For the Record: an Open Letter to Barry Joe

Dear Professor Joe,

I'm happy to say: I'm glad you were wrong too. Of course, if you had only mentioned it a bit sooner, I don't think you would've been allowed to labor under such an illusion for long! Haha.

I can't speak for the rest of my classmates, but I think you were right when you said that the juvenile notion that learning is lame and caring uncool is passing. Well, maybe not when it comes to graphing river bottom sediment flows, or memorizing French verb conjugations and all that. But in 1F00, certainly.

I mean, in what other class are we asked to examine things that are so relevant to our lives? In what other classes are we actually encouraged to think, and question, and learn, and grow? To explore what it means to be human? In other courses, we're told that knowledge is a finite, concrete commodity, and that we're here to absorb as much of it as we can, until four years down the road when we're all full-up, and handed a piece of paper that declares us 'educated' (and profoundly broke). In other classes-indeed, in the education system as a whole-we're told that we are ignorant and naive, and that the only way to succeed as a person is to supplicate to the elite knowledge-holders: the teachers, parents, and authority figures of the world, and to study and internalize their absolute Truth, accepting it as our own. And in other classes, we're taught that knowledge is a fixed destination, reachable only by following the well-worn path of mindless, mechanical, memorization; soulless, rote learning; and uncritical acceptance.

But IASC 1F00 isn't one of those classes. It's not about finding the right answers; it's about asking the right questions. And that, I think, makes all the difference.

Like I said, I can't speak for the rest of my classmates, but I can say that 1F00 is among the most important classes I've ever taken. Yeah, I'm going to need some chapstick for this ass-kissing, but it's the truth. In other classes I've always felt limited, like I was supposed to be learning, but only within the boundaries of a limited framework. Ask questions, but not those questions. Push the boundaries, but not too far. And quite honestly, I've always thought of education (the kind I've been subjected to, at least) as a big, fat waste of time.

But I don't feel that way about 1F00, because unlike the other classes I've taken over the last few years, I'm actually learning. Instead of feeling helpless, hopelessly ignorant, and dependent on my elders and betters to make me right, I'm empowered as an agent of my own betterment. Instead of being limited by inflexible criteria and curriculum, a fear of asking difficult questions, and the inability to stray from the beaten path, I feel free to be curious, to wonder, to reexamine myself, the world I live in, and my beliefs about it. Education is feeling less like a long, boring hallway with only one exit at the end, and more like a big room with an unending variety of doors, with more appearing every day, begging to be opened.

And that's not even touching upon the subject matter of our tri-weekly discussion. Whether you're a technophile, or a technophobe, a tech-savvy media fantatic, or a bookwork like me, there is something you can gain from our talks on mythology, morality, reality, communication, the future...because regardless of what's on the agenda, what we're really doing is stretching our disused intellectual and existential muscles. Figuring out what it means to be human, how to navigate the imposing overwhelmingly complex world we live in. And best of all, we're doing it in an environment where everyone is both student and teacher, and where everyone has something to offer and so much to gain. And I don't know about everyone else, but it's sure encouraged me to grow, as both a student and as a person.

In class, I believe it was Nikita who said that teachers ought to make students learn. On another occasion, it was suggested that no one present cared about learning and examining the world around them. No one spoke up to the contrary, and it was assumed that we all are truly and completely indifferent. However, I know both of these things to be false. I think that we do care, and that we are all curious and hungry to expand our knowledge. All of us. But I have a growing feeling that those years and years of being told that we don't know anything, that the things we do know don't matter, and that learning comes from a teacher, rather than from within has made us neglect all of that, taught us that caring gets us nowhere. I honestly think that sometime we're silently simply because it's been so long since we were asked to speak.

*Pause for dramatic effect. Or vomiting.*

Well, that's what I wanted to say. Maybe it's lame and corny, and looks like some grade-A brown-nosing, but it's how I feel. A year ago, I probably never would've posted this for other people to read, but part of what I've learned from this class is that you have to reach outside of your comfort zone to grow. So, here it goes.

Thanks Barry Joe!