Today I listened to This is Water, David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. I believe that I heard about it from Write of Passage the first time I took it but forgot about it until now.
It is a really good speech.
To be awake, conscious of our ability to choose what to think in any given moment. That is the real power of a good education.
I think I had heard some negative inklings about David Foster Wallace so I looked up his biography and learned that he had some abusive issues with a partner.
I’ve heard from my colleagues at Macalester that it’s so important to think about public figures as full humans with flaws. I thought about this because seeing this part of his life made me question whether I should share This is Water with my students. But I think what my Mac colleagues are saying is that no one is perfect and that we can still learn from someone despite this.