The End of Work

I once mentioned to a friend of mine that I was determined to read more Hermann Hesse. 

He enthusiastically told me that I simply must read Beneath the Wheel, that it was by far his favorite book by what turns out to be one of his favorite authors. 

I had no idea that Hesse was among anyone’s favorite authors, let alone someone I knew, let alone someone I knew who didn’t dress in all black with black earrings and black fingernail polish.  (Truth be told, I have no idea why I associated Hesse with that particular type of person.  Really no idea at all.)

You don’t have to hunt hard for the thesis of this book.

Nor did it occur to any of them that a fragile creature had been reduced to this state by virtue of school and the barbaric ambition of his father and his grammar-school teacher.  Why was he forced to work until late at night during the most sensitive and precarious period of his life?  Why purposely alienated from his friends in grammar school?  Why deprived of needed rest and forbidden to go fishing?  Why instilled with a shabby ambition?  What had they not even granted him his well-deserved vacation after the examination?

Now the overworked little horse lay by the wayside, no longer of any use.

Yep, overworking young school children, turning the academic enterprise into drudgery and endless hours will destroy them.  By about a third of the way into this book, you know it won’t end well.

My first thought: I wish some of my students would read this book.  I have far too few students who know anything at all about the joy of learning.  Too many college students treat school work as nothing other than tedious, arduous tasks.  Why shouldn’t school be fun? 

My second thought: my first thought is wrong.  I wish some of my students would not read this book and actually learn that not all of life is having fun, but sometimes you have to, you know, work.  Sometimes, you have to spend some long hours (yes, hours, not minutes) studying. 

My third thought:  one thought does not fit all.

My fourth thought: one thought does not fit any.  As I ponder the book, I realize that I have a hard time connecting the details of our protagonist’s life with the modern age. 

I have students who are too obsessed with grades, far too obsessed with grades, students who take no joy in school, who in one sense feel just like our protagonist in the way they see school work as something which chains you to a desk to learn ever more, but who seem to miss out on the rest of life because they are so obsessed with learning exactly what needs to be learned for a class and nothing else.   But, it is rare that those are also the students who work the hardest in a class. (This may be a product of the place where I work; it may be different at other schools.  Indeed, there is reason to think that it may be different elsewhere.) 

I have other students who are a bit too obsessed with recreational activities, who take their school work lightly, and who could benefit from, you know, working.  But those are rarely the students who are actually most enjoying their leisure; 14 hours of Netflix and social media per day is not as enjoyable as it might sound.

The longer I ponder this, the more I realize: the idea of work is dead in educational institutions. What is the proper end of work?  I suspect very few students could offer an answer, even a bad answer, to that question.

And what about those of us who are no longer students?  We work to earn a wage.  For some of my friends, it is obvious what constitutes the end of their work.  For college professors?  Ah, therein lies the rub: what is the end to which the work of a college professor should strive?