Ignorance is not Bliss

In a former life, I taught at Mankato State University (now Minnesota State University at Mankato) as an Instructor for the Computer Science Department there.  I maintained class web pages for the courses I was charged with and I put a phrase fairly prominently in the middle of the home page.

"Ignorance is not bliss."

I certainly understood then, just as I do now, the basis for the statement "ignorance IS bliss."  The basic idea is if you don't know about the dark clouds on the horizon, you can be perfectly happy since they are not darkening your outlook.  But, I also knew then (and now) that those dark clouds still exist and they don't discriminate when they actually darken our skies.  Everyone gets to deal with them when they are directly overhead.

Of course, my motivation then was to encourage the three hundred and thirty people who were in my Intro to Computing courses to take the time and make the effort to apply themselves to learning.  I guess I figured that if they saw that every time they went to the web pages for assignment information and resources I provided, they would see this phrase - and maybe it would provide some inspiration.

But, I suspect it was there mostly for me.

Then a strange thing happened several years after I had left Mankato and moved on with my life.  A person came up to me and asked if I was the same Rob Faux who taught at Mankato State.  They were, of course, fairly certain, but it was a better approach than asking if I remembered them.  After all, I had three hundred or so students each quarter for three quarters in a row.

They surprised me when they said to me... "Do you remember that you put the saying 'ignorance is not bliss' on your web pages?  That saying has meant a lot to me ever since I graduated with my degree."

It was now a gift that goes both ways.

This makes me think of another gift - one that I was given well before I was looking at attending colleges.  This gift sits not far from the desk where I write for the farm blog and for PAN.  I still reach for it semi-frequently, though I also admit that I will check online resources when this book is covered by other papers.

I received this book through the Reading Is Fundamental program implemented by the Newton school system's PTA Council.  If I recall correctly, every kid got a dictionary and they got to select other book(s) as well.  I do not remember any of the other books I selected today - but I still use this one, and have done so for years.

It is programs like this one that tell young people that the road to a better happiness is in learning, not in ignorance.  And they accomplished this task by putting the tools into the hands of the learner - for them to decide how, and if, they would use it.    

What I do not recall is whether all students in my class were allowed to select books or if it was based on family income.  I would like to think, of course, that the Newton PTA simply made sure these books were available to each and every student, regardless of affluence.  Why?  First, every child could use more, not less, encouragement to learn and read.  And second, the process of identifying and pulling out children - in front of their peers - to go select books because they are "poor" does nothing for the children and only makes those who are feeling philanthropic feel better because they are helping the helpless.

On the flip side, it doesn't hurt to provide more, rather than the same, resources to those who need it to help level the playing field (so to speak).  The simple fact that I do not recall if those who had a lower socioeconomic status received more in this program tells me the implementation might have been pretty well done this time around.  I mean, I can certainly tell you how poorly the distribution of "free lunch" tickets were handled... every week.

But, that is not the point of this blog post.

Gifts of knowledge.  Gifts of resources that provide chances to learn.  Gifts of encouragement to take learning seriously - and to do so continuously.

These are gifts that can lead us to new and interesting places and things in this world.  These are the things that help us to discover ways to relate to others and gain value from our interactions with them.  This is how we can learn to look at things and know what it is to be awed, that we can gaze at our surroundings with wonder.  These are the things that help us prepare because we do see the storm clouds on the horizon.

This is how we find the balance between bliss and utter despair.  This is how we find happiness that can last through those moments when dark clouds cover us all.