Alight here...

David Brooks’ recent column in the New York Times extolling the virtues of a liberal arts education struck home with me for a variety of reasons (“History for Dollars,” June 7, 2010).

Not only am I a product of a liberal arts educatin (and an interdisciplinary American Studies major to boot), but I have spent the past 20 years of my life reminding, convincing and affirming that, despite its high cost, a private liberal arts education is still the best investment one can make to prepare a young person for life.

Brooks’ column was written as a response to these bleak financial times when young people traditionally choose “pragmatic” majors like accounting. But Brooks writes:

Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write. No matter what you do in life, you will have a huge advantage if you can read a paragraph and discern its meaning (a rarer talent than you might suppose). You will have enormous power if you are the person in the office who can write a clear and concise memo.

I often think of my late uncle Jerry, who was a meteorologist during World War II and worked for Raytheon on its “Big John” missile project in White Sands, New Mexico, in the 1960s. When I asked him once what he did for a living, he said “I translate what the scientists do into plain English.” He later enjoyed painting and growing orchids, and was a superb sailor and lover of the horse track. I wouldn’t describe him as an intellectual by any means, but his liberal arts education provided him with the ability to transcend, and appreciate, a variety of worlds and sensitivities.

The same day that Brooks’ piece appeared, New York Times blogger Stanley Fish also wrote about the merits of a liberal arts education in a 21^st-century world (“A Classical Education: Back to the Future,” June 7, 2010). Citing Martha Nussbaum’s recent book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Fish refers to one of her core messages, as follows:

Developing intelligent world citizenship is an enormous task that cannot even begin to be accomplished without the humanities and arts that “cultivate capacities for play and empathy,” encourage thinking that is “flexible, open and creative” and work against the provincialism that too often leads us to see those who are different as demonized others.

At ASL, we are constantly articulating the merits of a liberal arts approach. But we are also trying to juxtapose that education within a global context. No matter what course we take, producing young men and women who can write and speak well and convincingly and critically analyze complex information will make the world a better place.

Our flat was robbed last Friday evening. My wife and I lost two Mac laptops, a bike, a camera, my wallet and my wife’s purse. Saturday was spent dealing with the police, Barclays, the locksmith and changing passwords to a variety of online accounts. Sunday was spent feeling sorry for ourselves and emotionally exhausted.

We live in a furnished flat on Primrose Hill. Essentially, we brought our clothes, a few photographs and cookbooks to London with us, and not much more. Except for our laptops.

Our laptops contain our lives. They are our phones, our banks, our newspapers, our music and our memories, growing increasingly dimmer by the year. Literally robbed of them, we felt quite helpless Saturday morning. I tried to reassure my wife that we only lost “stuff” that could be replaced (at least, everything except the photographs).

Ironically, the New York Times ran an article on Saturday whose headline read “The Tell-All Generation Learns When Not To, at Least Online.” People under age 30, the article said, are “rethinking what it means to live out loud.” They are concerned more than ever about privacy and are more vigilant about protecting themselves in digital space than older adults are. They are beginning to limit information about themselves on social networks like Facebook.  After our experience getting burglarized, I think that is a smart move.

There are days in my life when I long to retire to my home in Vermont, which doesn’t have Internet access, and re-read classic novels (and not on Kindle), eat vegetables grown in my garden and generally unclutter my mind.

The mess that currently resides in my brain (or online, somewhere) is a tangle of passwords to financial accounts and vendors with whom I do commerce. I began with logic and privacy and anti-fraud very much in mind, growing well beyond the naiveté of “What is your mother’s maiden name” to obscure stumpers like “Who is your favourite author.” Variations on middle names, past addresses, and distant, long-ago places in my life crept into my password creativity, becoming a twisted knot that required a printout to keep my life in order. When my daughter recently gave birth to my first grandchild, I had new material to work with.

My United States bank is Brattleboro Savings and Loan, in Vermont. They hold the mortgage on my home. I wanted to get a loan with a local bank. But what I also like about the people at BS&L is that they are throw-backs to an earlier and simpler time. When you enter the main branch in Brattleboro, you are greeted by a receptionist who directs you to the right person. When you call the bank, you reach a live voice on the other end. You know the tellers by name. It is all very reassuring.

I did get all of my passwords changed in the course of the weekend. My wife and I are thankful we weren’t physically hurt in the affair. And I am certain we will soon be once again reliant on our laptops to stay connected to the world and our families and friends. We all live tangled lives, full of information. I am glad younger people are retreating a bit from their online presences. Perhaps they will all start to read books while lying on the grass.

One final note: back up your work.

Earlier this school year, I reported on the ASL class of 1969's 40th Reunion in Las Vegas. I had chosen to attend that event, citing my natural affiliation to the class based on my own high school graduation year.

I was reminded of this fortuitous circumstance once again after returning last week from spring vacation in the United States where my chief purpose was to see and get to know my first grandchild, a girl named Emmy born on 13 March.

Here at ASL, we have begun planning for the School's 60th Anniversary. ASL was founded in 1951 - the year I was born. As I also approach my 60th year, I am struck by my life's many phases and twists and turns. Strokes of luck, and results of hard work. Missed opportunities, and paths wondrously taken. Total engagement, and occasional ennui. The rhythms of life are omnipresent and occasionally daunting. The years meld into decades and before we know it we have become a grandparent.

At the school where I worked prior to coming to ASL, the permanence of the institution and the passage of time were symbolized to me by a stone threshold step in a doorway leading into the main classroom building. In the course of almost 100 years, that step had become seriously worn, a parabola signifying the many footfalls that had landed upon it. Perhaps a student or two tried to calculate how many times he or she had left his mark on that stone. Another symbol of the passage of time at my former school occurred at graduation, when the faculty would process to their seats according to length of tenure at the school. By the time of my 18th and final year there, I had moved up the line to walk among the top 30 or so faculty members, out of a total of about 140 teachers.

Schools are like people, I think. The various sites that ASL has occupied are like houses lived in by a family. The starter home in Knightsbridge. Gloucester Gate, to accommodate a growing brood. Then, York Terrace. And finally, One Waverley Place, to house multiple generations. And the various heads of school and faculty members seem like a benevolent aunt, a stern grandfather, an amusing uncle or a mischievous cousin.

I gave my daughter a modest check as a gift to recognize her daughter's - my granddaughter’s - birth. It was a check for Emmy’s education fund, even though the amount I gave will probably cover just a small fraction of one year of college in 2028. But I do believe that a great education is the best gift that a parent or grandparent can give to a child.

As spring arrives in London and the hint of graduation is in the air, ASL's class of 2010 has begun to think about what is next for each of them. And in 40 years, some of them will hopefully gather with ASL classmates for a reunion. And some of them will be (young) grandparents. They will have worn down many steps and made their way to the front of the procession. And ASL will still be here doing its thing in London.