Success!
Nicholas has made the Dean’s list at his school for the third consecutive semester. I’m so proud---except for the ‘B’ he received in the second of his two algebra courses, he’s had nothing but A’s. I’m very proud of him.
He went back to school after he moved here from England because it was clear that he needed to get some training in order to find employment in this community. It isn’t easy for a man who is, shall we say, ‘comparatively middle-aged’ and who never completed his degree to start over in a new country, particularly in a city with such a large population of people under 30 where you can’t throw a stone without hitting a Ph.D or MBA. He’s training to be a paralegal or Legal Assistant. We are discussing whether he should go for his Bachelor’s degree after he has completed his two-year course and been certified in that field. Sadly, it’s simply a question of whether we can afford for him to continue. I’m guessing probably we can’t, but we’ll see how it goes when the time comes.
I’m still astonished that Nicholas never completed his degree. While growing up in London, Nicholas was fortunate enough to attend some of his country’s best schools. I have never understood why, after getting his A levels, he didn’t apply to an English University, but this was the Seventies. He wanted to go to a university in Canada and that’s what he did. When he unexpectedly ran out of money after a couple of years, he travelled round the country doing various odd jobs (some appear to have been very odd), always expecting to return. He never did, though. I don’t think he really liked school as a young man, though he appears to love it now.
During his schooldays, he wasn’t what I’d call academically inclined. When I met him, he clearly was quite one-sided in his interests. While he reads more and loves reading more than anyone I’ve ever known (including me, which is saying something), he reads only books in which he has an interest. His knowledge of history (and particularly of the two world wars) is extensive and detailed and in fact rather overwhelming; ditto, his knowledge of the British film and television industry and certain aspects of British police procedure. He is fluent in French and speaks it, I am told, with a flawless accent. Historically, if he has been interested in a subject, he mastered it with very little effort. If he was not interested, he didn’t bother even to learn the rudiments.
To excel in school, you have to be willing to study subjects you’re not especially interested in learning about. While he was at Westminster, for example, he seems to have utterly refused to learn anything during the chemistry course he had to take there. I don’t mean that he couldn’t learn it----I mean that he wanted no part of it and simply refused to let any of it in. He did poorly in that subject and why? Chemistry was ‘boring.’ His performance in subjects he enjoyed, such as French and history, were exemplary. But he only wanted to study the things he already knew he liked.
I think the one quality that probably distinguishes the academically inclined from those who are not is the willingness to take an interest in subjects which aren’t initially appealing. (It certainly isn’t superior intelligence). If you’re truly going to get something out of your education, you’ve got to be willing to let in information that you don’t especially want. To do extremely well, you’ve got to want to let it in.
A teacher during my childhood---I know longer know who it was---once made the remark to me that if field of knowledge existed, and if someone existed who was willing to learn it and teach it, there must be something about the subject of interest and that I would probably do well to work out what that something is. It was a good point and helped me slog through a lot of courses that didn’t interest me very much. Throughout my school days (including college and after) I tried to approach the subject I was required to take in this spirit. I was a liberal arts sort of person through and through, but I did try to take an interest in courses outside my field of interest that I had to take to get my degree.
Forcing yourself to feel interested keeps you awake during the lectures you have to sit through and helps you take useful notes. It makes studying for exams and writing papers slightly less unpalatable because you are able to feel that you’re getting something out of it. And in fact, it ensures that you do get something out of it---even if the teaching isn't the best. I decided as an undergraduate that I'd rather try to be interested in boring (to me) lectures in Sociology than expire from boredom at my desk. By keeping my mind on what the teacher was saying (and focusing on taking good notes), I ended up with a tiny inkling of why the professor thought the material was so interesting. I made good grades and people were envious. But my 'secret' was the simple and obvious one of forcing myself to be attentive in class.
Often I’ve found that it was the subjects I liked least when I was an impractical undergraduate that I’ve most often had to apply in my subsequent career. I’m glad, for reasons that I am not going to get into, that I forced myself to learn certain aspects of cell structure and metabolism as an undergraduate. I never dreamed for a moment that I, with my absorbing interest in philosophy, religion, and literature would ever have occasion to apply this information or that at any point in my career it would prove absolutely crucial.
Learning something you didn’t know before is always a good thing. It doesn’t make you more intelligent, but it makes you smarter---more informed about the world, better able to see the connections between point A and point B. I’m a great believer in a liberal arts education because I am a great believer in knowledge for its own sake.
When Nicholas indicated that he wanted to go back to school to do training for his particular field, we discussed this point. “You’ll have to take courses you won’t like,” I warned him. “You’ll have to take math.”
His face fell. “Math? To become a Legal Assistant? But why?”
Why? I honestly don’t know why. I don’t understand why the arguments in favor of well-roundedness apply to the study of a highly specialized course in vocational training. I understand why he has to take subjects such as ‘keyboarding’ and desktop publishing in addition to the required law courses, but algebra? No, I don’t get it either. But I believe in the value of knowledge for its own sake and I believe that educating yourself in any subject helps make you better at everything else
And I’m happy to say that he has put his all into every course he has taken---even the algebra course in which he received his “B.” (He was terribly upset about that; it tooks days for him to get over getting a grade that wasn’t an “A,” no matter how many times I assured him it didn’t it didn’t matter.)
He has approached each course with the attitude that he was going to get as much out of each subject for its own sake as he possibly could, regardless of whether or not he expected to feel interested in it for its own sake.
And he has succeeded. Yay!
Image drawn by Mr Tenniel; painted by Damozel.
8:56:43 PM 
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