Dear Students,
As usual, I want to begin with a question; hopefully, it encourages you to keep thinking and also helps you better understand your teacher.
What makes us think we can’t know something?
School is difficult; it’s hard to remember facts, to understand the relationship between those facts, to form a judgment based on your understanding, and harder still to formulate new thoughts and creative solutions to complex problems. In class, I present you with the facts and the problems for two reasons.
First, I want to help you develop your ability to think critically and creatively respond to the complicated world you find yourself in. Humans, as Aristotle pointed out, are political creatures–that is, people live in a community of intricately woven relationships easily broken but potentially glorious. Our classroom is a microcosmic representation of the rest of our lives. We sit and problem solve and (perhaps more importantly) create. In the midst of such a community, however, miscommunication is inevitable. The disconnect between what someone says and what we hear can be so vast, and therefore so dangerous, that our community is regularly threatened; it’s as if we were trying to help each other across the Grand Canyon on a tight-rope.
Consequently, there are many dangers, too many to list in this letter; however, I want to point to the danger of saying ‘no’ to knowledge. When we enter into discussion, we have to expect two things: 1) it is going to be hard work; 2) we will need the help of our classmates. Eventually, someone in discussion will blurt out “We just can’t know this so why do we keep talking about it!?” It is a crucial moment; one of our companions stands above the chasm, frozen and in danger of falling off–of leaving our discussion. How can we reassure and encourage her to keep going? Simultaneously, how can we not let ourselves become similarly overwhelmed?
I encourage you with this thought: never forget where you came from. Our conversation began with a question and, through a series of other questions, false answers, and new knowledge, it brought us to a new place. Remember what you have learned and rest assured that you can and will learn more. You only reach the end of knowledge when you decide to quit learning.
The second reason is more of a warning than a reason. Beware of pride. You are probably tempted to identify pride as thinking too much of yourself or to assume you are too good for anyone else. Instead, beware of pride in your false humility; in the belief that you can’t do or know something. Often, the cry “We can’t know this!” is the cry of one who’s world is growing and who is reluctantly affirming a reality that interrupts her preconceived notions of the world. In these moments of despair, rally under King Henry V’s battle cry “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” Friends, your victory is in the fighting.
As your teacher, then, I introduce you to the fight and hope to give you the courage and determination to join those who have gone before you. You are not alone when you choose to fight alongside your friends. Pride, on the other hand, will make you lonely.
Prepare for our next class together (and for all of your classes) with this perspective: that you are being trained, through rigorous exercises, to acquire the humility to keep fighting for knowledge. And, in the acquisition of knowledge, attain to virtue and holiness. Prepare to shoulder the fears and doubts of your classmates as you struggle to break free of pride and enter the fray. We are not alone.
Your companion in arms,
Mr. Dalbey
