Pedagogical by Stephen Dunn

In a history paper in college I said the period
between the tsars and Leninism
was a period of transition, and my professor
wrote in the margin, "All periods in history
are periods of transition." I learned nothing
from that, except that he was a wiseguy,
a show-off, someone I would not take again.

Two years later, in a course that focused on Stalin
called The History of Power, I wrote
passionately and I thought persuasively
that much of what he'd done was "inhuman."
In the margin, the response that may be the beginning
of my intellectual life: "Stephen, when it comes
to things like that, human will do just fine."