"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel? You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends.' But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms 'visiting hours' don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you...I don't see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you."
~Sean, Good Will Hunting
"Grade inflation is on our side," a good friend of mine told me--assuring me of my readiness--a few months ago before I started a Master of Arts program in English at IUPUI. She was and is in the midst of finishing a master's in social at work at UPenn and contemplating following that up with law school. She is just one of many of my peers who have returned to school in this shit economy after a few years in the professional world. Wendell Berry's words on the topic were even stronger; he has called university "diploma factories."
Currently, I am three class sessions and a fifteen-page paper away from being eight credits into my degree program. Given the nature of summer classes, it has been quick and full. For example, this last class, we have flown through classic works like Homer's The Iliad, Virgil's The Aeneid, Dante's The Divine Comedy, and Milton's Paradise Lost. I've been grateful for the forced opportunity to tackle such classics, which deal with so many of the essential cosmic questions about God and purpose and governance, but at the same time reading them individually in a week's time and turning around an intelligible response has been daunting, especially given that so much of my own reading--outside of the Bible--has been contemporary literature.
IUPUI is a commuter school, which gets tacked on to an educational experience that includes a rural public elementary and middle school, a boarding high school, a faith-based, private university, and teaching and administrative work in inner city schools, so it is always interesting to explore what the vast differences are. One of the tragedies of my current setting is the possibility for earning grades in courses without knowing people in even the most surface-level of ways. Sure, my professors and students hear me throw out intellectual ideas in response to texts we read. That doesn't mean they know me, and I sure as hell don't know them. The commuter environment almost completely strips community--the best context for learning, in my opinion--away from education. Still, we trudge on for professional reasons, the hope that our degree will one day help us get a job we enjoy. It's a good desire, a good telos, but the method is a little problematic.
It's really hard not to just play the game. Skim the readings, cherry pick a few quotes, slide them into a semi-coherent argument, collect the grade like a paycheck. Sometimes I don't have any other options, if I am to meet the rest of my responsibilities as a person. How can I hold on to some sort of integrity? How do I ensure that this doesn't become solely an exercise in endurance? A friend and former colleague of mine offered this answer: "Chris, it's not about the marks, it's about your own development for your future." I trust that he is correct.
And I am still forced to contemplate the quantity verses quality of the work I'll someday assign when I teach again. Sure, we want rigor, but I think we also need reasonable work loads in order to engage most effectively. I'll get my chance next month, as I'll be teaching two three-hour freshmen writing courses after a year off from teaching. I look forward to beginning anew with a fresh perspective on life, the content, and teaching in general.
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