Some Thoughts

Self-esteem does to education what abortion does to the unborn.

– a note found scribbled in my “C. S. Lewis Seminar” college notebook, no doubt quoting Dr. Michael Bauman, the professor that influenced me most at Hillsdale College.

(Some Bauman Articles: The Second Death of Socrates, and The Dangerous Samaritans: How We Unintentionally Injure the Poor.)

Enjoy…

[update: he was by no means mean-spirited. He was loving enough to not let our self-esteem get in the way of our education. He would firmly, but gently, reveal our ignorance to us with "well-aimed and well-timed questions," that we would be spurred on to learn and better understand the subject matter. In a recent email, he said it like this: "Sometimes the effect of a well-aimed question is painful to the student, but that pain is far less than the life-long pain of continued ignorance and the burdens it always brings." There is such a thing as 'good pain.']