As the spring semester begins, along with the nervousness and the "unknown" of what each new class will be like, it is a natural time for professors to think about what we hope for for our students and for ourselves.
Naturally, I hope my students will find my class to be a challenging and rewarding learning experience. I hope they will gain new knowledge (in this case about Paul and early Judaism), sharpen their reading, writing, and thinking skills as graduate students, and move closer toward their goals of completing their graduate degrees. All good things, of course!
But more than the new insights, the greater knowledge, or the tangible outcome of a degree--or rather, alongside those things--I hope my students will develop a set of virtues that will serve them not only during the current semester, but for the rest of their lives. And here I refer to what A. G. Sertillanges calls the "intellectual virtues." These are the character traits that, aside from any special level of intellectual talent or natural genius, will enable a person to develop his or her mind in a way that is productive, satisfying, and personally rewarding.
What are these virtues? There are many that might be listed here, but my list includes such essential dispositions as studiousness, constancy, patience, perseverance, courage, and humility. Sertillanges explains the importance of many of these in his book, The Intellectual Life (see my earlier post on Sertillanges for some more background on this book):
"The virtue proper to the person of study is, clearly, [drum roll please...] studiousness" (25). And elsewhere, "You must bring to your work constancy which keeps steadily at the task; patience which bears difficulties well; perseverance which prevents the will from flagging" (215).
These first four virtues (studiousness, constancy, patience, and perseverance) are necessary for intellectual growth to the extent that they enable a person to navigate around and through the obstacles that are bound to come to anyone who seeks to develop her mind. Rather than seeking instant results, hoping for a quick fix to one's intellectual poverty, or expecting an easy road, these "old-school" virtues remind a person to stay on a path of growth that, although difficult, will ultimately lead to the desired results.
In addition, I hope my students will face my class with courage. Courage to question what they already think they know, with the goal that they could come to a deeper understanding of a given subject. Particularly in the realm of biblical studies and theology, it takes courage to question the truths and convictions that one has received from parents, from respected leaders, and other authorities as right. It takes courage to look at a subject from a new perspective and to be truly open to learning from that perspective. But if we are to be formed intellectually in our study of the Bible, we must have the courage to allow its contents to challenge our own cherished beliefs. It takes little courage to seek to affirm what we already think we know.
Finally, I hope my students will practice the intellectual virtue of humility. In my way of thinking, humility and courage go hand in hand. If one has the humility to recognize that one has not yet fully arrived at a final and indisputable way of understanding their beliefs, that one has not yet reached maturity in one's theology, then one can explore new and challenging ideas without feeling that one's identity is threatened in the process. I hope my students will have the humility to be able to listen to one another, and to be able to admit when they really do not know something. Such an admission takes both humility and courage, but it is certainly a gateway to gaining new knowledge.
As I run down this list of hopes for my students, it is surely obvious that these are hopes I hold for myself as well. When I have faced discouragement, disappointment, failure, and other setbacks in my own journey of intellectual development, it is these virtues, together with encouragement from others, that have kept me from giving up altogether. So may the weeks and months of this semester find us, faculty and students alike, putting these intellectual virtues into practice as we engage in the life-changing and life-challenging process of graduate education together.
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