An Open Letter to Cardale Jones

In the kurfuffle and brouhaha and talleyhoo and dingledoo in regards to your question, viz., "Why should we have to go to class if we come here to play FOOTBALL, [sic] we ain't [sic] come [sic] to play SCHOOL, [sic] classes are POINTLESS," I have realized that no one, not a single person, has tried to answer your question. As an educator who should have stopped after that fifth glass of sherry, let me try.

The point of classes is this: in all the boundless endeavors of humanity in carving out a world in which we might live from a world that is continually trying to kill us, we've always relied on a single evolutionary trait: our minds. Shortly after our evolution, we suffered a major extinction event that nearly wiped us out. We survived it, however, and thrived. We exist in every single environment on the surface of the planet, and have even escaped it. We are, just in terms of sheer range, the most successful creature on earth, because people decided to make fur into clothing, rocks into arrows, sticks into spears, metal into alloy, inedible raw grain into flour, trash heaps into gardens, wolves into dogs, and bricks into buildings. And then, they taught other people how to do those things. Now, we have harnessed fundamental forces of the universe for our convenience. Your laptop is running on the electromagnetic force, created shortly after the big bang and shaped by human minds into a form you could use to post your question.

But wait, that's not all. We live in societies -- we, primates with instincts, granted, for cooperation but also with instincts for pack behavior and violence and little ability to conceive of the common weal of groups greater than thirty people. We live in cities of millions with insanely low rates of murder, because we have learned, by means of our marvelous minds, to cooperate.

So we live.  But who cares. What's the point of mere survival? Well, glad you ask Cardale. Because it's this: with our minds we have shaped grunts into language, language into beauty, sound into music, color into art, and the primal drives of human lust into love and compassion.  And these activities of the mind are what saves us when the world falls down.  When civilization fails or our bodies betray us, we can rely on our minds to be fortresses to which we can retreat.  But only if we have fortified them through study and systematic thought.  Like your legs, Cardale, your mind will cramp up and fail you when you need it most if you don't stretch and work it regularly.  

The point of classes, then, Cardale, is this: all of humanity that matters is in the mind. Football is a fun game. I have watched it and, with alcohol enough and good friends, enjoyed it. And if you have a talent and a love for, by all means, young man, play the hell out of it with all the joy it gives you and all the spirit you can muster. But remember always that you play that silly little game (you're aware it's essentially Chutes and Ladders, right, with a ball?) as one tiny little iota in the great and beautiful activities of human minds.  And when you fail -- when you tear a hamstring or get too old to play professionally or get caught with a hooker and a few lines of coke -- you won't have that game any more, but you'll always have your mind.  What kind of mind will you have?  One you can retreat to and find useful tools if your world goes wrong, or one that will be filled with nothing but pop culture trash and anti-intellectual scorn?  

We can build a mind that won't let us down.  And that's a marvelous game we play, not on the field, but in class, and its rewards aren't rings but lives of meaning and hope.

I hope that answers your question. If not, I have office hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1:00 until 4:00.