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THE SHAPING OF AN EDUCATED HEART

Remarks by Ernest L. Boyer

President

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Eastern Mennonite College Harrisonburg, Virginia

April 30, 1989

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Lewis Thomas-author of that marvelous book Lives of a Cell--said recently that these are not the best of times for the human mind.

All sorts of things seem to be turning out wrong.

And the century seems to be slipping through our fingers here at the end, with almost all promises unfilled.

I cannot begin to guess (he said) at all the causes of our cultural sadness, but I think of one thing that is wrong with us and eats away at us: We do not know enough about ourselves.

We are ignorant about how we work, about where we fit in, and most of all, about the enormous, imponderable system of life in which we are embedded as working parts . . .

The simple truth is that with all of our educat ion-

there still remains in the pit of our stomach a kind of prickly ball that tells us something is not right.

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What's gone wrong? What's the missing link in education?

Many years ago Josiah Royce observed that we have become

more knowing, more clever, and more skeptical.

But seemingly, we do not become

more profound, or more reverent.

That statement is the nub of everything I want to say to the graduates today. I happen to believe that you're not truly educated until you have become more profound and more reverent.

And for this to be accomplished, three elements of education are urgently required.

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First, to be truly educated you must gain perspective.

In 1972, I was sitting in my office in Albany, New York.

It was a dreary Monday morning and, to avoid the pressures of the day,

I turned instinctively to the stack of 3rd class mail I kept on the corner of my desk to create the illusion that I was busy.

On top of the heap was the student newspaper from the university in the west.

The headline announced that the faculty, in a burst of creativity, had introduced a required course in western civilization after abolishing all requirements three years before (1972).

The students were mightily offended by the faculty initiative and in a front page editorial declared that

a required course is an "illiberal act."

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The editorial concluded by asking rhetorically:

How dare they impose "uniform standards" on "non-uniform people."

^ a m K , ^ samo U^Or a ^ ^ • I was startled that some of America's most gifted students, after fourteen or more years of formal education, still had not learned the simple truth that

while we are "non-uniform" we still have many things in common.

These students had not discovered the fundamental fact that while we are autonomous human beings, with our own aptitudes and interests, we are at the same time, deeply dependent on each other.

Today, almost all colleges in the United States have a requirement in general education.

But all too often

the so-called "distribution sequence" is "little more" than a "grab bag" of isolated credits.

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Students complete their required courses.

But what they fail to see are connections that would give them a more coherent view of knowledge,

and a more authentic, more integrated view of life.

Barbara McClintock-the Nobel Winning Geneticist-said on one occasion that "everything is one." "There is," she said, "no way to draw a line between things!"

I wonder if Professor McClintock has looked at a college catalogue in recent days.

Frank Press- the President of the National Academy of Sciences-captured this same spirit when he recently suggested that the scientist is, in some respects, an artist, too.

Dr. Press went on to observe that "the magnificent Double Hel ix-which broke the genetic code-was not only rational-it was beautiful as well. [CAPE KENNEDY]

And when the physicist Victor Weiskopf was asked, "What gives you hope in troubled times," he replied, "Mozart and Quantum Mechanics."

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But where in the college curriculum do students discover connections such as these?

Today's students live in a world that is economically and ecologically connected.

And, yet, I worry that education in this country is parochial at the very moment the human agenda is more global.

When I was United States Commissioner of Education, Joan Ganz Cooney, who was the brilliant creator of Sesame Street, came to see me one day.

She wanted to start a new program in science for junior high school students.

It subsequently was developed and its called 3-2-1 Contact.

In doing background research for the program, Children's Television Workshop asked junior high school students such questions as:

"Where does water come from?" and a disturbing percentage said "the faucet."

They asked, "Where does light come from?" and they said, the "switch."

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And "Where does garbage go?" "Down the chute."

The point is that we need a curriculum which goes beyond the isolated facts and helps students put their learning in perspective.

More than 40 years ago, Mark Van Doren wrote that

the "Connectedness of Things" is what the Educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity.

Van Doren went on to observe that

The student who can begin early in life to see things as connected has begun the life of learning.

This, it seems to me, is the goal of general education.

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III.

Second, true education also means understanding that people are important.

This statement is so simple, it borders on the sentimental.

And yet in our busy world of increased emphasis on technology, of pressures and problems on every side of almost hourly crisis, one of our most difficult tasks still remains-that of dealing humanely with one another.

We live out Eleanor Rigby-popularized in the Beatles' tune.

Eleanor, as you'll recall, waited at the window "wearing the mask she keeps in a jar by the door."

We, too, wear our masks, acting out our roles as two-dimensional people, wearing a "face" we keep in a jar by the door.

Even on campus we "classify" ourselves and colleagues, and here, too, we become "economists and deans and mathematicians and radicals and administrators and chancellors and students and the office staff."

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The point is this. To be profound and reverent, we must understand that people are at the center of it a l l -people who are struggling together, living and dying on a single globe. And compassion, not destruction, must become a way of life.

While Chancellor of the State University of New York, I was about to speak to faculty from across the state when several hundred students

moved in with placards,

chanting slogans,

demanding that I help free a group of students who had been arrested on another campus.

This microphone was grabbed and for almost an hour, we went back and forth.

Finally, after an hour, I concluded we weren't listening to each other-s low learners.

The meeting was in shambles. Even worse, I was talking not to people. but to a faceless mob.

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I left the platform and walked into the crowd.

I began talking to a single student.

I asked her name.

I asked about her family.

Soon several others joined us. To make a long story short, the session ended, a compromise was reached, and, in the process, I'd learned to know some most attractive students.

Wayne Booth of the University of Chicago has written that

All too often our efforts to speak and listen seem to be "vicious cycles" spiraling downward.

But Booth went on to say that we have all experienced moments

when the spiral moves "upward"

when one party's efforts-to speak and l is ten-a little bit better,

produced a "similar response"

making it possible to move on up the spiral to "moments of genuine understanding."

This then is the goal of the undergraduate experience

To teach students to think critically and to communicate with precision.

But quality also means teaching students that language is a sacred trust.

And that "truth" is the obligation we assume when we are empowered with the use of symbols.

That great American philosopher Yogi Berra said:

You can do a lot of observing by just watching.

You can do a lot of living, by loving our earth and our fellow man.

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III.

I now turn to my final observation.

People who are profound and reverent have also developed the capacity to make judgments, to form convictions, and to act boldly upon those values.

It is not enough merely to see the world wholly and sensitively.

It is not enough simply to respect our fellow man. i

To be truly educated, we must have deep convictions consistently to guide our lives.

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Whenever a discussion turns to values, a strange embarrassment seems to overtake us all.

Somehow we have deluded ourselves into believing that we can be responsible people without ever taking sides, without expressing firm convictions about fundamental issues.

George Stern, the noted British philosopher, asked on one occasion:

"What grows up inside literate civilization that seems to prepare it for the release of barbarism?"

What grows up, of course, is:

information without knowledge, knowledge without wisdom, and wisdom without conscience.

The simple truth is this: If we in education are to exercise a moral force in society, then the process of education must take place in a moral context.

What is called for is a framework of inquiry in which the process of wrestling with big issues and complex values is made fully legit imate-

a place where the climate does not push for conclusions, but rather makes honorable the quest.

IV.

And this leads me to say a word about the institution you will be leaving, and which will stay with you forever.

A college is to be judged, not by the greatness of its campus or its football team, but by the greatness of its vision.

This college has for years explored the highest reaches of the human mind without forgetting that intertwined with intellect there is body, a heart, a soul.

Eastern Mennonite College has long sought to give us happiest of fusions-the "educated heart."

The educated heart means to m e -

a reverence for a respect for excellence,

development of an appreciation of beauty,

a tolerance of others,

a reaching for mastery without arrogance,

a dedication to fairness and social justice,

an openness to change,

a love of language,

and service to your fellow man.

Martin Luther King said:

Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.

And I believe everyone who graduates today is ready to be inspired by a larger vision.

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CONCLUSION

In the end, the best things about any college are not what is said, but rather what is lived out by its graduates.

From this moment on, your assignment is to live the Eastern Mennonite ideal-which calls for a life of intellect, a life of integrity, and a life of loving service to your fellow man and to your God.

I wish you well.