Every year around this time, college campuses like the one where I live are filled with high school students making important choices. The first imperative is to find a school that you can afford, but beyond that, many students are advised to find a school that allows them to see themselves. Often, they take this to mean finding a place where they feel comfortable, a place with students like them and even students like them. I can't tell you how many families have told me they drove hours to some campus and had their daughter or son say something like, I already know this isn't for me. ”
“How about the information session?'' the patient's parent asks.
“no.”
Choosing a college based on where you feel comfortable is a mistake. The most valuable form of education can be deeply unpleasant, especially since it forces you to recognize your own ignorance. Students should desire to encounter ideas and experience cultural forms beyond their current opinions and preferences. Yes, you can have hate (and learn from it), but you can also discover that the filtered way you see the world has been blocking the things you're currently enjoying. Same thing again. Learn from that too.
In any case, a college education should allow you to discover abilities you didn't even know you had, while deepening your abilities to give yourself meaning and direction. Discovering these abilities is an exercise in freedom, as opposed to trying to figure out how to fit into the world as it is. Either way, the world will be different tomorrow. Education must help us find ways not only to cope with change, but also to shape change.
The first thing visitors to campus see these days are protests against the war in Gaza. These will be appealing to those who see in them an admirable commitment to principles, but jarring to those who see evidence of groupthink and intimidation. Every campus should be a “safe enough space,” free from harassment and intimidation, but not a space where identities and beliefs are reinforced. That's why it's so alarming to hear about Jewish students being afraid to move because of the threat of verbal and physical abuse. That's why it's so moving to see Muslim and Jewish students camping together to protest a war they believe is unjust.
Refusing to conform can sometimes mean being rebellious, but it can also mean being unabashedly religious in a very secular organization or a conservative in a class full of progressives. Sometimes it just means going against the grain, such as becoming a spokesperson for or liberals. I recently asked one such student if she felt biased by her faculty. “Don't worry about me,” he replied. “My professors find me attractive.'' Some veterans who attended my liberal arts college found that they were interested in breaking through the easy prejudices of their progressive peers. Some have found themselves working in fields they never expected to have.
Over the years, I have found that the most interesting people in my classes are the misfits. They also realized that they are often the people who bring the most value to the organizations they work for. I remember Kendall, a computer science major, in my philosophy class. She was recently seen on campus as she was directing an ambitious musical. She was almost insulted by my surprise and enthusiasm when I expressed my admiration for her unlikely combination of interests. Did I really stereotype her as someone who isn't interested in art just because she's good at science?
Or take the student activist who led a demonstration to the presidential palace and promised to meet me years later (please!). I was worried about new political demands, but she had other things in mind. It was to get a recommendation to law school. She reminded me with her smile that I could write about her own leadership abilities on campus. And I did.
Of course, even students who refuse to join the herd need to learn how to listen and speak to the herd and various groups different from themselves. It's an increasingly valuable ability that will help them thrive in the world, no matter what school they attend or what major they pursue.
Students, side by side, must learn how to be complete human beings, not mere appendages. This means continually questioning what we do and learning from each other. “The truth is,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said nearly a century ago, “the truth is,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said nearly a century ago. “What I receive from other souls is provocations, not teachings.” That is why universities, whether large public institutions or small faith-based universities, cultivate and respond to the energies of their students. Or even something in between – that's when you feel the most intelligent and alive.
So what makes a school right? It's not about the prestige of the name or the campus facilities. First of all, it's the teacher. Good teachers help make universities great. Because they themselves have never finished as students. Indeed, there are many schools filled with like-minded faculty and staff who enjoy a bubble of camaraderie based on established opinions. Universities can normalize the strange and the radical for young people. These places should be avoided. In contrast, some universities have great teachers who practice freedom by activating the capacity for wonder, appreciation, and sense of inquiry. And they do it because they themselves want this broader experience. You can feel their own discomfort as they try to distance their students from various forms of accepted views.
Finding the right college often means finding these people: classmates, mentors, and lifelong students who seek the freedom of learning that brings joy and meaning. That's what young people who go to school really want. It's not just a place to fit in, but a place to practice freedom with good friends.
