Figuring It Out Together

The process of learning is exhilarating

By Dr. Ann Dolinko, Professor in the Shimer Great Books School

In 1996, after years studying, writing my dissertation, and completing my doctorate in philosophy, I felt like an expert in my field. I was excited to begin my first full-time academic job as a professor at Shimer College. I didn’t know yet that I was about to get a lesson in academic humility.

For a course called Society, Culture and Personality, the first text I needed to teach was an anthropology text titled “Patterns of Culture.” I had never studied anthropology and had no idea who the author, Ruth Benedict, was. In 1996, “googling” her name wasn’t an option.

So, I got the text and started to read. As I stepped into that first class, I was unnerved. Wasn’t I supposed to be the expert? It was disorienting.

The liberal arts teach us that we can explore meaning together. They teach us that not knowing is not dangerous. Indeed, through that first semester, the students and I found our way — and it was thrilling. I taught at least five authors I had never read before, including Max Weber, Carol Gilligan, B.F. Skinner, and W.E.B. DuBois. Since then, I have taught those books and scores of others that were once new to me but which I now welcome as old friends.

Disorientation occurred again when Shimer College became a part of North Central College in 2017. First, I had no idea where Naperville was. At least by then I could simply look it up on Google! Also, I had spent 20 years teaching classes with no more than 12 students in the room, and the only majors were humanities, social science, natural science and integrative studies. At North Central, my classes would have as many as 35 students — and not everyone would be passionate about reading. Again, I had to trust the process: We would figure it out together.

Once more, it has been thrilling. As the Shimer Great Books School thrives at North Central, I can bring a diverse group of students around the Shimer octagon table, with North Central chairs, to orient ourselves to new ideas and new possibilities. An exercise science major brought her perspective rooted in embodiment to our discussion on Ruth Benedict. While discussing Karl Marx and Adam Smith, a finance major found how to apply our texts to what he was learning in his major and by working in the North Central Coffee Lab. There are many examples.

The major thing I have taken from my life as a philosopher is that the process of learning is exhilarating. It’s becoming something different, orienting myself to the world in new and delightfully unexpected ways. This requires risk, trust and vulnerability to the unknown. But being disoriented can be the beginning of intellectual inspiration.