Musings on Academia
It was late Thursday night before Spring Break when Sean drove me back from Pour Jons. Thursdays are always long, but this one was particularly draining, and cold besides. I had neglected to turn in a rough draft of the Music History final paper a week earlier, and was attempting to complete it before Spring Break. This involved hours of typing, highlighting, and analyzing alongisde all the regular homework I was doing. After an hour at Pour Jons with some friends, I left to try and rest before the chilly morning arrived. As Sean pulled into the parking lot, we discussed our current papers and future projects.
"Honestly, I don't think I want to do all this for the rest of my life," he said.
"Do what?" I asked. He had just finished animatedly explaining his idea for a History paper, and I could not see where the conversation was going.
"All of this. In the History department the professors push becoming a teacher or getting adoctorate, but I really don't want to be in academia all my life. I want to do something other than school. You know what I mean?"
No response came, partly because I was exhausted and partly because no one had ever told me they didn't want to be in academia anymore. It sounded strange. Not wrong, but familiar and truthful in a surprising way. Spring Break came the next day, and I began writing, trying to sort out why the idea of not being an academic made me fall silent.
With the pen in my hand and the blank page before me, my thoughts ran home to my growing up years. As the daughter of teachers at a missionary kid boarding school, my home for many years faced the Amazon River with the jungle behind and beside us. Theorists said the jungle would be destroyed in a few short years, but what on earth do theorists know? The jungle I experienced every day had to be fought back with mowers and machetes on a weekly basis, particularly in rainy season. In this place, our lives revolved around the school. Our days were framed by the sound of the generator turning on and off, and filled to the brim with classes, work detail, sports, studying, and meals in the cafeteria. Even in the summer, we painted old buildings, cleaned the dorms, and helped scrub mold off the library's shelves. Year round, Dad's books were always stacked on the kitchen table in a puzzle only he could read.
"Jim Palm, move these books off of my table," Mom always said. Full names in our house meant trouble.
Dad, ever the ham, usually tried some kind of persuasive speech in a dramatic Southern gentleman's drawl. "But sweetheart, I am working on these lesson plans and they are so very important-
"Well, right now it's time for lunch, so move them," Mom said, and the books were moved...to the far end of the table. Even as a young child I knew those lesson plans were important because they had to do with Mom and Dad's work, although I was not entirely sure what it was that they did.
I finally understood it in first grade. After that first day of classes, stopping was impossible. School, with its musty smelling desks and exciting discoveries, became home to me. In our little library I often huddled against a book case reading, reading, and reading until I heard my little sister's voice calling me to dinner. "I didn't hear the bell," I always said, to which Grace shook her head, smiling.
This yearning for knowledge stayed with me into high school, where I grew accustomed to A's standing straight and proud at the top of my papers. In those days, my endless pacing wore a line into our living room rug as I gleefully reviewed my notes. Diagrams, chalkboards, and notebooks were my constant companions. The words "Let's clean out our desks for the summer," was always accompanied by sadness. Slowly, though, my joy in discovery and learning was tainted by an enemy: perfectionism. Eventually the strain of always having to possess those A's broke me and the day came when the words, "I hate doing this. I hate school," came out of my mouth not once, but frequently. That smell of chalk dust on my hands did not strike me as a "delightful learning scent" anymore, notes became long, boring lists lacking plots and conclusions, and the summers seemed a welcome relief.
Thus began my love/hate relationship with academics. Even if I did hate it, I made myself do it with the hope of loving it again. The late nights studying, thinking, citing, evaluating, listening, wondering, groaning, and sighing, affirmed for me Solomon's wisdom. I used to paraphrase the lines from Ecclesiastes as "Vanity! Vanity! All is vanity, especially the making of books and studying which has no end!" It all seemed so purposeless when the rest of the world was falling apart.
In reading Ecclesiastes more closely, however, I discovered a love for working again. A desire was born in me not to make myself feel good in studying but to honor God with my work. Schoolwork became an extension of my relationship with God. Especially in college, God has begun to teach me how to find joy in the many hours of tedious practice. The gifts He has given me are for His use, and academia is another way of discovering His incredible perfection. Many of my greatest realizations about God have come about because of academia.
This is why silence strikes me when Sean says, "I don't want to do academia anymore.' Immediately I wonder how on earth I could live without it. Academia has shaped my childhood and my adolescence, informing the way I look at and communicate with God and other people. When I say, "Who am I without this?" I literally mean I do not know who I will be without school. It's frightening.
Then I remember a realization I had in high school: learning never ends. Someday, perhaps, I may leave academia and never have to write a research paper again. I may never have to dress up for a presentation or use the EBSCO search box on the library computers. Even when all of the presentations and worrying over online citations comes to an end, I will still be learning. Academia has been my life for so long, but it is not all of life. I may miss it one day, yet I have a feeling I will be too busy living life with God and striving under His teaching.
And the next time one of my friends talks about leaving academia, I will give an answer in place of silence.
"Honestly, I don't think I want to do all this for the rest of my life," he said.
"Do what?" I asked. He had just finished animatedly explaining his idea for a History paper, and I could not see where the conversation was going.
"All of this. In the History department the professors push becoming a teacher or getting adoctorate, but I really don't want to be in academia all my life. I want to do something other than school. You know what I mean?"
No response came, partly because I was exhausted and partly because no one had ever told me they didn't want to be in academia anymore. It sounded strange. Not wrong, but familiar and truthful in a surprising way. Spring Break came the next day, and I began writing, trying to sort out why the idea of not being an academic made me fall silent.
With the pen in my hand and the blank page before me, my thoughts ran home to my growing up years. As the daughter of teachers at a missionary kid boarding school, my home for many years faced the Amazon River with the jungle behind and beside us. Theorists said the jungle would be destroyed in a few short years, but what on earth do theorists know? The jungle I experienced every day had to be fought back with mowers and machetes on a weekly basis, particularly in rainy season. In this place, our lives revolved around the school. Our days were framed by the sound of the generator turning on and off, and filled to the brim with classes, work detail, sports, studying, and meals in the cafeteria. Even in the summer, we painted old buildings, cleaned the dorms, and helped scrub mold off the library's shelves. Year round, Dad's books were always stacked on the kitchen table in a puzzle only he could read.
"Jim Palm, move these books off of my table," Mom always said. Full names in our house meant trouble.
Dad, ever the ham, usually tried some kind of persuasive speech in a dramatic Southern gentleman's drawl. "But sweetheart, I am working on these lesson plans and they are so very important-
"Well, right now it's time for lunch, so move them," Mom said, and the books were moved...to the far end of the table. Even as a young child I knew those lesson plans were important because they had to do with Mom and Dad's work, although I was not entirely sure what it was that they did.
I finally understood it in first grade. After that first day of classes, stopping was impossible. School, with its musty smelling desks and exciting discoveries, became home to me. In our little library I often huddled against a book case reading, reading, and reading until I heard my little sister's voice calling me to dinner. "I didn't hear the bell," I always said, to which Grace shook her head, smiling.
This yearning for knowledge stayed with me into high school, where I grew accustomed to A's standing straight and proud at the top of my papers. In those days, my endless pacing wore a line into our living room rug as I gleefully reviewed my notes. Diagrams, chalkboards, and notebooks were my constant companions. The words "Let's clean out our desks for the summer," was always accompanied by sadness. Slowly, though, my joy in discovery and learning was tainted by an enemy: perfectionism. Eventually the strain of always having to possess those A's broke me and the day came when the words, "I hate doing this. I hate school," came out of my mouth not once, but frequently. That smell of chalk dust on my hands did not strike me as a "delightful learning scent" anymore, notes became long, boring lists lacking plots and conclusions, and the summers seemed a welcome relief.
Thus began my love/hate relationship with academics. Even if I did hate it, I made myself do it with the hope of loving it again. The late nights studying, thinking, citing, evaluating, listening, wondering, groaning, and sighing, affirmed for me Solomon's wisdom. I used to paraphrase the lines from Ecclesiastes as "Vanity! Vanity! All is vanity, especially the making of books and studying which has no end!" It all seemed so purposeless when the rest of the world was falling apart.
In reading Ecclesiastes more closely, however, I discovered a love for working again. A desire was born in me not to make myself feel good in studying but to honor God with my work. Schoolwork became an extension of my relationship with God. Especially in college, God has begun to teach me how to find joy in the many hours of tedious practice. The gifts He has given me are for His use, and academia is another way of discovering His incredible perfection. Many of my greatest realizations about God have come about because of academia.
This is why silence strikes me when Sean says, "I don't want to do academia anymore.' Immediately I wonder how on earth I could live without it. Academia has shaped my childhood and my adolescence, informing the way I look at and communicate with God and other people. When I say, "Who am I without this?" I literally mean I do not know who I will be without school. It's frightening.
Then I remember a realization I had in high school: learning never ends. Someday, perhaps, I may leave academia and never have to write a research paper again. I may never have to dress up for a presentation or use the EBSCO search box on the library computers. Even when all of the presentations and worrying over online citations comes to an end, I will still be learning. Academia has been my life for so long, but it is not all of life. I may miss it one day, yet I have a feeling I will be too busy living life with God and striving under His teaching.
And the next time one of my friends talks about leaving academia, I will give an answer in place of silence.
LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!! So very true, especially about the perfectionism bit. Having just finished my undergrad, I'm sad at how very eager the past 2-3 years have made me to be down with school :(
ReplyDeleteThough I certainly plan to continue learning!