Yesterday afternoon, as I was subconsciously still going over a
series of serious conversations I have had this past week, I found myself
momentarily watching the U.S. Open. I don't know why I stopped at that
channel. I am neither a golfer nor a particular golf fan. As an ex-
collegiate soccer player, the World Cup is more my cup of tea than is the
President's Cup. As good luck would have it, I caught some
commentators and interviewees. Something they were saying struck me.
They were talking about how the "best" were not being devoured by the
"beast" of the Bethpage's Black Course. The difficult challenges and the
daunting obstacles led them to adjust and adapt, to reach deeper and
higher, to become--in my words--a club-wielding St. George.
Because of my discussions, those observations took me back to a
Thomas Friedman op-ed piece that ran in the New York Times a few months
ago. In it, Friedman had made a spoof comparison of golfers and the key
players in the Middle East tragedy. No one in the sport of golf, he
observed, is afraid of compromise or change. On the contrary, golf is a
game where the very best players engage in never-ending self-criticism,
self-reflection and self-correction, constantly adapting to changing
conditions on a course, constantly adjusting to different conditions on
different courses. That's all they talk about. Friedman observed that
even the best golfers remain teachable. I would add that they are the
best because they never lose that teachableness. There is a great
haughty-eroding humility in that. They spend a lot of time looking at
themselves in the mirror. They are always checking their swings, are
constantly being coached, are constantly learning, are constantly
practicing, unlike in the Middle East, where self-reflection and
self-criticism are as common, in Friedman's words, as a three-hump camel.
When it comes to teaching, I wonder how we academics would fare if
Friedman wrote a similar op-ed piece comparing golfers playing a course
and us teaching a course. Just putt-ering around with a thought or two
this dog-day of June.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
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