One of the best things about working at the U is having your POV altered, molded, or even shattered, sometimes when you least expect it.

I met with Department of Linguistics Professor Steven Sternfeld to grab a quick photo for Continuum. It was supposed to go like this: 1) handshake; 2) exchange brief pleasantries and/or share complaints about parking; 3) snap a poorly composed head shot beneath fluorescent lights that would turn Sternfeld’s skin the color of celery.

There. In and out in 10 minutes, with enough time to grab a gut-busting burrito at Chartwells before returning to my office.      

Instead, I ended up staying in Sternfeld’s office for the better part of an hour as we talked about his efforts to coax students away from the belief that good grades somehow validate what they’ve learned. His point is that too many students value education only for the opportunity to earn a decent grade, which can then be parlayed into a degree, which may then lead to a good job. The concept that education can be valuable in and of itself—regardless of passing or failing grades—tends to get lost in the shuffle. American school kids hop on the good-grades-equals-lifetime-advancement treadmill pretty early. Sternfeld believes that humans intrinsically enjoy education but modern American society “retrains” the mind to seek tangible rewards for knowledge in the form of grades, degrees, or jobs. And most of us have been brought up that way and simply accept it as reality. We’ve come to believe that’s the way the universe works. But maybe, he said, it was time to reevaluate how we think about this stuff.   

Anyway, as Sternfeld was telling me this, he grabbed a box of uncooked pasta to help illustrate his point that some things in our culture are taken for granted.

“This brand of pasta is also widely available in Italy,” he said. “Now, look at those instructions for cooking the pasta. What do you think the instructions say on boxes in Italy?” I had no idea. I’ve never been to Italy. I don’t cook pasta, because I can’t cook to save my life. I was already out of my depth.

After a dramatic pause, he said, “There are no instructions on pasta boxes in Italy. It is assumed that everyone knows how to make pasta. However, there are instructions on how to make cold cereal.”

Since that afternoon, I haven’t looked at Cap’n Crunch the same way.