The education of insights

After four years at Penn, I am more than ready to leave the classroom behind. I've taken the courses that interest me -- many of them, anyway -- and I'm too tired to take the rest. For the most part, I don't even have the energy to attend my current classes. I'm not sick and therefore tired, or sick-and-tired. I'm just plain tuckered out. After a lifetime of classes, I'm desperate to begin applying the knowledge I already have. Like Voltaire said at the end of the Enlightenment's first phase, "Now is the time to cultivate our gardens." So on the first day of spring, I said to hell with classes and set out to learn a thing or two. Or so it seemed in retrospect. Historically speaking, what happened is that I ran into an old friend outside the library en route to my afternoon class and he talked me into coming along to help pick out a present for his girlfriend. This was better than class, but entirely devoid of educational value. And since I'm paying $270 per day to get educated, that didn't feel quite right. So I resolved to seek redemption by voluntarily attending a lecture at Meyerson Hall. It was now 4:30 -- still a little early for serious thinking -- and the lecture hall was about half-full. The speaker was Ronald Dworkin, a philosopher so famous that I know his name, but here I stop with the particulars of the speech, because they are not relevant to my broader point: Guest speakers make great teachers, even for tired old 22-year-olds. For one thing, they tend to be famous, and deservedly so. For another, because they are only speaking for an hour, they rarely move beyond the material they know best. Finally, the format benefits the audience. There is no need for attentiveness, long-term commitment or written proof of comprehension. You are free to enjoy the experience on your own terms. As a result, the most important lesson I took from Dworkin's talk is that a microphone standing alone always looks out of place. There were two in the lecture hall, both jutting up from the aisles like railheads waiting for people to pull up and discharge their questions. They looked vaguely ridiculous until people did just that. It is quite likely that I will remember other things about Dworkin's speech in a month's time. If I do, it will be because he spoke well and I chose to listen. This reminds me of the way I imagine life to be outside of the Ivory Tower. I have never been outside myself, but I have friends who have gone. Some quickly panicked, and retreated to graduate school. Others are happily employed. One wrote to tell me that his unemployment check is larger than expected. But they have not been out for long, so I turned to someone who had -- Madeline Albright. I won a lottery for the right to hear her speak, which was nice, because giving out tickets by lottery is a good way to ensure that a good time is had by all. My excitement over winning the tickets and over the speech itself were thoroughly intermingled. I was smiling before Albright told her first joke, and I laughed along with everyone else in celebration of the fact that we were not watching from the Hall of Flags. The words Albright said -- and they were not new -- do not concern me. I learned plenty just by listening to her say them. Take a class on foreign relations, and you will learn the theory and the history of the field. Spend an hour with Madeline Albright, and you will touch the reality of it. It is an opportunity to take the measure of a person who has left a mark on the world around them. For this reason, the provost recited Albright's resume before she stepped onto the stage. It made the connection between her and us, allowing us to glimpse the road one person had taken to the very top of the mountain. And that is an education. Oh, I'll go back to class tomorrow, and back again for another few days after that. But it won't match the whimsical joys of College Green on the first day of spring, and of lectures voluntarily attended, and of time spent with friends and beer. Twenty years from now, those are the things I will remember about college. And they will make me smile.

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