College is no place for sponges

Paul Bowers

Tagline: Pleading the First

9.10.07

In conversations with my fellow students, I sometimes detect a hint of something that upsets me, something that makes me concerned for our intellectual future. It is the sound of sponge-learning, that dangerous line of thought which establishes professors as unquestionable gurus, textbooks as holy scriptures and the great thinkers of our time as infallible prophets.

This is going on in science classrooms, where students accept theories as facts. I see it in English classes, where studied authors’ opinions and techniques are seldom questioned. It takes place in the humanities, where some students adopt trendy philosophies with reckless abandon.

It may just be the journalist in me speaking, but I believe that a true student is not someone who sits and passively soaks up what the established authorities have to say about their respective subjects. A student is someone who takes nothing at face value, who wrestles with the facts of the matter until he has obtained something much more valuable than knowledge: understanding.

I do not mean to disparage the academic merits of our university and its staff; to the contrary, I hold my professors in the highest regard. The trouble comes when I watch my classmates dumbly taking notes, regurgitating their superiors’ opinions and refusing to analyze information independently.

College is—obviously—a time for learning, but it is also a time for us to define ourselves as adults. The methods that we use to attain academic success will no doubt be the ones we use to advance ourselves in our careers and lives. Now is the time for each of us to decide: Will I seek personal understanding on my own terms? Or will I continue to be an intellectual doormat, timidly accepting whatever ideas are placed before me?

The second option is by far the easier, and it has propelled countless people to decent jobs and respectable incomes. However, more is at stake here than success. It is entirely possible for anyone to wind up rich, respected—and wretched. Anyone trapped and indoctrinated in a suffocating corporate bureaucracy can attest to that.

Thinking for oneself means much more than “fighting the system” or “sticking it to the man.” In fact, it is far removed from any glamorized notions of standing up for one’s rights and beliefs. It is a difficult route to take, and often an unpopular one as well. It means doing the extra research, working at all hours of the night to develop a defensible position. It sometimes means earning the scorn and contempt of one’s classmates and colleagues.

And the reward? Freedom. As with any sort of freedom, the freedom of ideas must be ferociously sought and tenaciously defended. As Albert Einstein put it, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Question your professors. Question yourself. For that matter, question Einstein.

A bit of irreverence is in order. It is time to stop approaching college as trembling supplicants at the altar of higher learning. Make your stand today.