James Drogan

One of my students stopped me in the hall the other day to say that what he liked about my class was that I taught him how to think, not what to think. Ah, sweet words those.

So, to those of you who haven't been in any of my classes and as a reminder to those of you who have, please heed the first sentence.

This leads me to direct you to The Case for Working With Your Hands in the May 24, 2009 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

The article in the print edition begins with

"After acquiring a Ph.D. and an information-age résumé, I opened a motor-cycle repair shop.

And that's where I learned to think."

I recommend it to your reading and consideration because of ideas it provokes about what education means and how it is to be obtained.

One of the pithiest lines is

"Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?"

Fair warning to those of you who have signed up for my classes; this is likely to be assigned reading.