I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge,...

You can be an expert any field of study with consistent effort and consistent learning.

We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.

Right now I’m thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It’s a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy – and it...