David Foster Wallace gave the commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. In this speech, called “This Is Water,” Wallace tried to explain to the graduates what really matters most in life.
Wallace was a gifted and successful novelist.
He contrasted “the default setting” in which most of us live, reacting with frustration, anger, greed, me-first, to a conscious choice about leading a different life with different choices and values.
It is a strangely moving speech, not least because Wallace committed suicide in 2008.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I was unable to view the speech via the link. Here is a youtube link in case anyone else has the same issue..
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Paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.. not the monologue in my head…. COULD OUR “ED REFORMERS” please honor this man’s legacy and listen to this youtube piece? Gee, how many “ed reformers” actually step foot in a school suffering under “THEIR” policies.. even once in a while step foot there? How many? I suspect nearly none! Ducan, with cameras rolling and a month or year advance announcement, steps foot in a public school. Students line up ceremoniously, or he “visits” a classroom that has prepared for him. So goes the “dog and pony ed reformer show”! Thanks David Foster Wallace for saying it how it is. So sorry that we lost him to suicide.
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There you have it…the more tortured the man, the more desperately wise he is. It became too much of a burden for Mr. Wallace to carry around. What a gift his writing and this speech is to those who take the time to be in that moment. That is what he suggests here…b e i n t h e m o m e n t….b e p r e s e n t t o l if e. Five years after his passing, his didactic words are even more powerful. Such heaviness in his voice. It will linger with me for a long while. Thanks for sharing this with us, Diane.
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Now the hard part.. how do teachers collectively reflect on this man’s words and what do we “worship” such that students get the freedom to think and be and learn and create for themselves??? How do we infuse consciousness in our nation’s title one public schools … in our students/teachers/administrators in title one public schools… where top-down reforms worship the “unconscious” following of “miraculous education policy”???
The Foster Wallace speech was brilliant!
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A gift. Thank you for that link.
There is a danger here: One can obsess over thinking about others to the degree that one forgets to care for himself. Wallace’s thinking has a destructive side, as he clearly demonstrated. One’s default thinking is a personal narrative on sense of self. If one feels purpose in life, one frames his choices to that end. Is selflessness truly devoid of self-interest?
We are the stuff of relationships–the attention mechanisms in such are a matter of responsibility. The interdependence we have with one another is a function of the relationship and cannot be removed from it. A wise man once told me that we teach others how to treat us–therefore we are responsible for our own personal roles in each of our relationships. For those who contemplate suicide–surely there are other people in this world who care for you. If you need that thought to prevent you from taking yourself out of this word and to begin the process of healing your own mind, then there should be no harm in thinking of others in that moment and how their loss of you will affect them. Everyone experiences some form of personal weakness from time to time–it’s how we come back from this weakness that matters. I only wish Wallace had the mind to take his advice.
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thank you so much for this posting. I have been wanting to visit the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin; they have the David Foster Wallace papers and even his lesson plans. My nephew in Austin got me interested in Wallace and I write to my sister in Houston about the Ransom Center so this was an especially favored Sunday treat that you sent out. People here in MASS that I know still talk of him. I recently read his biography … In writing to my nephew in Austin I try to draw from the person that Wallace was and his major works (not in a pedantic “teacherly” way but as an aunt).
Thanks, Diane so much for all you are doing. This is inspirational.
reference:
Teaching materials from the David Foster Wallace archive
Teaching materials from the David Foster Wallace archive…A significant portion of the David Foster Wallace archive represents his teaching career, from his graduate school years through to his work as a faculty member at Pomona College in the years before his death. …
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/teaching/ 03/30/12, 33864 bytes
I’m not sure the www will work so google “Harry Ransom Center” and then search Wallace . I would love to hear from anyone who uses his work in secondary education. And how to help students (or nephews for that matter) gain from the perspectives as well David’s wife in the art word, Frantzen etc. (as I mentioned without being “teacherly”). Thanks, jeanhaverhill@aol.com
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When I picked up the NY Times this morning I was caught by the bold headlines of the Poughkeepsie Journal (a business friendly, rag-sheet of a paper) proclaiming that their were 70,000 jobs in upstate NY that couldn’t be filled because employers couldn’t find employees who were well enough educated to do the work. This is a recurring meme that is put out by the education reformers and their business council funders. When did it become the responsibility of the public to foot the bill for educating workers for the specific jobs that employers want filled. It is another example of a business culture that seeks to externalize business costs in order to secure internal profit. There is an ever growing push to devalue the liberal arts education that teaches a person how to think rather than what to think. If business owners had to pay the costs of training their own employees, perhaps they would have a vested interest in holding onto them and treating them well instead of viewing them as human capital to be used and then discarded at will. When I returned home, I was going to go to the Poughkeepsie Journal website and write a letter to the editor, but I stopped at this blog first and found this wonderful Foster Wallace speech. I may still write a letter to the editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal but my writing will not be generated from a point of anger. I am grateful for the reminder that when I am the one who consciously chooses how and what to think about, my day is more productive and satisfying.
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It’s so tragic that the insightful and articulate David Foster Wallace ultimately lost the war with his demons.
Mahler said, “The devil dances with me, Destroy me so that I may forget who I am.” Today is Mahler’s birthday. In celebration of him and what he has contributed to my life, and in acknowledgement of the quintessential ontological struggle in being human, I share the Andante Moderato movement from Mahler’s 6th Symphony, “Tragic,” which never fails to bring me face to face with the profound existential despair at the center of our “natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone”
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Thank you for the Mahler. I’m currently knee-deep in historical documents from Mozart’s Paris excursion where he lost his mother. The anniversary of her death was last Wednesday. Truly he agonized while watching her suffer helplessly.
Such a tragic life did Mozart lead yet so unwilling was he to acknowledge feelings outwardly in his relationships. He was the master evader of dealing with any negative predicament, yet his music during this time in Paris, while true to the style and form, was peppered with these glimpses of despair.
It is believed the Piano Sonata in A minor (K. 310) was written in response to his pain at having to not only witness his mother’s death but having to break the news to his father and sister that his dear mother had not survived a trip she never wanted to take in the first place. His lack of procuring employment to provide suitable accommodations for her may have contributed to her major descent into ill health, and Mozart was certainly aware that his father would blame him for not only being unemployed but for allowing his mother to waste away alone while he was out making his musical (and romantic) connections. If guilt had not gripped him outwardly, he certainly put his heart’s sadness into his music. Not as profound as Mahler, but still desperate…
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thanks for the info on Mozart: I will love to review this in light of the creativity of DFW. A recent book that was interesting to me is “Reinventing Bach” by Paul Elie especially his chapter on Stokowski’s recordings.
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I have not had the pleasure of reading it, but I do have much interest. Stokowski came fom the post-Romantic era of, for lack of a better word, “romanticizing” the rhetorical music of the Baroque. Bach came fom the tradition of the rhetorical approach, that is, everything that was “said” musically had a spoken counterpart of meaning somewhere in its approach to phrasing, but the Romantics over-indulged in rubato and expression to a fault.
According to modern scholars of the rhetoric, the Romantic treatment of the Baroque (even the High Baroque of Bach’s time) was an anachronistic bastardization of the style created by modernists who had no other lens from which to view that music other than their own…not unlike the ed reformers who view solutions to the problems in public education through their own narrow scope of modern corporate prosperity. There are lessons to be learned from the past mistakes of our alleged heroes (Stokowski, et al.): No one has all the answers, and brilliance in one area does not guarantee a deep and true understanding of every other one.
And this, my friends, is why we need history, philosophy and the arts in our curricula.
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LG: I agree with you; the Disney-fication of music is what is also described …. . “deus ex machine” out of the theater world and I agree we need more arts/fine arts in schools; I felt this was a classical education denied me as a “public” school pupil so in my free time I tried to add to my limited knowledge of music…. I practiced my Baroque faithfully but I quit when they brought out the Chopin…. to examine the Disney-fication of music then by all means look at reinventing Bach as well as the biography of Clive DAVIS (again, I’m not recommending just pointing it out )…. so you see we are probably on the same side when we look at the details? just wondering
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spelling error: machine
(I had two surgeries on the retina; struggling with new eye glasses that don’t provide binocular fusion for small print)
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So funny…we teachers just can’t allow a misspelling go by without correcting it, can we?
I am the same way.
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Here’s a transcript of “This is Water” http://faculty.winthrop.edu/martinme/Thisiswater.htm
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http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words
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Well, I was depressed before I read this, and lookee here, I’m still depressed. What can you do.
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I hear you; I didn’t want to put it in my post that it could be depressing that his life was cut short; he suffered greatly. Mental health treatments were not always that good…. even in the best of circumstances. In the biography I was pleased to see that his wife could display his emotions in her art work. When I talk to a student (or my nephews) I would want to get them beyond the depressive points and think about how to overcome those depressive feelings. D.F.W. did have decent relationships with pets and he worked through a lot of issues in the various relationships with women. It worries me if a teacher in the high school would have students left in that “depressive” feeling/mode after an assignment….as it could be too provocative. David Wallace would have discussions or conversations I’m pretty certain in his lesson plans even though he seemed to be abrupt with some (many?) students. I can remember reading the Bell Jar (etc) in graduate school and I would not want to romanticize it with a vulnerable student. My sister’s newest grandchild is named “Zelda” and I talk with her about the implications….. I don’t want to introduce a student to a nihilistic world or “reality TV” and then leave them hanging there. In considering current day teaching I am trying to work through Tony Judt’s Reflections on the Forgotten 20th Century (and I am struggling) but he does discuss post-war existentialism. But, if I listen to Willie Nelson he can put it in perspective for me….. or Woodie Alan who says “if you remember the 60s you were not there.” I guess I was asking about different teachers and how they bring perspective to these issues through classroom conversations rather than just assignment and testing. Thanks for the kindness of your post
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Jean, thank you for your insightful comments. Perhaps this is off-thread, but I would like to ruminate about your statement, “Mental health treatments were not always that good…even in the best of circumstances.” Unfortunately, we seem, now, to be in the midst of the Dark Ages of circumstances–as in the past, for now and always we desperately NEED those mental health services, and yet, in places such as Philadelphia, there is a massive firing of the PPS counselors. In Illinois, layoffs and reduction of services in the public mental health field is being blamed on the state’s payment to the bloated teachers’ and public employees’ pension funds. As I’d stated on an earlier post, if we can’t get mental health services right, we’d better lean harder on the NRA and on Congress to impose stricter gun control laws., or we’ve got lots more Sandy Hooks, Colorado shootings and other such atrocities on the way.
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retired, this is a major issue for me and I’m pleased you responded. The most recent negotiations for teachers in Boston included the need to have nurses in the school buildings and on the premises. I remember this battle from the 60s; it was only after a parent (nurse) complained that the school committee decided to fund nurses in the schools (whereas school secretaries had been expected to do those functions). I’ve saved a long bibliography on mental health issues and, even though we lived in an enlightened state (I believe Massachusetts is ), the difficulties are still apparent and the teachers get blamed over and over. I can remember the discussion with my colleagues of stating “i can manage 40 students in a first grade classroom” but you add one child with a breathing tube and I need a nurse in the building. AFT had put out some guidelines at the beginning of this cycle of reintegrating “special needs” into the general classroom. (These 20 year cycles of changing the approach represent major climate change to me like another wave hitting the beach.) One or two professors (for example U. Virginia charlottesville) were honest about the advantages and disadvantages but mostly only the one perspective was presented and the teachers were “Bashed” when the disadvantages were present. I am speaking mostly of the schools I know anecdotally; there are some “lighthouse” programs that work well such as Comer’s but the inequities in our local school districts (350 school districts) show up in all of these services. When it boils over and hits the governor’s desk then the backlash occurs. I haven’t even mentioned here the interagency collaboration that is required to develop programs statewide. Scaling up the excellent models has been especially difficult in reality and daily practice. I would be pleased to discuss the issue further . Too much of our professional world sees the “All” or “nothing” framework and I am not on the “nothing side” but hopefully there is moderation, realistic expectations and resources available to deliver what we promise. Inequity of resources across 350 districts , along with the state/local competition for funding has tightened up over my professional career (retired and talking from my “old-timers” jeanhaverhill@aol.com).
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I love this piece by Wallace. What a tragedy to lose him. His essays in Consider the Lobste, are wonderful, and his undergraduate thesis on Fatalism, brilliant. Wallace saw the corporatization of just about everything occurring in the U.S. and didn’t like it one bit. In his novel Infinite Jest, corporations purchase naming rights for years, and the novel mostly takes place during the “The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.”
It has been suggested that Senators in the U.S. wear suits like those of Nascar drivers, with their corporate sponsors’ names listed on them. This would be a very good idea for federal and state department of education officials as well.
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Ah, but here’s the catch with your sponsorship suggestion. The sponsors of NASCAR WANT to be known and advertised.
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But at least the public will know that they have been bought.
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You’re out of your mind if you think this speech favors one side or other of this stupid schools debate. It’s such a simple point, and yet I guess someone really can listen to this, post it and miss the point completely.
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