In my last post I linked to the delightful autobiography Amartya Sen produced to accompany his acceptance speach for his Nobel prize in economics. The whole thing is worth a read but I particularly liked two quotes that brought a smile to my face.
The first is from his early years at Rabindranath Tagore‘s school, where as he says, “my educational attitudes were formed.” and goes on to explain:
“This was a co-educational school, with many progressive features. The emphasis was on fostering curiosity rather than competitive excellence, and any kind of interest in examination performance and grades was severely discouraged. (“She is quite a serious thinker,” I remember one of my teachers telling me about a fellow student, “even though her grades are very good.”) Since I was, I have to confess, a reasonably good student, I had to do my best to efface that stigma.”
The second is his concluding paragraph:
“I end this essay where I began – at a university campus. It is not quite the same at 65 as it was at 5. But it is not so bad even at an older age (especially, as Maurice Chevalier has observed, “considering the alternative” ). Nor are university campuses quite as far removed from life as is often presumed. Robert Goheen has remarked, “if you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.” Right on. But then who wants to be planted on ground? There are places to go.”