I am taking a course this semester on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. This past Sunday, the professor offered to show the class Pasolini’s 1972 film version of the tales I racconti di Canterbury. She stressed that attendance was entirely optional but said she would buy pizza for those who attended. All we had to do was sign up and then show up.
In total, eighteen people signed up. I was actually impressed. A lot of the people in this class seemed to be taking it to fill a requirement, but this showed me that more people than I expected were actually interested in expanding beyond the required subject matter. It turns out that I was wrong. Of the eighteen, only five of us showed up. This would have been fine if the professor hadn’t been kind enough to order the pizza. Since she believed 18 people were coming, she ordered several pizzas. In fact, she set everything up for eighteen people and what she was left with was nothing but pizza and disappointment.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. I work all day and sometimes part of the night. I do everything I can to stay caught up and to pursue my education and that is a full time challenge. I hate that I don’t have the time to take better advantage of the opportunities out there. Most of the students have no such excuse. They are there, ostensibly, solely to learn. Many have only a few classes and all the time in the world. I can’t imagine wasting that when so many different options are offered. These speakers, symposiums, lectures, studies and readings all help us to expand and grow beyond the confines of a classroom.
The bad news is that college is going to end for these kids and the world outside makes finding things like a viewing of a Pasolini film far more difficult. The sad news is that most will probably never care. In some ways I think I preferred being studying on my own. While I have found my return to college to be a positive experience in regard to my goals and my learning, my faith in the future of mankind is even more shaken. I always expected apathy but I am truly amazed at its depth.
