I was born in the middle of the Great Depression, lived through World War Two and the Viet Nam debacle, and survived a string of Republican silliness, including the worst President America has ever seen. All through these most difficult of times America has muddled through and has come out stronger than ever. Because of all this I have become a true believer in the American idea, in Democracy for the people. In spite of all its troubles around the world, the idea of people deciding for themselves seems to have caught on with almost everyone.
My Grand-Dad was elected City Treasure of our small town on the Roosevelt ticket in 1932 and continued in that position until 1944. My Mom worked hard in the restaurant business throughout the Depression and eventually became a huge success. During those years we tracked the advance of our troops across the Pacific and through Europe on wall maps and listened regularly to FDR on the radio. We observed the rules laid down for the war effort, including gasoline rationing, food shortages, and victory gardens.
Surprisingly enough, the war effort enabled us to pull our way out of the depression and even help both Germany and Japan rebuild their countries. In short, America came out of its most difficult times stronger, both physically and spiritually, than it ever had been. Of course, since then it has continued to be challenged by different enemies and its own various indifferences and short-comings, most notably its inability to completely shake off the evils of racism. In spite of these difficulties we have for the most part defeated Communism and various stupid efforts to take over our government, including Trumpism.
All of these experiences and realities have led me, in my 90th year, to have a great deal of confidence in America, both as an idea and as a political reality. In spite of all these challenges over the past ten decades we have managed not only to survive but to prosper. Of course, there are still many challenges out there – there always will be- but America has proven to be both an extremely powerful idea and reality. If we can continue to repeal and repel the extremists of the “far right” the short-term future looks rather bright.
Throughout these years the idea, indeed the reality, of the democratic way of governing has grown and spread throughout the world. Of course, there are those countries that only pretend to be democracies, but they generally are short-lived. In addition, the way we implement the idea of capitalism often causes difficulties around the world, we generally have found ways to curb its excesses. We still have a long way to go with regard to combatting sickness and poverty world-wide, but some important progress has been made and more is in the offing.
As near as I can tell, the Trump years brought us about as close as possible to our own demise. Although we have still not recovered completely from that horrible debacle, we are finally on our way. The thing about America is that no matter how bad and desperate things seem to be, the American people come together to identify and irradicate, or at least nullify, the threat. When I was a little kid what we today call “The Superheroes” were invented. Actually, Superman and I are almost the same age.
These characters, all the way from the Green Hornet and Blackhawk to Flash Gordon, Batman, and Wonder Woman in a funky sort of way symbolize the power behind both the American dream and the American reality. They always show up in the nick of time and manage to conquer the bad guys. Sure, its all a fantasy reality, but in some strange way it symbolizes what we call the American Spirit. Of course, this seemingly naïve view of things may prove to be wrong. But I wouldn’t bet on it !!

As most of you know I have spent two-thirds of my life as a college teacher. Throughout most of that time I have tried to operate according to an educational philosophy that emphasizes the process of learning rather than simply learning an on facts and about ideas as ends in themselves. Often, I called this process “learning to learn.” My teaching emphasis has been on helping students discover ideas and explore their consequences and implications on a first-hand basis. We did this together as a process in classroom discussions and by writing “thesis papers.”
Over the years my own sense of the value of approaching learning by doing, through class discussions and writing short papers, has been consistently rewarded, both by your own evaluations and my own sense of fulfilment. We did this by writing short thesis papers, discussing your ideas with the class as a whole, and my writing comments on your papers. We broadened our scope by writing “integrative papers” at the end of each course unit. The emphasis was always on the process of thinking and learning together. In short, we focused on “learning to learn”, rather than on exposing ourselves to and remembering certain pieces of information.
It was always my chief joy to see this process at work, and to see you and your classmates actually enjoy the learning process for yourselves. This joy is focused and exemplified in the Peanuts cartoon where Linus expresses his pleasure at having discovered that one can put one block on top of the other. He found that the realization that there are connections and relationships between and amongst ideas, represented here by respective blocks, exhilarated and pleased him.
I like to think that the years of seeing students express this same joy about the work we were doing together clearly indicated that real learning was taking place in the classrooms where we worked together. Indeed, I’ll readily admit that over these 60 years of being in the classroom with the likes of you folks has been the chief joy of my life! Although I have managed to publish a good many books and scholarly papers down through the years, the original calling I felt to become a teacher back in the 1950s has been fulfilled in the classroom with you folks, not in the scholarly accomplishments. (CF. my book Learning to Learn)
I’ll readily admit that I did not start out in my teaching career with a desire to help students “learn to learn”. It took several years before I realized that leaning is really about “learning to learn.” The process is far more important than the outcome. Another way to put this is to say that if the process is done correctly, the outcome will take care of itself. As Linus puts it, “It is magnificent” His smile says it all. I should also readily admit that I myself was anything but a stellar student all the way from first grade through college.
I did not realize until long afterwards that my own school education, from the third grade through the nineth, was directed by a group of teachers who had been taught according to the goals and methods of one John Dewey, the founder of what is called “progressive” education. Dewey’s motto was “We learn by doing.” Perhaps more of Dewey’s philosophy of education seeped into me than I ever realized. Be that as it may, I am proud to be able to say that many, if not most, of my students caught on to the idea that the key to real education is to “learn how to learn.” As Linus says: “It’s a very special thing.”