for patterns, capture it digitally so we can show others what we think we saw. We have art shows comparing our various abilities to capture light, to hold the world in a frame. We can discern a good photograph from a mediocre one, talk about contrast and angles and resolution.

Me and my nose live in a different world, a world of sinuous curves instead of angles, smudges instead of contrast, a world where time and distances dissolve into layers of fog swirling into each other. The cameras capture the sensuous, pleasing the cortex, blending thought and analysis and the beauty of order; my nose triggers the sensual, flaring up the olfactory lobe, part of our more primitive brain, visceral, without language.

The art of observing, the crucial first step of science, requires all of our senses. Schooling focuses on the visual. For all the talk of various learning styles, our standardized tests focus on what can be seen, what can be analyzed, what can be fairly assessed.

Photo by Colin Archer

I encourage my lambs to use their noses in class--we sniff basil, gingko ("vomit" fruit), dirt, sea water, elodea--and by the end of the year, I see students routinely using their noses when examining something new in class.

This is not something they are ever likely to face on a standardized exam in public schools. Not everything worth learning is easily assessed. When we reduce our classes to laboratories of the easily assessable, we reduce the natural world. When we reduce the natural world, we reduce science.

Alas, odors can be a problem-ever smell a rotten starfish?

First Branch Brook photo NJ photo courtesy of Cathy Elliott-Shaw via nj.gov; 
Second photo  by Colin Archer/Agency New Jersey via NJ Monthly. 

If you live within driving distance, it's worth the hike--
more flowering Japanese cherry trees than anywhere in the States--take that, D.C.! 

Proust, meet Bloomingdale's

When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered· the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls· bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory.

Marcel Proust, The Remembrance of Things Past

A couple of months ago I threw a package of expired basil seeds on a patch of peat moss and vermiculite, borrowed the aquarium light for a few weeks (the fish didn't squawk), and now I have a mess of basil growing in the classroom.

We were discussing axils and lateral shoots in AP class, so as I yakked, I pinched basil plants. In a week or two, they will be bushier.

As I pinched (and, um, ate, breaking a fundamental rule in science class), the aroma of basil oils wandered over to the students (hey, diffusion, another lesson!)

"That smells good!"

I had to stop a moment and chew--in my enthusiasm, I had tossed too many basil leaves into my mouth to be suave, and I looked like the contented cow bull I was.

***

I remember a room in the Franklin Institute--the center of the room had a large oval bar, with various sniffing stations. You put your nose right up to the screened opening, and inhaled.

They could have called it the room of dreams--close your eyes, sniff, and your brain spins into old memories, old fears, old loves.
Does it exist anymore? Did it ever?

***

Imagine a world where scent is used to alter your behavior, a world where science research is used to manipulate your emotions.

It's already being done.











It's no accident that the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando smells like the ocean and waffles.
It's no accident that your Lexus dealership might smell like green tea and lemongrass.
It's no accident that Bloomingdale's smells like baby powder and coconut.

ScentAir "is the global leader of scent marketing solutions." Their clients include ShopRite and Macy's, the Hilton and our military. ScentAir provides smells "just above the level of sunconscious awareness."

ScentAir changes behavior--at least some very smart, very wealthy businessmen believe so.

***

Folks who deodorize classrooms scare me.

Our 20th century culture taught us to fear our noses, to fear ourselves. Fear creates inadequacies, inadequacies create markets. We’ve become what we buy.

Gardening and sex share many characteristics, not the least of which is the need for a good nose. Both have a learning curve. Both were destroyed at the industrial level last century.

Thankfully, though, both can still be practiced well for those who remember their humanity, and even the inexperienced can find joy at the low end of the curve.

Somewhere in school a child needs to learn that monied people will try to manipulate his behavior in ways not healthy to the child. Somewhere in school a child needs to learn that all of us are intimately tied to life, to soil, to sunlight.

If your children prefer the smell of Lysol to composted manure, you may be depriving them of true joy, joy that is not measured by the model of car they eventually drive.

(This post flew out of my head after reading This Brazen Teacher this morning.)

The eraser photo is from CleanSweepSupply.
The ScentAir logo is trademarked by ScentAir.
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