We are what we walk between

In David Foster Wallace’s novel, Infinite Jest, the 70 year old Head Coach and Athletic Director of the Enfield Tennis Academy, Gerhardt Schtitt, is reminiscing about his boyhood tennis facilities and tells Mario that the motto was “We are what we walk between.”

He explains that a myth of the Euclidian shortest path exists in the minds of the young tennis players.

“This myth of competition and bestness... the story that the shortest way between two places is the straight line... but what when something is in the way when you go between places, no? Plow ahead: go: collide: kabong... Where is their straight shortest then? Where is the efficiently quickly straight of Euclid then, yes? And how many two places are there without there is something in the way between them, if you go?”

As an educator, this struck me as analogous to the learning journey of a student. If we imagine for a moment that the path of education is a straight line between two points (from birth to job, from school to university, from novice to grade 9), we might also imagine that the number of obstacles, the things “in the way when you go between places”, is greater for students that are disadvantaged. This means they might collide more often with this things in the way. Their geodetic line will become necessarily longer, more convoluted and complex, manoeuvring as they must around the hazards and obstacles that life has placed in their path.

Perhaps it is not the job of educators to remove these obstacles (societal or governmental changes may well be necessary to do so), but surely it falls within our remit to recognise these things that lie between, and provide guidance for the student to move round them. Part of this recognition will be that the path of the disadvantaged is longer, and may be slower. Part of this responsibility will be to map the terrain, providing a topographical analysis for each individual student, and a map to chart their way. The obligation is to recognise that the destination can still be the same for all students, despite the difficulty, complexity and length that the individual path may wind.

Schtitt’s boyhood motto gave me pause to reflect on education and life in other ways. If we are what we walk between, there are various question we might ask ourselves. Where have we come from? Where are we going? What are the two points that mark the beginning and end of our journey? Is it the distance between these two points that defines us, or is it the journey between them? Schtitt’s exposition implies that it might be the nature of the obstacles, and our overcoming them that brings meaning to our path. But I get the feeling that it is also the length of the journey that counts.

Might we have pause to think about our goals? Have we set them high enough for ourselves? And for our students? It doesn’t matter (or it shouldn’t matter) where we start from, what matters is the destination.

“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48)