| Response sheet #27, for class, Tuesday | |
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This is the last response sheet for this course: a time to reflect on the semester. 1. An important part of this class has been discussion in Zoom breakout rooms, on the foundation of your prior preparation in the response sheets for every class. In the interests of self-evaluation, how would you rate the seriousness of your response sheets, and of your contributions to discussion in the breakout rooms? 2. In this course we have studied the “American Revolution.” The aim has been to empower you through historical knowledge toward informed citizenship, in contrast to the disempowering grip of popular myth and propaganda. What has struck you the most about what we have studied this semester? I know everyone is a bit tired at this point in another peculiar and pressured semester — a truly historic semester. I well remember my own time in college back in somewhat more innocent times, when my habit was to study till 2:00 a.m. when the library closed, and then to go for a nightly walk in Riverside Park to inscribe into my brain the most valuable elements of what I had read about and thought about and talked about that day — and also to admire the Hudson River and the Palisades and clear my head and remind myself of the universe beyond reading and thinking and talking. Toward semester’s end all the constant conversations with peers and friends and all the solitary walks always took longer, because unlike the rest of the semester, which felt like a time of experimentation, the end of the semester felt like a time of commitment. By commitment I mean making decisions about what had become important to me after a semester of being exposed to so many exquisite and challenging new ideas, and making decisions about what I wanted to consider and confront next. For me, college unsettled everything every semester, but it also became part of me, new layers of bedrock. 3. So, this semester, your conscious new experiments?.... 4. And, at semester’s end, what might be your new layer of bedrock?.... Finally, stay safe this summer, and best of luck with all your future studies and endeavors. |