Two women: one idea

On a recent trip to Quebec visiting les Cantons-de-l’Est  and I noticed the magma intrusions abruptly arising from the flat landscape of the surrounding plains. This reminded me of how the theory of plate tectonics is one of the foundational theories of my academic career and yet this theory has not always been foundational.

This is a story of patriarchal and academic systems struggling to hold onto their power but in this story are two women pushing at those boundaries of these systems until these systems crack. I came to realize that this enquiry is intertwined with my story in ways that I didn’t understand at the time, but I was being handed a brand-new map of reality, and I have lived under that light of that truth my entire life.

 The Vema

The story begins in 1952, when Columbia University bought a yacht built in 1925, replacing its sails for diesel engines for Maurice Ewing’s new oceanographic research team. Its goal was to map the ocean floor and would ultimately sail for 320 days a year logging over 1 million nautical miles. Bruce Heezen, a recent undergraduate, would helm the team on board while it took sonar readings and core samples sending the data back to Marie Tharp to turn it into a usable map. Tharp, with a master’s degree in geology as well as a mathematics degree, was by far the most skilled and qualified team member but as a female, she was not allowed on the research vessel.

Grade Six, Avon Public School, 1969

Miss D was known as a strict teacher, probably near retirement age, and I didn’t know what to expect but unbeknownst to me, I was part of a great educational experiment. I will never know why she was chosen but her experience and reputation probably would serve to buffer any push back from the community. But this was still a conservative time as it wasn’t that long ago, women teachers would have to resign when they married or got pregnant.

I didn’t understand the significance of this experiment, but I knew from the moment I entered the class that something was different. It was a split grade 5/6 class but rather than being split evenly there were only six of us in grade 6. Our “classroom” was different.  It was something I had never seen before. Desks were not in rows and places were set aside for us to collaborate as well as places where we could gather on the floor. This was not normal for the 1960’s and it took only a glance to the other side of the classroom to see the difference. Beyond the physical layout, our class was different as these were people who I barely knew, let alone hung with. All my peers were in regular classes, and I remember feeling some anger about the isolation I felt away from my peer group.

But what happened in class was something I had never felt before. I was not bored. We had lessons, but then we were directed to further our learning on our own or in groups. For the first time in my life; the learning style in class matched my learning style-inquisitive and boundless.

“Girl Talk leading to a revolution”

In 1952, Marie Tharp began taking the sonar data and the core sample information from the Vema, to construct a map of the ocean floor. At that time, the ocean was believed to be a flat plain, but her interpretation of the data showed mountains, valleys and a 16000 km continuous V shaped rift valley in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Heezen completely rejected her analysis labelling it “girl talk” and ordered her to erase her work and do it over as she obviously was mistaken. Driven by dogma with a dose of misogyny Heezen saw Tharp’s research as a threat. At the time it was considered career ending heresy, especially within Columbia University to believe that the continents moved. To prove her wrong, Heezen hired Howard Foster to produce a seismic map of all the known oceanic earthquakes and volcanoes. This map lined up perfectly with Tharp’s map of the V shaped valley thus proving the movement of plates. At this point, Heezen conceded Tharp was right.  In 1957, the first map of the North Atlantic was published showing the rift valley that split in the ocean floor proving the ocean was splitting apart.

At this point, Columbia, the academic community generally, and the US navy brought their institutional power to shut both Heezen and Tharp down. Because Heezen had tenure, the director Maurice Ewing fired Tharp in 1964 to get back at Heezen. They lost funding and even access to their data as the institutional gatekeepers acted to preserve the status quo.  To get around this, they collaborated with artist Heinrich Berann to produce an “artistic” drawing of what the ocean would look like with no water. In 1968, National Geographic a general interest magazine published the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.  In that same year, the geologic community finally embraced the theory of plate tectonics. And 17 years after starting her research, Marie Tharp in 1965 was finally allowed on a research ship.

A revolution in education reaches Stratford Ontario

In 1968, Emmet Hall and Lloyd Dennis released, “Living and Learning”, which in one bold stroke took a torch to the rigid, top-down educational system in Ontario that mirrored the ossified patriarchal systems that were in place in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. It was a tectonic shifting to child centred learning where the child would lead their own educational process. It advocated for getting rid of rigid structured classes of everyone doing the same thing at the same time and the need for competitive marks and suddenly opened up the possibility that learning could be more than conformity. For the first time I was freed to get up from a desk and freely move about a classroom to access learning materials. Coupled with the ban on corporal punishment. I could now leave my desk, free me from the very real threat and reality of being slapped for stepping out of line.  Instead of teacher as an authority figure, Hall and Dennis hoped for more relaxed dynamics where students and teacher were more in partnership. The last of the recommendations saw the need to create a modern curriculum that was responsive to world events and current research. It was decades later, well into my own teaching career that I realized how lucky I was to be part of such a bold and innovative revolution.

Revolutions collide

In 1968, unbeknownst to my 11-year-old self two revolutions were occurring that would change my life a year later.

In my grade six classroom, in the many moments of unstructured learning, I remember looking at a world map. I have always liked looking at maps so that in itself was not unusual. Miss D walked over to me and pointed to the map and asked me to look at the coasts of South America and Africa and asked me what I saw.  I said they look like they fit together. And then she explained to me how they once were connected a long time ago and we now believe that the continents move. It is as all of the recommendations of Living and Learning coincided with the work of Marie Tharp in one magical moment. She too, like Marie Tharp was taking a risk exposing me to what was still a controversial theory that undermined traditional religious beliefs in a small conservative town.

The impact of that lesson in that small grade six classroom reverberates through me decades later. Maybe it is not a surprise that is why I pursued two degrees in geography, but the real impact ultimately lies with a debt to Marie Tharp and Miss D. They were both on the cutting edge of human knowledge, one in earth sciences and the other in educational reform. I was gifted a new map of reality both literally and metaphorically. Their boldness and courage to challenge and persevere against the arbitrary boundaries that society imposes on us is perhaps the greatest inspiration that I carry with me.