"Idle reader..."
With these words Cervantes opens his masterpiece "Don Quixote" — but does idleness imply passivity? Isn't it true that when we read, we launch ourselves into voyages, sometimes turbulent and earth-shattering ones? This is one of the questions the book explores. What I want to explore is not Cervantes, but questions. I believe you, dear reader, have natural questions. And I believe that these natural questions are guiding your time at Brown.
A natural question is an organic question — a distinctly personal curiosity that demands exploration. Examples: How can I express trauma in dance? What role does music play in the classroom? Why did 30,000 children die today because of hunger? Varied in scope, natural questions are expressions of our intrinsic desire to understand. For instance, you are shopping courses that speak to you in one way or another, looking for answers and acting on your natural questions.
A year ago, I took off to Central California and worked for a few months picking bell peppers. To be sure, there is nothing attractive about the work. I woke up at five in the morning to hop into a van and drive to vast fields where we would wait for the sun to rise. As soon as we could see the red of the bell peppers, we entered the rows with buckets in hand. Right behind, a conveyor belt followed us — pushed us — into production. At the end of my first day, I was plotting face-saving ways to quit. By the second day, I was convinced I was a communist. By the third, the intense heat made me forget the resolutions from the first two days. My focus became survival — making it one bucket of peppers at a time.
Why put myself through this? There are a few reasons, but I do believe that the impetus was questions. A long time ago, I picked jalapeño peppers alongside my mother, but I was too young to understand what it meant to be a field worker. As I grew up, I increasingly needed to understand my mother and her decisions.
A more compelling question is linked to my pedagogical training. I had graduated from Bennington College ecstatic about the power of a liberal arts education. But what meaning, if any, does education have in rural, farm working communities? I needed to know. These questions were nagging at me — these gaps in my education that just needed to be filled. So I armed myself with courage and took off to find answers.
Dear reader, your questions may not be as dramatic as the ones I shared, but I am certain you have them. If I have convinced you, here is my challenge to you: Pick a class and articulate a question — a real, meaningful question — and write it down. Throughout the semester, come back to it and reflect on how the answer is coming along, but don't answer it yet. When the semester is about to end, write the best answer you arrive at.
When I get to that point, I question whether I am ready to offer any kind of answer. I am reminded of Michele de Montaigne who, upon learning of the New World, lamented that greater minds were not alive to help those living understand. Similarly, I think of how greater minds than mine have attempted to answer the questions that I pose. But that is what we are here for — to struggle at the boundaries of our own understanding. So I suck it up and write an answer down. I always feel better afterwards.
If you accept my challenge, I want to leave you with a wonderful concept from Sandra Cisneros. In a short story, she suggests that people are like Russian dolls. Inside the 20-year-old you, there is the 19-year-old you and the 18-year-old you, and so on. So if you get overwhelmed and want to cry, that is the three-year-old you. If you get angry and want to scream, that may be the 13-year-old you. So don't sweat it.
The other day, I was in class in the third floor of Sayles Hall. I glanced at the Main Green and saw over a dozen boys playing football in the snow. I am from California, so this seemed plain crazy. But, I bet you, they were answering a natural question as well. Don't you think?
Hector Najera is a graduate student studying education.
