Bill Bryson and the Short History of Nearly everything 2.0.

I had the privilege of attending a Bill Bryson event in Auckland on Thursday evening.

While I had laughed at many of his travel books, he made the greatest impression on me – as a teacher of Science (etc) – with the Short History of Nearly Everything published in 2003. From that point on I recommended the book to every student/family I worked with … especially the illustrated version. An 8 -18 year old student reading the book (let alone adults) and taking 6 months to a year to do so … would have what the Economist called – “the greatest science primer ever”.

As anyone who studies science properly knows – there are no scientific FACTS. There are historial facts about how theories develop and the people that develop them but the scientific method is always:

Hypothesise
Test/Experiment
Reject the hyposthises or develop a new one to test against.

Any person who states that any field of science is “settled” is deeply ignorant.

Given the extent of the topic Bryson spoke/was interviewed very well. It is not easy for NZers to understand all of the inferences of a laconic person from the American Mid-West – but he grasped his audience well.

His motivation for writing The Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 was simply that so much had changed in scientific fields in 20 years that he needed to do an update and … his publisher wanted him to sell more books.

If students, families, schools are truly looking for knowldge rich texts … this is a great example … not the nonsense being developed by the Misery of Education.

PS: He also told some travel stories. I used to tricycle to school in Thames when 5yo – past the Prices factory. The workers would stop me to be cheeky and teach me swear words to mention to the teachers when I got to school … this story appealed from Bill Bryson on Thursday night:

“In the 1950s, a friend of Catherine’s moved with her young family into a house next door to a vacant lot. One day some builders arrived to put up a house on the lot. Catherine’s friend had a three-year-old daughter who naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door. She hung around on the margins and eventually the builders adopted her as a kind of mascot. They chatted to her and gave her little jobs to do and at the end of the week presented her with a little pay packet containing a shiny new half crown, or something.

She took this home to her mother who made all the appropriate cooings of admiration and suggested that they went to the bank the next morning to deposit it in her account. When they went to the bank, the cashier was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her own pay packet.

“I’ve been building a house this week,” she replied proudly.

“Goodness!” said the cashier. “And will you be building a house next week, too?”

“I will if we ever get the fucking bricks,” answered the little girl.”

-Bill Bryson, “Down Under” p169.

alwyn.poole@gmail.com

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