Teaching is something I truly enjoy and I was happy to be at the front of a classroom with my favorite subject at hand.  Early in the lecture one of my students raised her hand before pointing out that Illinois was the most corrupt state in the Union.  “It’s true,” she enthused, “they did a study on it and it’s us.  We’re the most corrupt in the nation.”  Having just returned to my home state after a decades-long absence, I hadn’t read or heard about that particular report.  For reasons of my own, I didn’t doubt her remarks; but in light of them how could I stand behind the lectern and continue my lecture on American Government?  What did I have to offer this generation of young Americans so full of cynicism that the mere mention of America’s great democracy made them chuckle?

            I was standing behind idealism and I didn’t waiver because ideals are something to stand up for.  We were reading parts of the Constitution aloud in class, something I enjoy because who (at the undergraduate level) reads it on their own?  And I tried to put some historical context around the passages, hoping to allow the students to see what I’d come to believe:  It is a pretty inspirational piece of writing.  Not perfect, but acknowledging its imperfection in a process for modification.  Not bad, considering the scope of its intention. 

            But the students brought me back to the present and there was nothing I could do but agree with them:  We've made a mess of it.  I’m grateful that they were willing to accept my use of the pronoun “we”.  I thought I’d have to spend part of a future lecture discussing how political apathy contributed to the corrupt nature of the current system.  But they were right on it.  Seems that even an apathetic generation is able to accept responsibility for the outcome of their indifference.  Good for them.

            The teaching gig was temporary.  I never had the chance to continue the discussion with them.  But I wanted to.  I wanted to tell them that what we have is an ideal that hasn’t been upheld.  I wanted to share with them the joy I feel because the ideal is present among us.  The system is far from perfect.  But perfection is arguably not attainable.  It is beauty that is willingly pursued.  We all acknowledge goodness, truth, and justice.  They are ideals to be sought after and it is our objective to reach them perhaps simultaneously knowing they can't be had.  But we don’t quit because we haven’t reached the goal.  We keep going even when we know someone’s turned out the lights and we can’t see well in the dark.  It’s during this darkness that we resolve to slow down, think it through, and hold on to the ideals, because without them we would truly be lost.