I've lamented before that I feel like I don't know enough. Since I left college, I haven't felt as connected to the intellectual abilities I had started to build during my last year or two. In fact, one of my favorite experiences in all of university was my "Madness in Literature" class. This is one of the reasons that I quickly encourage students to look forward to and anticipate their next step in education.
The class involved looking at madness--the way it was portrayed in literature, obviously, but also culturally, historically, and politically. The professor had never taught the course before, as it was a senior seminar, once-in-a-lifetime chance. I would swing by the professor's office to chat with her about ideas I'd had because of the readings, which was unusual for me. I generally let my classwork speak for itself. But there were a couple of professors whose acquaintance I pursued outside of the classroom. I appreciated Dr. Albrecht-Crane's capacity, intelligence, and eloquence. Her selections were powerful and well constructed; indeed, I took the class specifically because she was teaching it. The fact that I have books by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Slavoj Zizek can be directly correlated to my Madness class. (I lent my copy of History of Madness by Michel Foucault to a friend, who, apparently, never returned it. I didn't miss it until today, when I was looking for it, so I obviously haven't returned to the texts I read in college.) My point is, the class pushed me to think. Hard. I would finish classes--Tuesday/Thursday schedule--and go to my car in the free parking lot. There I would sit, my mind still chugging through the implications of the class, processing all I could. Then I would drive off to the stultifying job of selling computers. The discrepancy was palpable.
I sorely miss that intellectual challenge. I know that I can put the students into a new frame of mind--I know which questions to ask and which pieces of literature can justify the questions--but it's hard to push myself higher. That's part of why I am trying to read/listen to at least 60 books this year (I've finished about 15 so far): I want to stretch myself. And while it's not the same as being in a class, it's all I have. And, in many ways, all I have time for.
My high school career was one where my paltry natural talents, a little bit of effort, and some help from friends got me through with high marks and a bevy of positive experiences. I wasn't genuinely challenged until my senior year, when I took a couple of AP classes and grew a great deal as a result. But I wasn't "smart", at least not in the "capable of observing, making connections, and articulating what's been deduced" kind of way. University is what changed my mind. I learned how I learn, a tool that has served me well these many years as my job has demanded my own intellectual growth to keep pace with what I need to teach.
This nascent understanding of how I learn--of why I want to learn more--grew during my mission. During that time, I broke the rules by buying up church-related books and reading those, rather than rereading all of the approved stuff. Books by Neal A. Maxwell and Truman G. Madsen were carted from apartment to apartment, and though I always read the Book of Mormon and kept up my scripture studies, I branched out into other, Deseret Book approved areas, too. To my surprise, I found that most of the missionaries I worked with didn't have a similar desire to learn more.
But the man who probably gave me the greatest boost to my drive to learn more would have to be my mission president, Wynn Hemmert. If you're unfamiliar with the way missions work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it's pretty straightforward: An eligible member sends in a request for a mission. The Church issues a call to a place where it needs missionaries. The missionary reports to that area after a few weeks' training. That missionaries there report to a man (always a man) who's in charge of the geographic area comprising the mission. From there, assignments come for specific congregations in which the missionary serves. For example, my mission was called the Fort Lauderdale Florida Mission, which ran from West Palm Beach in the north and Key West in the south, the Everglades to the west and the Bahamas to the east. Wherever my mission president felt I should work, I would go to that area. (I ended up serving in 8 areas, I believe, over the course of two years.)
Anyway, shortly after I got married (which was about four months after returning from my mission), I took my new bride out to Florida to visit the places and people that had meant so much to me. While there, we swung by the home of President Wynn Hemmert and chatted with him one evening. It was an enjoyable time, but I remember very clearly something he said to Gayle about me. "The thing about this man," he said as he shook her hand in farewell, "is his mind."
"Oh, I know," she said, smiling that gorgeous smile of hers.
I think that was the impetus to genuinely apply myself to the growth of my intellect. While I know that there is still far too much that I don't know and understand, I have yet to hit a place where I don't want to know more. Indeed, with a few exceptions*, this is my frustration with repeating things--rereadings, revisiting, redoing. It isn't that I can't find purpose in the repetition, it's that I want to move to the next thing and learn about that, rather than retread old ground.
I don't know if that makes sense. It does in my mind.
---
* Hamlet is a good example of a well of infinitude.
The class involved looking at madness--the way it was portrayed in literature, obviously, but also culturally, historically, and politically. The professor had never taught the course before, as it was a senior seminar, once-in-a-lifetime chance. I would swing by the professor's office to chat with her about ideas I'd had because of the readings, which was unusual for me. I generally let my classwork speak for itself. But there were a couple of professors whose acquaintance I pursued outside of the classroom. I appreciated Dr. Albrecht-Crane's capacity, intelligence, and eloquence. Her selections were powerful and well constructed; indeed, I took the class specifically because she was teaching it. The fact that I have books by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Slavoj Zizek can be directly correlated to my Madness class. (I lent my copy of History of Madness by Michel Foucault to a friend, who, apparently, never returned it. I didn't miss it until today, when I was looking for it, so I obviously haven't returned to the texts I read in college.) My point is, the class pushed me to think. Hard. I would finish classes--Tuesday/Thursday schedule--and go to my car in the free parking lot. There I would sit, my mind still chugging through the implications of the class, processing all I could. Then I would drive off to the stultifying job of selling computers. The discrepancy was palpable.
I sorely miss that intellectual challenge. I know that I can put the students into a new frame of mind--I know which questions to ask and which pieces of literature can justify the questions--but it's hard to push myself higher. That's part of why I am trying to read/listen to at least 60 books this year (I've finished about 15 so far): I want to stretch myself. And while it's not the same as being in a class, it's all I have. And, in many ways, all I have time for.
My high school career was one where my paltry natural talents, a little bit of effort, and some help from friends got me through with high marks and a bevy of positive experiences. I wasn't genuinely challenged until my senior year, when I took a couple of AP classes and grew a great deal as a result. But I wasn't "smart", at least not in the "capable of observing, making connections, and articulating what's been deduced" kind of way. University is what changed my mind. I learned how I learn, a tool that has served me well these many years as my job has demanded my own intellectual growth to keep pace with what I need to teach.
This nascent understanding of how I learn--of why I want to learn more--grew during my mission. During that time, I broke the rules by buying up church-related books and reading those, rather than rereading all of the approved stuff. Books by Neal A. Maxwell and Truman G. Madsen were carted from apartment to apartment, and though I always read the Book of Mormon and kept up my scripture studies, I branched out into other, Deseret Book approved areas, too. To my surprise, I found that most of the missionaries I worked with didn't have a similar desire to learn more.
But the man who probably gave me the greatest boost to my drive to learn more would have to be my mission president, Wynn Hemmert. If you're unfamiliar with the way missions work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it's pretty straightforward: An eligible member sends in a request for a mission. The Church issues a call to a place where it needs missionaries. The missionary reports to that area after a few weeks' training. That missionaries there report to a man (always a man) who's in charge of the geographic area comprising the mission. From there, assignments come for specific congregations in which the missionary serves. For example, my mission was called the Fort Lauderdale Florida Mission, which ran from West Palm Beach in the north and Key West in the south, the Everglades to the west and the Bahamas to the east. Wherever my mission president felt I should work, I would go to that area. (I ended up serving in 8 areas, I believe, over the course of two years.)
Anyway, shortly after I got married (which was about four months after returning from my mission), I took my new bride out to Florida to visit the places and people that had meant so much to me. While there, we swung by the home of President Wynn Hemmert and chatted with him one evening. It was an enjoyable time, but I remember very clearly something he said to Gayle about me. "The thing about this man," he said as he shook her hand in farewell, "is his mind."
"Oh, I know," she said, smiling that gorgeous smile of hers.
I think that was the impetus to genuinely apply myself to the growth of my intellect. While I know that there is still far too much that I don't know and understand, I have yet to hit a place where I don't want to know more. Indeed, with a few exceptions*, this is my frustration with repeating things--rereadings, revisiting, redoing. It isn't that I can't find purpose in the repetition, it's that I want to move to the next thing and learn about that, rather than retread old ground.
I don't know if that makes sense. It does in my mind.
---
* Hamlet is a good example of a well of infinitude.