Commencement Address Highlights: Dr. Nathan LeMahieu
Joining Clapham School in 2018, Dr. Nathan LeMahieu is a valuable member of the faculty. He coordinates chapel, teaches theology, and is the homeroom teacher for Class Seven. Dr. LeMahieu earned his PhD in New Testament from Wheaton College. Outside of school, he and his wife, Julie, are parents to three children and contribute to the music ministry at St. John’s Lutheran Church.
According to the most recent Clapham student poll (given by me last week at lunch), students noted a greater difference in classroom vibe between classes seven and eight than between any other classes. Now, there’s no need to go into the list of reasons for why this is the case, because we can all agree on what the main difference is. And that, of course, is that in Class Seven, the subjects are erased from the whiteboard as they are completed, whereas in Class Eight, the schedule is left up, visible for the entire day.
If you think I’m going to use this opportunity now to identify which approach is the right one, you’d be correct! But you might be surprised to learn that the answer to the question is: both. Both are the right way to do things. Unfortunately, logic and the physical laws of the universe will only allow one approach. You cannot both erase the whiteboard and leave the schedule up at the same time. When used metaphorically, however, you CAN do both, and you SHOULD do both, and you should be doing both TONIGHT.
For the sake of chronology, we’ll just begin in Class Seven and explore the reasons why you SHOULD be erasing the whiteboard on a day-to-day basis. The answer is obvious: You get a sense of accomplishment by crossing something off the to-do list, and you create space to fill with new pursuits. For this strategy, we turn to the Apostle Paul in prison, as he writes to the Philippians in chapter 3:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Now, you may be thinking – this is perfect timing: We’re first going to talk about forgetting things; or to use the analogy: erasing the whiteboard. And you might think, “I’m off to a great start here! I’ve already forgotten half of what I wrote on my exams this week.” But, of course, that’s not the point. Paul is challenging a group of Christians in Philippi who think they’ve arrived. We often hear people talk that way – on the night they get drafted into the NFL, or they sign their first deal with a major record label.
They say, “I’ve been working all these years, and now I’ve finally arrived.” But we also know that the truly great ones have a different attitude. Just last week, Caitlin Clark was asked about her historic start to the basketball season, and this is what she said: “I know I can get a lot better. I don’t think I’ve arrived, by any means.” And that’s what Paul says here. Of course, he uses a different sports metaphor; that of a runner. There are plenty of video examples if you just Google “runner looks back and loses race.” When you look back during a race, as some might say today, “You’re cooked.”
Paul has a lot to look back on – he’s been a Christian for about 20 years by this point – possibly the most influential Christian in the world. And obviously, he hasn’t actually forgotten everything he’s accomplished. You only have to read his other letters to find plenty of lists of the things he’s done. So it’s not the same kind of forgetting as forgetting the quadratic formula or the name of the island where Napoleon died. This is an active, on-purpose forgetting: Making a commitment to discipline your heart and your mind not to keep looking back and reliving all the accomplishments and the good old days. You have to erase the whiteboard before something new can be written in its place. And that’s why “forgetting” here is paired with “straining.” If you don’t forget, you can’t strain. If you can’t stop looking behind you, you can’t be giving everything you’ve got to make it to the finish line.
Last week, during Katie’s senior thesis presentation, we heard about this increasing concern over police misconduct. And I thought the exchange between Katie and the police chief was very interesting in terms of whether we’re more suspicious of police tactics today than maybe eight or ten years ago. But I think we can all agree that there are times when it’s necessary for the police to be in hot pursuit to apprehend a dangerous suspect. Thinking even of the escaped inmates down in New Orleans last week, the Louisiana State Patrol is in hot pursuit – because there are former victims and families that are now in danger. And in the same way, the Apostle Paul is in hot pursuit. He’s in hot pursuit of Christ and of God’s call on his life. And if there’s a bunch of stuff on the whiteboard that’s going to get in the way, it needs to be erased.
But, of course, there IS a wise way to use the schedule on the whiteboard, and that’s what we turn to now: Leaving the schedule up for the entire day is the right choice because you can see where you’ve been, and where you’ve been tells you something about where you’re going. And this is what the Israelites were encouraged to ponder as they stood on the verge of the promised land. The 40 years of grumbling, the death of a generation had now come to an end, and it’s time to move forward. They stand on the hills of modern-day Jordan – looking out over their new home. Just like many of you stand on the hills of 5th, 8th, and 12th grade today – looking out at an uncertain future.
Not to press the metaphor too far, but the Israelites were promised a land flowing with milk and honey, but if you’ve ever been to that eastern portion of Israel, you probably know that all they saw was a bunch of rocks. But as the excitement and probably the worry and doubt build – they’re given the one key word that drives the book of Deuteronomy – “remember.” As you move on to this new stage, you have to “remember.” Of course, we’ve already said that you’re supposed to forget. So this must be a different KIND of remembering. Not a remembering that will distract you or make you forget about where you’re going, but a remembering that will embolden you and help you as you enter the next stage.
Here’s what Moses says, or possibly sings, to the people in Deuteronomy 32:
“Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”
This is basically the great books program of ancient Israel. A literate society collects and reads the great books of its tradition, which our seniors here, in particular, have done. A pre-literate society, however, does what Moses says here: Ask your fathers; ask your elders. And the goal in both instances is the same – it’s so that you would remember.
Now the poem says that they’re supposed to “ASK your father, and he will show you.” But it doesn’t say what they’re supposed to ask or ask FOR or ABOUT. But that’s because I think it’s obvious what they’re supposed to ask for, and that of course is: ask for a story. Now, I know the analogy breaks down a little at this point, because a class schedule on the board is not exactly a story, although it does tell a story, to some extent: This is the story of my day up until this point, here’s where I am in the story now, and the story is going to keep on going. And it’s the same for the Israelites as it is for us: God has been writing a story, we are now a part of that story, and the story is going to continue.
Whether you’re crossing the river into the promised land, whether you WANT to cross the river into the promised land. But the only way to know what the story IS is to remember. And so, we have striving (from Paul) and we have remembering (from Moses). Which, basically, are the two remedies for the dual crises in academia that have now converged, largely in the last twelve months.
Here’s a professor from California in New York Magazine earlier this month: He says: “Every time I talk to a colleague about this, the same thing comes up: retirement. When can I retire? When can I get out of this? Many teachers now seem to be in a state of despair.”
What is the “this” that he’s despairing about? It’s the convergence of smartphone attention spans and generative AI academic “work.” In other words, the inability to remember and the inability to strive. The data on the first point is obviously now very well-known. Just anecdotally, we know at Wheaton College that professors who were used to just changing the date on the class syllabus and pressing print can no longer do so, because the students can no longer do the work that students could do ten years ago when the syllabus was first written.
It’s the data on the second point – about Generative AI – that’s now making news. You may have seen some of the complaints coming through deans’ offices this spring. No – not complaints about students cheating. Think about it – YOU may only have to write ONE paper for your college class. You only had to write EIGHT exams, or less, at Clapham school this month. Who has more to gain? You or me? And so, as New York Magazine sums it up:
“AI [professors] [i.e., professors using AI] are now evaluating AI-generated papers, reducing the entire academic exercise to a conversation between two robots — or maybe even just one.”
It wrote the paper for you. And now I’m saving tons of time by using it to grade your paper. It’s the convergence of these “academic” trends – screen-depleted attention spans and AI-generated illiteracy – that is causing concern in academia. But it’s also these two trends that bring to the fore the messages of Moses and of Paul: To remember and to strive; to keep the schedule on the whiteboard and to erase it.
Our hope is that these students have been prepared to pursue both: on the one hand – forgetting and striving; that in their copybook work, and senior theses, and on stage, they have not rested on their laurels – or worse, on the laurels of a robot, if such a thing were possible. They have not been distracted by past achievements OR by past difficulties, but instead have pushed forward, striving to make something more clear, more beautiful, more true, and at the same time, they have learned to remember.
The habit of remembering – one of the core habits constantly evaluated at Clapham school. One bolstered by telling back Rome’s victory over Carthage, reciting Paul Revere’s Ride, performing Much Ado about Nothing – all of which underscore the connection between remembering and story.
These students have been a part of a story here at Clapham; a story that we can remember tonight through pictures and copybooks and reflections from teachers through the years, as we look back on the whiteboard schedule that they are now completing. Even though the whiteboard does look a lot better after it’s been erased!
