As a backdrop to my comments in this piece, I want to indicate that much of my education was obtained in California public schools. A long time ago I attended a Southern California high school named Northview in Covina. During my senior year one of the mandatory classes was Government. I recollect it was then named civics. At the beginning of one of my major exams in this course, which was open book and open note, I noticed that all of the questions were such that they could be answered in full by regurgitating what I had written in my class lecture notes. So I approached my teacher, noted this fact, and asked if I could save myself needless time and energy by cutting and pasting my lecture notes to the germane questions on the exam. Even though his reaction was one of surprise and even amusement, he said that would be fine.
    The point here is not the content of what I wrote in my class notes; rather, it is that by then I developed study habits that allowed me to engage in this course of action. This was in stark contrast even at that time to students that took delight in getting a grade of "C" or higher, even though they did nothing to prepare for a test. In fact, to these people, getting average or better grades without studying was a mark of real intelligence and a status symbol of success. Since I did not deem myself a "brain," I decided that if I wanted to go to college and do well there, I had better develop good study habits. As a result, I probably qualified as a "real square." The only thing that possibly saved me from social excommunication by my peers was that I was a fairly good athlete.
    The next year I began my undergraduate education as a full-time college student at a very ordinary California college named California State Polytechnic College, Pomona. In those days one had to actually be in the top 10 to 15 percent of one's high school graduating class to attend such a school. While students such as myself were probably considered of normal intelligence, we certainly were not deemed the best or brightest. The latter were off to the University of California or some other prestigious private university. Yet even some of these people, if they went to a few too many parties at their new high-powered schools, wound up back at the local junior college (yes, in those days junior colleges were actually called junior colleges) for at least one or two semesters. This way they could develop the requisite study skills before making another leap into the collegiate big leagues.
    On my very first day, in fact the very first class session, at Cal Poly, Pomona, I had an indelible experience. This class was the five-unit History of Western Civilization course. (Most other classes were only three units.) The professor was Dr. Joseph Boton Blazack. The very first thing he did was to tell us students that, "You are all ignorant." He then added that he was ignorant too, but that he was a little less ignorant than us, and this is why he was the teacher and we were the students. My initial reaction was mild indignation. I thought that even if I wasn't at someplace like UC Berkeley, I still was in the top 15 percent of my high school graduating class, and so too were my fellow students. Hence, how could this person legitimately call me and my fellow students "ignorant"?
    The answer to my query was not long in arriving. On that first day Dr. Blazack told us the first week's assignment was to read all of Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology, and we would be tested on it on Friday. My initial reaction was, "I'm supposed to read this entire book and be tested concerning anything in it within only five days. That's incredible! I'm not able to do this!" Still, I decided to accept the challenge to stay in this class. During the fall quarter those of us that persevered in Professor Blazack's Western Civ class were assigned to read 5 or 6 paperback books, and a seemingly giant 1,000-page-plus formal History of Western Civilization textbook. Aside from Greek Mythology, I remember that one of the other paperback books we were assigned to read, and all of it, was Plato's Republic.
    By the end of the quarter, before the final exam in Western Civ, I did well on the quizzes pertaining to the reading material, but I had managed somehow to earn the first D+ of my life on a midterm exam. Dr. Blazack informed us that the final exam would consist of one essay question. It would be neither an open book nor an open note exam--and in those days final exams were three hours long. Lest we students think him uncaring about our final exam plight, Dr. Blazack informed us that just before and during the final exam, he would bring a bottle of aspirin to class. He said he was aware of the fact that, because of our youth and our interest in non-academic pursuits, we were not used to thinking. Since the necessity of learning how to think might well cause us to have a headache, he thought it appropriate to bring aspirin for those of us that developed such a malady.
    To prepare for the final exam, I got together with four or five other students. We decided to lock ourselves away in a room for three or four days and construct an outline of the course. Collectively we made about 25-page typed document. After we did this, each of us tried to memorize, as best as possible, the most salient aspects of this study guide. The day of the final arrived, and despite what I had done to prepare for the exam, I still felt woefully unprepared. The final exam question, which I'll remember my entire life, was "If Socrates had been a Hebrew, how would he have reacted to his trial?"
    My initial reaction was one of astonishment and consternation. I sat in silence for at least fifteen minutes wondering if I should be in college. Then I said to myself, "Well, I really don't have any idea how to answer this question but I did learn things in this class. So I'll at least write something to let Dr.Blazack know that I did acquire some information and actually studied for this exam." Somehow I earned a B+ on that final exam and, based upon my good quiz grades, I earned a "B" in the class.
    Though I resented being told at the outset of this class, on the very first day of my undergraduate years in college, that I was ignorant, I came to the conclusion by the end of only my first quarter at Cal Poly, Pomona, that I was very ignorant. Dr. Blazack, as it turned out, was more than right in informing us kids that we were ignorant. He was also a fine teacher. As a result of being assigned sophisticated material to read and grapple with, in addition to attending religiously Dr. Blazack's intellectually stimulating History of Western Civilization lectures, I probably began to learn how to think. I also realized that thinking is a difficult, arduous, taxing, and intrinsically rewarding process. All of this began, for me, at a California public college (in those days colleges were actually named what they were but now many places named "universities" are not really even colleges) that was viewed by many people as that "cow college" in Pomona.
    I reflect periodically upon the irony and luck of my having encountered educational elitism at what was considered then just a "cow college." This has always been more than okay with me, but I lament that within the last 15 years or so, professors such as Dr. Blazack would have been decimated by student evaluations, along with the ideology and cult of "sensitivity." In this era it is difficult to imagine most students not protesting to administrators about being told candidly of their ignorance by a university professor--especially if this information were to be followed with a rigorous and demanding course of study. Moreover, if such a professor did not have tenure, she or he would probably never get it, and maybe even be destroyed professionally by the "sensitive" administrators and the "sensitive" professors.