Are You As Good As You Know How To Be?

One of the classes I took while going to ASU was philosophy.  I was kind of nervous going into the class, having heard stories about weird professors and bizarre ideas, but in the end I thoroughly enjoyed the class.   For one thing, it was very small.  I think there were maybe twelve students when the class started, but by the middle of the semester there were only five or six of us left.  I suppose people dropped out because the class sessions were kind of boring, we mostly sat around and talked about different ideas and philosophies, and the professor required one very in-dept project which scared most people off.

For me the project was not that difficult.  I had discovered early in my college career that since my major was elementary education, most professors would allow me to tailor my projects and assignments in that direction.  What that meant was that while other students were doing massive amounts of research on very technical, advanced subjects, I was reading children's stories and writing papers about "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Little House on the Prairie".  It was really kind of fun.

I ended up using information I had already researched and compiled for my Children's Literature class a few years earlier to do the project for this philosophy class, so I finished early and didn't have to stress out over it like the other students were doing.  Instead, I was able to just come to class and enjoy the discussions, although I did wonder sometimes about the direction our discussions took. 

One day the professor began our class by posing a question.  "Are you as good as you know how to be?"
I didn't even have to think  about that.  "No, of course I wasn't."  Not that I was a bad person or anything, it wasn't in my nature to disobey rules or be cruel or rebellious.  But sometimes I was selfish, sometimes I was lazy, and while I didn't do anything really wrong, I wasn't always as good as I knew I should be.

The other students in the class also answered the same way.  We all agreed that we could be better if we tried.  But the professor didn't let us off that easy.  He wanted specific examples of things we knew how to do better than we actually did.  When we provided him with examples, he examined them and turned them around, asking, "If you had really known, I mean, really had known how to do that better, wouldn't you have done it?" 

"For example, if you know you are supposed to wear a seat belt, but you don't because you don't want to wrinkle your clothes or it feels too constrictive or you just forget, you think you know better than you do.  But maybe you just don't really know.  If you were a doctor in an emergency room, and you saw people come in night after night, horribly mangled and injured because they were in accidents without their seat belts on, and on the other hand, you saw people come in with slight injuries because they were saved by wearing their seat belts, then your knowledge and understanding would begin to grow and your actions would change with that.  So, really, you are being as good as you know how to be at this time.  If you learn more, your actions will change."

I thought about that, and still didn't agree to begin with.  But, in a way, I suppose the professor had something there.  If I really knew,  I mean, really knew something, I suppose my actions would change.  Perhaps that's why so many of us don't do what we should be doing, we don't really understand the reason behind the rule.  So, teaching people should involve a lot more than just telling them the rules, if we are really going to change behavior we have to help them know why the rule is there.   So, maybe I am as good as I know how to be, but then it is my responsibility to learn more.