“[…] to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.“

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The purpose of an education is to provide children with the skills to front the essential facts of life, and the capacities to enjoy it.

Some essential facts of life: birth, death. In between those: a lump of two plus two is four and Pi is 3.14

—inhale—

159265359…  and milkweed sap is toxic, and 365 days per year, one moon, two solstices – December, June – laws of motion and gravity, and incandescent lights use 408 Watts of energy,

and after winter, spring, and spring in Italian is primavera, which begins on the vernal equinox, and taxes three weeks later…

The skills to front those facts are listed on the curricula of the schools I attended, and include: reading; writing; mental math – to some degree; information assimilation and retention, mostly; civics and nutrition, somewhat; analysis; oral hygiene; and to look both ways before crossing a street.

No class on how to fall in love. How to be a parent, friend. How to be happy, comfort a crying toddler, or grownup. How to face dusk, autumn greys, winter blues, birthday reds. How to file those damn taxes and use that needle and thread.

How to taste a poem, smell a childhood memory, step into a painting, memorize someone’s cheek. How to cry for a marble sculpture by Bernini. See castles, dragons in Sunday clouds. How to hear feelings.

How not to get hurt, how to get hurt. How not to hurt, or try. How to save, or better yet, spend well. How to value people and time. How long to dip that animal cracker in warm milk, achieve the right Nutella-to-bread ratio, laugh and sneeze simultaneously.

There were classes on law, finance, first aid, medicine, business, engineering, plumbing, politics, communication … None on what I should do with two children pointing wow! Asking why? How? on a midnight blue carpet.

“Education a human right, a public good and a public responsibility.” To learn to live, “the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

 All right, then. The essential facts:

Birth, death. Yes, of course, but everything in between those two is a choice.

Two plus two is four, but two together can make any blues cyan, cerulean, sky, sapphire. Two plus two is an adventure. A road trip, to Central America, where there is a timber tree called Primavera – yes, which means spring – with a pale bark, yellow flowers, canopy leaves … and in Botticelli’s Primavera, there are 500 different plant species. And milkweed sap is toxic, yes, but not for everyone; it feeds monarch butterflies and protects the eggs they lay.

Bright orange butterflies, like suns. Solstice means the sun is stilled, but spring always comes. And spring can mean bounce. And some years can leap. And you can leap really high on the moon; there is less gravity.

And you can go to the moon if you want, someday. You can become astronauts, pilots, astronomers, poets, mathematicians, writers, chemists, philosophers, painters, professional snowboarders. Leaders of nations, composers of symphonies and code, algorithms, love letters. Builders of cathedrals, gardens. Cooks

– Pi can also be peach, apricot, strawberry, gorging with pastry cream –

friends, lovers, parents,

kind, happy, good…

Now there are two children on a midnight blue carpet, blinking, nodding off, already somewhere along that road to Central America.

We can continue tomorrow.