Last Class

Next class will be my last class. My final exam the following week, technically won’t count as instructional—perhaps only destructional. Two years, four semesters, 60 class periods, 200 hours of contact time (193 for me, as I missed two classes), with another 400-500 hours of study—hard time, but life well spent. My grade going into the final has risen to A-/B+. The language is not getting easier, but I think the quizzes are. Not complaining, just observing.

Is it heresy for me, an academic professional, a university citizen, to confess that as much as I love learning, reading, and studying, I’m tired of schooling? The accountability, the grading has rendered the pursuit much less leisurely, much less liberal; and then there’s the memorization. Perhaps I’ve learned Polish as well as Polish can be learned in this way and in this time. Perhaps I’ve laid the firmest of foundations. Maybe even probably. But however well-disposed I remain toward my subject matter—Polish language, literature, and culture—and my professor and classmates, the regime of exercise, quiz, and exam wears a man down, unschools him. We have the medieval university to thank for this, of which, Poland has one, Jagiellonian University in Kraków (1364) and about which we read for next week to close out this cycle.