I am a book reader

Open up life, one chapter at a time

 

I read books. I am a high-functioning, healthy white male with a good job and I read books anyway. There! The truth about me is out. I even choose to read books when there is a hockey game on the TV. I know that this raises all kinds of suspicions about me, but what can I do? I’m that kind of guy. No point in trying to hide it anymore.

I’m actually a lucky kind of guy, depending on how you look at it. I have an aptitude for something (reading books) that facilitated my being able to take advantage of an opportunity to have a better life. Reading books helped me to be good at school, which helped me to continue going to school which gave me the education that allowed me to have choices about my life. It allowed me to escape the slavery of the farm and the rough-and-tumble of a life in the bush.

Traveling to what are called the skinny countries, as I occasionally do, and talking to the locals who are desperately trying to separate me from my money will show almost anybody that education is very broadly considered to be a social and individual good. The people trying to get their hands into my pocket tell me it’s for their children, so they can go to school and to have a better life. I let them, because I believe this.

I also believe that education is a “good.” Almost any kind of investigation will show us that with this path, family sizes will go down, poverty will go down, other kinds of suppression and oppression will be alleviated and life will be better, not only for the individuals concerned but for the planet in general. What’s not to like about that?

 

In contrast to those that are less lucky, some of us in the fat countries think it’s good sport to take shots at education – especially higher education. And it is easy to do. My old teacher, Jim Krenov, used to call this kind of thing “shooting fish in a barrel,” which strikes me as a good description of the challenges involved. I’m immersed in higher education now, so I know a few things about it and, believe me, it’s tempting to take some of these easy shots myself

Academia is, in many ways, and at a bureaucratic level, a self-perpetuating and insular structure that is prone to a good bit of foolishness. Many of those involved have never known a different life – they went to school and never left – from student to teacher (and maybe on to administrator) without passing go or collecting two hundred dollars. This can give the institutions as a whole a kind of blindness and separation from the realities that most of those that have other lives face.

I’ve come to terms with it and I’ll admit it was a bit of a challenge. My view now is that all social and organizational structures are vulnerable to inefficiencies and false starts. It’s part of the price that we must pay for having this kind of opportunity and its benefits as part of our culture. We Canadians are all beneficiaries of our government’s commitment to education, however inefficient and frustrating it has been. Few of us have fully utilized all the mathematics we were forced to endure. Or can even recount the rules of grammar or identify the capitols of obscure countries. But the experience made us better people and it has opened doors for us and it gave us a better society. We had bad teachers and we had good ones: those whose generosity and empathy have stuck with us and to who we will always feel gratitude.

So if you are paying attention, you might be asking yourself, “what has this to do with Design?”

My book-reading led me to believe that there were other worlds out there and other ways of living. It gave me the optimism to indulge my curiosity and explore with confidence. I discovered design and that changed my life. It has formed it and guided it. I went back to school and I was lucky I could. One of the fundamental truths about design is that one can never know too much. Knowledge is the fuel we run on. One can become learned in a variety of ways: education being one and experience being the principal other. Books are also a way. Much of what I have learned I didn’t learn as a student. I learned it as a teacher. Few actions are more effective in sharpening our understanding as having to describe something to someone else. Books have helped me get there, because that is what they do.

 

Paul Epp is a professor at OCAD University, and chair of its Industrial Design department.