Day 8: Defending the Senior Essay

I am going to begin this post with a quiz asking readers why the buttons nearly burst from our shirts today.

Buttons popped because?:

A.      Betsy’s new breast implants have been installed.

B.      Dave has been working out with the new Bowflex machine (guaranteed to add five inches to your chest in 30 days or your money back) that he purchased at an “as seen on TV” outlet mall in Sevierville, TN.

C.      Betsy has been secretly working out on the Bowflex.

D.      Tex successfully defended his senior essay during questioning from three St. John’s College tutors.

E.       All of the above.

The correct answer is D (I’m considering returning the Bowflex and I think it would be prudent for me not to say anything more about breast implants at this time).

Hopefully the readers of this blog have already read Tex's senior essay, which can be found on the separate page tab labeled “Tex’s Senior Essay”.

His defense of the essay began when all of the 20 or so people gathered in a large, wood-paneled room on the top floor of one of the many red-brick buildings scattered about the leafy SJC campus stood as he and the three tutors (SJC-speak for professor) on his review panel entered. All four were robed in academic regalia and they took their seats at a table in the center of the room.

Tex was introduced by one of the tutors and he then read a relatively brief synopsis of the essay that he had prepared for the occasion.

In the unlikely event that you have not read the essay; it is an assessment of a book written by Galileo titled Two New Sciences.

Tex writes that the purpose of his essay is to; “…determine exactly how comprehensible the Galilean approach to nature is, and the penalties of having a method that may only be understood by a few people.”

In the book Galileo uses three characters to represent three levels of human reasoning. One comprehends the complexities of science while the other two struggle with this challenge, to varying degrees and in varying ways.

In his conclusion Tex suggests that the lesser two of the three reasoners should take on the challenge of acquiring the knowledge that the third character possesses. Tex writes; “If the multitude fails to take this challenge, the consequences are severe. If most people are poor reasoners who reject their own experience in favor of another person’s words, what use does this knowledge have?”

In the very first question out of the box one of the tutors challenged this premise using an Ayn-Rand- inspired line of interrogation that was essentially based on the premise of; “so what, who cares, what does it matter if the multitudes reason poorly?”.

Tex struggled mightily to answer those questions; never, seemingly, to the tutor’s satisfaction.

What made the exchange even more entertaining was the tutor himself. He reminded me a little of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist; tallish, angular and awkward, with an impatient, brusque demeanor. Furthermore, and more importantly, the guy speaks in heavily-accented English. In my imagination he would be the guy the Russians would bring in to interrogate a captured American spy.

The other two tutors were much less adversarial. Tex stuck to his guns and (it seemed to me) more than held his own, occasionally quoting himself from the paper and also drawing on concepts from other books read in the SJC program.

This seemed to play well with all three of the tutors because at St. John’s College students are not graded on their ability to answer questions correctly but rather on their ability to ask probing questions and then thoughtfully discuss a range of possible answers.

Tex seemed to pass this test with flying colors.

Annapolis is a two-hour drive from Lewes, thus four hours of our day was spent driving.

On the way over we went through Dover and stopped at the state Welcome Center to pick up brochures, maps, flyers, etc. that will help us plan out the days ahead; so that we can achieve our goal of “really getting to know Delaware.”

After the essay defense we went with Tex, his girlfriend Laurel and good friend John Vining to a bar/restaurant for celebratory drinks and snacks.

This might be a good segue to inform blog readers of Tex’s post-graduation plans.

He and Laurel are going to spend the summer in Austin where she will work in an outlet of the same retail chain where she works now in Annapolis and he will commute to an internship at a small brewery in Blanco. Believe it or not Tex is receiving a stipend from SJC for this internship.

In the fall they will move to Phoenix where Laurel plans to work as a teaching assistant in a charter school that is based on a “great books” program similar to SJC’s.

As I was typing this missive I noted that the workers arrived before 7:30 a.m. to continue their arduous (and noisy) task of putting new wood shingles on the exterior of the condo building. The generator and the nail gun fired up about 7:50. I wonder how Betsy is sleeping downstairs?

 The ladder and the guy on the left are standing next to the bedroom window.