Short List for Thanksgiving

Here's a short list of the things I'm especially thankful for this year.

Family and Friends: I rely so much on my family's support! I am thankful for their patience and their affection, their shenanigans and their inspiration. Friendship provides a framework for everything else in my life, and I am grateful for their kindness and conversation.

Meaningful Work: I am so fortunate to work at something I really love to do. As a teacher, I see young people whose capacity for discovery and transformation is extraordinary. As someone leading a university, I marvel at how faculty and staff go beyond the call of duty to devote long hours to create a context in which students with diverse interests and backgrounds can find the best path for their own education.

Service: In difficult times like these, it is inspiring to see the generosity of so many. Groups on our campus have sponsored the local food pantry, started a school for girls in Kenya, organized flood relief in Pakistan and tutored hundreds of students right in our hometown. They do it with energy and good humor, and I am so thankful for their inspiration!

Promise of Community: At a time when government is increasingly dysfunctional, it is tempting to grow cynical about the public sphere in general. Hypocritical posturing by elected officials can dissuade us from thinking there is anything that can be accomplished through civic engagement, but that would be a serious mistake. Even as the bureaucrats and the representatives get tied up in knots, all across the country people are organizing together to get things done. These may be projects to help children or the elderly, or to revitalize a neighborhood with economic investment or cultural activity. When our more official organizations seem to be delighting in gridlock, ad hoc groups of citizens are working together to create change. I am thankful for civil society in America, the non-governmental public sphere where we work together to improve our lives.

 

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

09:38 AM on 11/26/2010

One thing's for sure, it's easy to get cynical about pontificating educators. Some of those people tend to see the world somewhat differently than the rest of us, and the ivory tower/perpetual job security perspective does sort of lend itself towards a condescending attitude towards all that is/are surveyed, or in modern times, even surveilled, because not all that goes on in these halls of higher learning can honestly be called 'education', anymore. No, if you're really setting out to learn something in life, a college might not even really be the best place for you to do that, because in some examples, by the time they get done sifting through the lesson plan, and pre-digesting the information they deign to share with the students, there's not a lot of intellectual nutritional value, left, kind of the chinese drywall dog food of the learning process, looks good, fills you up, but there's not really that much to it. No, to really learn, you must cultivate within yourself the thirst for knowledge, and develop your skills in then acquiring it.  And, one key piece of knowledge to acquire is that some poeple make a small personal fortune every year in the education business. It's good, to be the educator. That is, until the students learn how to use computers and go study it all for their damn selves...then you're filling out job applications while they repurpose the school property into a hospital or a homeless shelter...

[suntzu]

12:47 PM on 11/25/2010

And thanks to you President Roth for keeping Wesleyan University at the forefront of educational excellence in the US, and for helping to maintain its reputation as a socially conscious and socially engaged institution. Of course, I am biased, as my son is a junior there. :-)

[oldfuzz]

11:03 AM on 11/25/2010

...and good coffee.

[genrel1248]

10:44 AM on 11/25/2010

You don't see a lot of American Indians celebrating Thanksgiving now do you.

[corwin]

01:27 PM on 11/25/2010

Well, strangely, I do. I live in a town with a nearby reservation, and a large Indian population. I had thanksgiving breakfast with a family earlier.Perhaps I'm wrong,but I feel your comment was intended,not to comment on education in society,but to establish your credentials as a sensitive person. (The Aubry Maturin novels are ripe with such instances , and O Brian never misses an opportunity to gently deflate the pompous. ) One has to wonder at your accomplishments in life if a post such as your gives a satisfied feeling to the author.