Have you ever started reading something and then seen how EVERYTHING applies to what the writer is saying? I frequently have this experience and usually discount it as my overactive imagination. But I have been reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics recently and I am amazed at how observant Aristotle is (and how hard it is to convince my students of this). This is what Aristotle says about skills:
“Virtues…we acquire by first exercising them. The same is true with skills, since what we need to learn before doing, we learn by doing; for example, we become builders by building, and lyre-players by playing the lyre.” (Nicomachean Ethics, 23, Cambridge edition)
And this statement applies so directly to my life. In the past month, I have been doing a ton of driving. I drive Gregg back and forth from the train station, I run errands, I go to school and back. In the process, I have had to master my fears about a number of different driving conditions: driving on the highway, driving at night, driving in the rain, driving after the rain, driving with cars on the road (just kidding), parking!!!! The reason is that you learn by doing, and I am learning driving by driving. However dangerous this sounds (for other drivers as well as for me), it is nevertheless true.
Having said that, which professions would you think would not/should not fall into this category? How about surgery?
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To-Do List:
Class Preps: Doing two and a half class preps this semester has been difficult and time-consuming. I changed some aspects of my Intro to American Government class and that is my half prep. The full preps are for Intro to Political Theory and American Political Thought
Grading: I have 120 students this semester and just gave 60 of them their first test. Promises to be a fun grading weekend.
NPSA: Gregg and I are both going to Northeastern Political Science Association’s November conference. I have to write a draft of a chapter for it – which has not been started yet.
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