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.

Observations on life and literature from students

Be mindful of what you read – what goes in will come out, and you cannot avoid your exposure to it.

Do you believe in the right to bare arms?

There is always a two sided sword for many rolls.

Her child is surly going to follow.

I even tried to keep up with the resent trends so people would like me.

Children have curios minds with ten million questions to ask.

The personal living habits questions are designed to find small quarks.

What stays the same

The fashions and length of skirts, pants, hats, coats with which we clothe our bodies change: decollates are in; decollates are sinful. Bustles are in (to be sat almost upon); bustles are ridiculous. Behavior remains. Elizabeth Barrett took to her sick bed to avoid Papa Barrett’s oppression, as did Florence Nightingale when faced with the endless calling and calling cards that made up a proper Victorian woman’s social life. From their sick couches, they birthed health reform, poetry, and eventually Penini Browning. Sickness can be fruitful.

This is a lesson that our students learn by osmosis, since they haven’t cracked open the textbooks. Gregor has “flu like symptoms,” which is why he was not able to attend class, though he has not yet morphed into a dung beetle. Sally’s grandfather died last week, which was why she couldn’t read the 4-page story (a cliff hanger which evoked intense class discussion) that we are covering today.

Sickness can have positive benefits and it is part of being human. We harbor our sick days, and exult in mental health holidays. We pay health premiums so we can be sick without becoming bankrupt. Through those illnesses, though, we need to work at learning, to work at our chosen work. We need to bring forth something besides excuses: perhaps assistance to those Crimean sufferers, perhaps exquisite joy in Italy that gave Mr. B and us the Sonnets. Between the feigned or real sickness and their results, we need something or someone to evoke what we could be. Perhaps the joy of health and learning isn’t enough; perhaps, if he does not come to the sick bed, we need to go in search of being well and Robert Browning.

Sending a get well card

Some semesters it’s startling how many grandmothers endure illness and even death, so their student relatives have an excuse for missed classes and late homework. Seldom grandfathers, almost always grandmothers. There are days I wonder why.