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Finally picked up a copy of This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace. Though I had hardly grazed Infinite Jest when his speech was first published in the Wall Street Journal in September, it affected me in a profound way. I’m SO glad to have this small, well-designed book as a reminder to myself about how I choose to live.
Margaret Edson, Smith College Commencement Speech, 2008We bring nothing into the classroom — perhaps a text or a specimen. We carry ourselves, and whatever we have to offer you is stored within our bodies. You bring nothing into the classroom — some gum, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil: nothing but yourselves, your breath, your bodies.
Classroom teaching produces nothing. At the end of a class, we all get up and walk out. It’s as if we were never there. There’s nothing to point to, no monument, no document of our existence together.
Classroom teaching expects nothing. There is no pecuniary relationship between teachers and students. Money changes hands, and people work very hard to keep it in circulation, but we have all agreed that it should not happen in the classroom. And there is no financial incentive structure built into classroom teaching because we get paid the same whether you learn anything or not.
Classroom teaching withholds nothing. I say to my young students every year, “I know how to add two numbers, but I’m not going to tell you.” And they laugh and shout, “No!” That’s so absurd, so unthinkable. What do I have that I would not give to you?
Bringing nothing, producing nothing, expecting nothing, withholding nothing — what does that remind you of? Is this a bizarre occurrence that will go into The Journal of Irreproducible Results? Or is it something that happens every day, all the time, all over the world, and is based not on gain and fame, but on love.
