On our blindness: reflections of a teacher at school year’s end

By PETER BERGER
By Peter Berger

Poor Elijah and I observe an annual graduation ritual. It long ago became clear that his chances of being invited to deliver a commencement address at Harvard or the Air Force Academy were understandably slim. That’s how we wound up convening on my porch.

It’s the natural order of things for teachers that each June their students leave and walk off into the rest of their lives, and Poor Elijah has things to say to his in the moments before they do. After that he comes to my porch, we settle into our wicker rockers, and he talks some more.

We’ve got iced coffee and a chair for you, too, if you’ve got a minute.

* * *

I knew I was a real English major when I read “Paradise Lost.” Only English majors enrolled in the sophomore survey of Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton. Their names even sounded like authors English majors should read.

Milton studied to be a poet, but he earned his living writing political essays and government policy for Oliver Cromwell during and after the English civil war. Along the way Milton’s wife died, he was imprisoned, and he became blind.

“Paradise Lost” is his book-length poetic masterpiece. It tells the story of Lucifer, Adam and Eve, humankind’s fall and banishment from Eden, and God’s promised redemption. It was a labor to read it, but even as a sophomore, I found it a wise man’s reflections on human nature and the malignant appeal of evil.

Milton also wrote sonnets, including one that’s come to be known as “On His Blindness.” He wrote that sonnet about losing his sight. He wrote “Paradise Lost” after losing his sight.

It would be reasonable for you to infer that my point here has to do with overcoming obstacles and persevering through hardships. Milton’s greatest achievement came after his greatest loss. That, however, isn’t the lesson I mean for you to take away.

Not that I haven’t preached that sermon and not that I don’t still believe it. Ad astra per aspera — to the stars through difficulties. Too often you’ve been led to expect the stars, your own star at that, but not the toil and tears it takes to get there.

We’ve glutted you on self-esteem and poison platitudes. We’ve taught you “How to Love Yourself,” as if self-love were a virtue. We’ve trained you to “refuse to criticize yourself,” to “accept yourself exactly as you are,” as if dumb complacency weren’t a vice.

We’ve hawked canned programs like mindsets theory, the pernicious “new science of success.” We’ve peddled its snake oil promise, “You can be as smart as you want to be,” a heartbreaking lie to tell all those children whose effort exceeds their ability to learn.

We’ve guaranteed “success for all students,” another vain promise. We’ve entitled you beyond your due and empowered you beyond your present ability and experience.

Despite all the rhetoric about Common Core rigor and standards-based proficiency, schools are every day further distracted and diverted from their academic mission, in part to forestall any students appearing to fall short academically. Our sleight of hand in grading and curriculum has left you less able and rendered your great expectations false expectations.

Ironically, as we expand school’s mission beyond and apart from academic learning, as we tout the benefits and necessity of social-emotional learning in our classrooms, we’re becoming less adept not only academically, but socially and emotionally as well. In part we can blame our ineptness on our preoccupation with frivolous technology and social media. The normalization of narcissism has ravaged us, too.

All this troubles me as a teacher. My chief job is to help my students understand English and history, the same way my doctor’s job is to safeguard my health. I look forward to the day when schools will be allowed to refocus on academics. I also recognize the impact educational success can have on students’ opportunities and the material quality of their adult lives, as well as the hardships common in the adult lives of students who don’t succeed academically.

That said, there is an excellence that lies within the reach of each of us, regardless of our abilities and incapacities. In his sonnet Milton laments the loss of his sight and the consequent loss of his ability to serve God through his writing. He reminds himself and us, though, that God doesn’t need our work or our talents. He desires instead our faithful obedience. “They also serve,” a blind Milton concludes, “who only stand and wait.”

For Milton this is all set in the context of his Christian faith, but his conclusion is just as sound wherever you set your soul’s compass. Our value doesn’t lie in our talents or our scholastic achievements but in our willingness to do what’s right, both at life’s turning points and in its everyday moments.

Some moral questions are nuanced, but more often than not my moral quandaries are less about not knowing the right thing to do and more about failing to do it.

We aren’t all equally capable when it comes to reading or math. But each of us is capable of moral courage and moral improvement. Each of us can strive for moral excellence.

They also serve who only stand and wait.

I’m not myself a paragon of virtue, but I’ll try to stand and wait with you.

Godspeed.

Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.