Risks

“I’m taking a risk on school.” We were talking about “A Family Supper” and the risks involved in eating fugu, the exciting and sometimes fatal fish that used to be popular amateur cooking in Japan and now is the province of chefs licensed in fugu preparation. Our discussion had moved from the story into story-as-it-relates-to-our-lives: family, cultural influences, honor, risk.

The student developed his theme. He is studying for a profession with strong career possibilities, but there is no guarantee he will be able to find a job after graduation, three months away. Other decisions in his life have decreased or increased his attractiveness to the companies where he might want to work. He is older than the typical college graduate. He has a family.

School is a risk. Students wager time, money, energy, and brain power for learning, and eventually a certificate or a degree. Learning is a risk. We take our bodies and our brains, our emotions and our pasts into a situation where all of them will be challenged. We open our boundaries. We don’t always come into the classroom wanting to be changed, but we sometimes leave the classroom having been – perhaps against our better judgment.

Our better judgment sits on the sidelines, wishing it could go back to bed, back to childhood, back to the assembly line where we were told what to do and timed on how we did it, back to wherever there were no risks, just guarantees. Our better judgment doesn’t exist. The only way we can avoid risks is by refusing to take action: but refusing to act is also a risk. We’ve made a non-decision of paralysis. Is it a wave or is it a particle or is it both, depending, is one example of our fallacy when we think we can preserve what was. We arrange events to suit beliefs that don’t exist.

We can fight the current and decide we are going to stay the same, in a constantly changing universe, but eventually we’re going to get swept along with the current. Instead of risk, we could call education growth. Leo the Late Bloomer in Robert Krause’s wonderful story of the same name, finally blooms. Leo’s dad is relieved. What Dad didn’t think about is that in our own way, whether we are noticed or not, we all take risks; watched or not watched, eventually we all bloom.