Good Fortune

I know I've written many times before how lucky I've been in that I attended and graduated (and I know that's a surprise to many!) from Amherst College.  It, my four years there, was seminal to my life.

I was reminded of that the other day, reading the alumni magazine.  A number of the articles, most by fellow alums, continued to drive home that point.

One of my former students, years after being in my class, said what she remembered most was, "You never would give us the answer."  Well, I'm not sure that was the case all of the time, but surely it was some of it.  Students, of course, want answers, the answers.  I did, too.  Who wouldn't?  Often, knowing "the answers" is the easiest part.

I don't claim any credit for that.  It was what I was taught by many of  my professors at Amherst, not all but many of them.  And, for many, years I tried to teach like they taught.  I met with varying degrees of success--on my part and on the parts of students.

Of course it's important to know "the answers."  But it's also important to challenge and refine our thoughts.  That is what was so great about Lincoln.  He allowed arguments to continue in attempts to discover what was "best" or at least "better."  And he genuinely listened to others.  Yet what is great about Lincoln and my Amherst education is also very humbling--that I might not know the answers.  That can be, I recognize, very disconcerting.

Repeating, without constant or frequent challenge and scrutiny, what we know doesn't bring progress.  In many ways, it's the debate, the argument, the challenge that is the reward that brings the greatest satisfaction and, just maybe, brings "the answer."