Text of Professor Gina Mireault's Convocation 2008 Address
What I wish I had known about Icelandic gas pumps, Unifix cubes, joining the circus, and Norwich terriers when I was in college.
It is great to be back at Johnson State College and an honor to be part of this annual ritual
that marks the beginning of the school year.
In preparing this address, I thought back to my own college experience. At the time I was surprised to find that college was fairly stressful — especially the first year — and if I had just known a few simple things it would’ve helped a lot.
Specifically, I wish I had known a little bit about Icelandic gas pumps, Unifix cubes, joining the circus, and Norwich terriers when I was in college.
Keep in mind, of course, that if you ask anyone else who’s been to college, you might get different advice.
1. Think.
When I was in college, I wish I had known that I was not actually there to learn information.
I wish I had known instead that I was there to think. The information you’ll read and discuss and write about is important, but mainly as a vehicle to get you thinking.
Information changes, experts in the same field may disagree about which information is most important, or they may interpret it differently. And let’s face it, a lot of the information you learned in high school, you no longer recall.
When colleges were first established, it was not with the goal of passing along information. The goal was to help students achieve wisdom and enlightenment, so they could participate fully in society as leaders, citizens, workers, and parents to the next generation. To do that, we all need to be able to critically challenge assumptions — including our own beliefs — to evaluate information, and to consider ethical and philosophical questions.
The greatest misconception about college, in my opinion, is that the whole point of going is to learn information so that you can get a job.
The information itself doesn’t matter unless you learn to think.
2. No spoon feeding.
I am a developmental psychologist, so I couldn’t get through this speech without including some reference to young children.
When I was in college, I wish I had not expected to be spoon-fed because being spoon-fed prevents us from experiencing the process, excitement, joy, and mess of our own discovery.
This baby is learning to feed herself. This is what learning looks like. It requires effort, but mainly it requires engagement.
She is fully engaged with the task of learning this skill. In the process, she’s discovering the texture, the temperature, the smell, the physical coordination of her hands and mouth, and probably the response from her parents around the mess she’s created or the success she is having.
This baby is actually a great role model for learning because she is so fully immersed in the experience.
It would be a lot more efficient (in the short run) — and neater — for someone to just use a spoon and put it directly into her mouth, but then she would be disengaged, passive, & robbed of an important opportunity to gain a skill.
If you have learned any physical — like riding a bike when you were a kid or snow boarding, or playing an instrument — you know that it requires a full engagement on your part.
Academic learning is the same way. It is active — even when you are outside of the classroom. (All those gaps in your weekly schedule are not actually “free time!")
The writing, presenting, researching, reading, and computing — even learning to cope with living in a dorm — will be messy at times. It may feel awkward and unfamiliar — but stay engaged in the task and you’ll get it.
3. Ask.
This is a gas station in Iceland. (Don’t worry — I’ll explain!)
I wish I’d known when I started college to ask more questions. Not only when I needed help because I didn’t understand something, but because the basis of learning and thinking is wondering.
Somewhere between childhood and adolescence, the act of asking becomes horribly stigmatized, even if the question is entirely reasonable.
Last spring, I was traveling in Iceland with my 2 teenage children, and I had to ask how to use a gas pump like this one. We were in a remote area like this. There were sheep, goats, a gas pump and one guy who knew how to use it. So I asked.
When I turned back to the car, both of my kids were crouching with embarrassment on the floor of the car. They maintained their crouch positions until I had pulled out of the gas station, and then they chastised me for asking. I reasoned with them that there is one thing worse than asking how to pump gas, and that would be riding a goat back to Reykjavik.
Young children wonder about everything, and they ask about everything. I went back to my children’s baby books and found a few choice questions they asked when they were very young:
“Mom, where did we buy Daddy?”
“Can farmers have monkeys?”
“How can the continents float?” and
“Why didn’t the people on the Titanic just swim to the iceberg?”
Questions reflect engagement, and they also inspire it.
ASK, because asking is the same as wondering.
At the same time, don’t always expect to get clear, bottom-line answers. The answers may vary; they may change over time; they may be very complex answers that start with “it depends”.
Instead, keep in mind that the questions are way more important than the answers because they engage us.
4. Nothing is irrelevant.
One of the most frequent questions I hear from students and parents is: Why should I have to take that course? I’ll never use it.
Yes, you will. You just may not be able to predict when or how.
Most high school students have to take geometry, and most wonder why?
Let me tell you a story. When my daughter was in kindergarten I used to go in and help out once a week during math. I don’t teach kindergarten, so I am not familiar with kindergarten curricula, and I didn’t know why the teacher was focusing the children on learning patterns. But that’s what she was doing and I was there to help, so patterns it was.
The children started out making color patterns using Unifix cubes. Blue, red. Blue, red. Blue, red, for example. When they had mastered patterns of two colors, they went to on three colors. So maybe, red, white, green, red, white, green, etc.
There was not a number to be seen during math time for weeks. And I kept thinking, what does this have to do with math? How will they ever use this? I was a little frustrated. I doubted the teacher’s competence at times; I confess that I started supplementing my own kid’s math instruction at home.
For their part, the kids were utterly engrossed with the Unifix cubes, but I could not see its relevance.
Then one day, the teacher was instructing the class to count by twos. “Finally!” I thought, “numbers!”
She was going along a number line using a pointer and counting “Two, four, six, eight….” And even before I saw it, one of the kindergarteners cried out, “It’s a pattern! Skipping one number every time!”
What had seemed irrelevant was actually central to learning math, which is largely about detecting patterns in numeric information.
Geometry has a lot to do with logic, deductive reasoning, and making inferences — the same abstract thought processes used in law and science.
So, just because you can’t see the relevance, doesn’t mean there is none.
There will be times during college when you will have “credit luxury”. In other words, you’ll need to take 3 credits here or there just to fill out your schedule.
I urge you to think outside the confining box of your major and take something else. If you’re a business major, take a dance course. If you’re a psychology major, take a foreign language. Your education is an opportunity. So take it.
I would go so far as to advise you — to challenge you — to take one seemingly “irrelevant” course every year. It will enrich your experience, and I almost guarantee that you will use it in ways you never expected.
5. Follow your heart.
If you haven’t yet discovered what you really like, don’t worry. This is the perfect place to find it.
Following your heart may seem like obvious advice, but it can be hard — especially if it means going down a new path that no one you know has even taken — especially no one in your family.
It requires some degree of trust — because you may not be able to see where you’re going. Others — like your parents — may also not be able to see where your passion is leading.
I’ve known some students who have chosen a major or career path by default. That is, they take a route that is safe, rather than one that is satisfying. They choose something they know will lead to employment, for example. But that employment can’t possibly sustain them over the long term of their adulthood because they didn’t commit to it with their heart.
If you follow your interests, opportunities will open up for you — or you will be energized to create them.
As a parent myself, I’m having to now put my money where my mouth is and trust my children’s passions, even if it makes me nervous. Our son is now 15. He has had success at every academic subject — math, science, foreign language, even art— and we have waited eagerly to see what would capture his heart. It seemed he could do anything, so what would he choose?
Eighteen months ago, his physical education teacher introduced a unit on… circus arts. You know where I am going with this.
For the last year and a half, this academically talented student has been passionately devoted to juggling. This summer, he literally ran away to the circus, training and touring as a juggler with a professional circus.
Neither my husband nor I can juggle. Neither of our families comes from a line of circus performers. But we are doing our best to encourage him to follow his heart — although we have had to institute a couple of household policies like “No juggling the fruit”, “No juggling after 10 PM”, and “No juggling knives…without wearing shoes.”
It’s hard to know how juggling will fit in to the overall picture of his life, but for now it is fun, inspiring, challenging, and social. It energizes him to find and make the opportunities he wants.
Your heart may lead you in unexpected, crazy directions, in unfamiliar territory, but it will never lead you astray.
Just a note of caution: Your passion should inspire, not interfere with your life. When the juggling clubs threaten windows, sleep, relationships, and other responsibilities, then it is more compulsion than passion. Our passions should energize us to expand socially, emotionally, and intellectually, not to shrink into oblivion.
So have the courage to follow your heart, even if you aren’t sure where it is taking you.
Maybe it will take you to the circus.
6. Find Your Inner Terrier.
Many of you know that I’ve been involved in training, showing and writing about dogs for almost 20 years. So again, I couldn’t get through this speech without some reference to what we can learn from dogs.
The things I’ve been talking about — thinking deep thoughts, being willing to make messy mistakes, asking hard questions, following your heart — take courage.
This is where your inner terrier comes in.
This is Lily. She is the smallest of our three dogs, weighing in at 9 lbs. Her favorite past time is watching high def TV while lying on a down quilt, preferably in front of a fan. So she is the least suspect when it comes to having courage.
But Lily is like the Chuck Norris of dogs.
She has fought tenaciously with dogs 5 times her size. She hunts mice, which she refuses to turn over without some tough negotiation. One time she defied our veterinarian by eating a whole meal of jaw-breaking, dry, hard kibble an hour after having 3 teeth extracted.
A few years ago, Lily was cast in the role of “Toto” in a local production of the Wizard of Oz – right here at Dibden. All she had to do was walk on and off the stage with Dorothy a couple of times. No big deal. Except for the one scene where Miss Gulch came to take her. In that scene, Lily dug her toenails into the Dibden stage and refused to go with Miss Gulch, who had to drag her off.
This summer Lily wandered out of our yard and was lost in the woods for 5 days. We have had all varieties of predatory wildlife come into our yard over the years, eyeing Lily like a take-out dinner. So when she wandered away — we had little hope that she’d survive.
But she did. She survived severe thunder and lightening storms, and traveled 3 miles through predator-invested woods. Even though she is the size of a bunny rabbit - she managed to evade fishers, coyotes, fox, and owls.
Now, I’m not suggesting that college is like trudging through predator-infested woods.
However, developmental psychologists have found that young adulthood – starting with the college years - is the most stressful time in the lifespan. I wish I had known that when I was in college.
Instead, I thought I had “arrived” after all those years of waiting to be on my own and grown up. But this society expects young adults to accomplish several major tasks within a fairly short time frame:
- get an education
- decide what you want to do - forever,
- settle down with someone - forever,
- have children
and then pressure them to do the same things.
You are about to face the significant academic, financial, social and psychological challenges of college and young adulthood. You’ll need courage. Find your inner terrier.
But also remember that terriers, like all dogs, are pack animals. They prefer to keep company with others. Facing these challenges is a lot easier – enjoyable even - if you don’t make it a solitary experience.
There are a whole bunch of people in college with you. Get involved with them through a club, a team, a theatrical production, or simply by going to public events on campus and socializing.
It is so easy to make your college experience easier.
7. Welcome & Good Luck.
This is the beginning of your own journey into college and beyond. It will be exciting, stressful, fun, and challenging.
Think, learn, ask, follow your heart, and find your inner terrier.
Welcome to all of you and good luck!
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Image Sources
1. (Think) www.bp0.blogger.com
2. (No Spoon-Feeding) www.brawnytowels.com
3. (Ask) http://lh5.ggpht.com
4. (Nothing is Irrelevant) www.tts-group.co.uk
5. (Follow your Heart) www.ohioclowncollege.com