No Hypocrisy Here
Apologia pro opera mea
Autodidacts rarely form mobs. When, however, they do, the effect will chill the blood.
‘Death to the hypocrite’, the well-read marchers cried. ‘Off with his two-faced head’.
Some carried pitchforks. Others bore torches. Many, in ironic homage to the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, brandished volumes published by the Loeb Classical Library.
A woman, sporting a ‘mob cap’ of the type so often seen on citoyennes of Paris during the Reign of Terror, stepped forward.
‘Traitor’, announced the speaker, using the clear, measured, voice of a person who had taught herself the art of elocution. ‘We believed what you wrote about self-directed education, and learning outside the walls of our dying universities. And yet, here you are … teaching a college course. What, False Friend, do you have to say for yourself?’
‘Good day, Madame’, I replied. ‘And a very good day to all of your friends.’
‘Twill be a good day, Dissembler, when you are hanging from a lamp post.’
‘Before I begin my apologia pro opera mea, allow me to compliment you, and your fellow protestors, on your clever evocation of tropes. The little group on the left dancing the Carmagnole is an especially impressive touch.’
‘We have, Monsieur Tartuffe, done our homework. And it extends to the building of a fully-functional replica of Madame la Guillotine.’
‘It is true,’ I confessed, quaking in my penny loafers, ‘that I am teaching a course at Hampden-Sydney College and that I bear the title of visiting lecturer.’
‘Lectures,’ said the gaffer in the Liberty cap, ‘we hates them.’
‘But’, I continued, ‘I’m not actually lecturing. Neither do I use a textbook. I’m actually teaching by means of the case method.’
‘Teaching,’ screamed the young man who held, high above his head, the first volume of Seneca’s essays. ‘He admits it.’
‘He condemns himself,’ yelled the homeschooled child in the book-dragon hoodie. ‘Bring forth the instrument of justice.’
‘One moment, please, Good People. Do you know what the case method is?’
‘It’s the use of case studies.’
‘That’s true, but not the whole truth.’
‘Go on, then, but be quick. The blade grows sharper by the second, and soon shall you feel its bite.’
‘I use decision-forcing cases to place students in the shoes of leaders who, at some time in the past, found themselves faced with a thorny problem.’
‘And so you tell them how to solve such problems?’
‘Not at all. I ask them to devise, describe, and defend solutions of their own.’
‘So, you encourage your students to think for themselves?’
‘Indeed, that’s the whole point of the exercise.’
‘Well, it seems that we have been misinformed. I don’t know about you, Folks, but I’m going home.’
‘By the way, a brand-new second-hand book store has just opened on the corner of Caxton Avenue and Gutenberg Street.’
‘You realize, Mr. Muros, you could have opened with that information, and saved yourself a lot of explanation.’
‘I know. But where would have been the fun in that?’
Everything in this little story, save the bit about my teaching a course at Hampden-Sydney and the use of decision-forcing cases therein, should be filed under the heading of ‘daydream’.
Yup. But he went ahead and got'er done, while everyone else was arguing. Perfection is not an option. Especially with English spelling.
To pause from Hibernian Irony;
Does anyone blame them?