Adventures with Students, Vol. 53

On Motivation

Every couple of years I am asked to serve on the faculty for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities, an annual event at my institution wherein some of the brightest rising HS seniors come to campus to take college humanities courses and engage in other “nerd camp” type activities. It has a long history here and I am glad to be a part of it when my turn comes around.

I find that the greatest difference between these HS students and my average college students is that this group is extraordinarily motivated to study and to learn. Even when they are overwhelmed or at least unpleasantly surprised by the pace and the intensity of the work, they attack what’s in front of them. It is as if, mirabile dictu, they value the experience of academic work not just for the credit it will get them, but for its own sake.

Lost in all the yammering about “what shall become of the humanities? How shall we make them relevant” is the most honest truth about it: the experience of learning is worthwhile most of all for its own sake. Grappling with Hobbes, for instance, or the assertions of an american anthropologist from the early part of the 20th century, needs no argument for its relevance—not if one actually cares about learning.