John Sexton Interview (page: 6 / 6) Education & Law	Print Interview

Were you a great reader as a child? Are there particular books that stand out?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sexton: No, I'm actually not an easy reader. Whether I'm dyslexic, or -- I mean, I've never been diagnosed. I read at one speed. So, I read exegetically -- I read very well, slowly, the meaning of text -- which is terrific for my two disciplines -- remember, I have a Ph.D. in religion, and I have a law degree. So, if you're studying a scriptural text or a legal text, this very slow but totally comprehending style of reading is exactly the right thing. And I'm capable of doing that very well. On the other hand, when one tries to read a novel -- you know, my wife reads a novel every day -- it can take me a month to read a novel. And I really have to force myself to that joy. My formative years in teaching were spent with high school students in debate. And I do what I call "debate reading." I can read a book in an hour -- and really get it -- if I'm reading in concentric circles. The first book I read, I'll read very slowly. The second book, a little more quickly. By the time I get to the fourth or fifth book on the same topic, I can read extremely quickly, with almost complete comprehension. So when I do that kind of vertical reading, I can read very quickly. But I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with a set of canonical books that people would assume that I've read.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Did you read anything for pleasure growing up?

John Sexton: In the tenth grade, I got involved in inter-scholastic debate -- so I did it myself in sophomore, junior and senior year. And then, I created a high school debate team for young girls at my sister's high school that I spent the next 15 years doing. So in those 18 years, there was a single topic, and either myself or with the girls, you had to read literally everything that was out there -- every article, every book, and whatever -- if you were going to compete at the national level.

So that is the kind of reading that occupied most of my time. If you measure my lifetime reading hours on a bar chart, non-fiction, fiction, it would probably be 95 percent non-fiction and 5 percent fiction, but an enormous volume of reading. I mean I've, in effect, written 19 doctoral dissertations, because the 18 debate topics and then, of course, my own doctoral dissertation. There are very few people who have gone that deeply into different topics the way I have as a reader. But not a lot of recreational reading, simply because there weren't a lot of hours in the day, and I do it so slowly. I've returned to recreational reading, now. Now, I'm constantly reading something for recreation.

What do you like to read for recreation?

John Sexton: Well, I like to read authors. One of the courses I teach is called "Baseball as a Road to God," and the first book by Pete Hamill that I read for that course was his book, Snow in August. And then, of course, I read The Drinking Life, which was his own autobiographical story of himself and alcohol. And I've just finished reading his terrific book, Forever, which was a task for me, because it's a 600-page book. But it was such a riveting story. It's the story, as you might know, of this young man who grows up in 1720 in Ireland, and his father and mother are killed by an English earl who migrates to New Amsterdam. And under a Druid obligation, he follows the earl on a slave ship to get revenge. And he does a favor for what he thinks is one of the slaves, who turns out to be a shaman. And in return for that favor, he's given the gift of eternal life -- but on the condition that he never leave Manhattan.

And Pete proceeds to tell the story of the next 300 years, right up to September 11th, through the eyes of this character. And it's just -- for a person who has the love of New York that I do -- and, you know, I'm an Irish Catholic -- it was a wonderful book. So, I'll take an author and read an author like that. Graham Greene was the author I read just before Pete's stuff. It's interesting to see how authors will repeat themes and moments -- even unconsciously, as I talk to Pete about it.

For people who look upon teaching as a very noble calling, but not a very glamorous one, what can you tell them about your own experience -- your own passion for teaching -- that has kept you teaching through many years when you didn't have to teach any more? What is it about teaching that is so rewarding?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sexton: I was taught that teaching is the noblest vocation. And I've now been in the classroom -- I started teaching when I was 17, so this is my 45th year of teaching. I've never had a sabbatical, never wanted a sabbatical. I never had a semester where I didn't teach at least one course. The rewards of teaching are remarkable. And they're almost ineffable. I mean, some of the most important of the rewards of teaching are ineffable. To be here today, for example, and to be surrounded, after the panel on which I and Larry Summers and the others participated, and to catch, out of the corner of my eye, a woman who was my student in 1987, and to remember specifically the conversation where she decided to come to NYU -- to get the hug from her, to feel that I was part of what created the being that she is, with the extraordinary work that she's doing -- to be just a small part of that; to have her just say, "Thank you." This is an amazing thing to a teacher. But it's something that happens, if you've been teaching as long as I have, and have had as many thousands of students as I've had, it happens with some regularity. And it just -- it's something that keeps you young, it's something that reminds you that what you're doing -- if you test yourself on the proposition, "Am I living a useful life?" -- it's useful. And it just keeps you happy all the time.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

Get the Flash Player to see this video. It's also important because it keeps you humble. I've never made it out of the first class of a semester without doing less well than I would have liked to have done for my students. I've never had a perfect semester. I've had some classes that I wouldn't try to do over again, but of course that's a different -- I've had some semesters I wouldn't try to do over again. That's a different test. That says, did I do -- you know, in the upper register of my capacities. But it's wonderful always to be reminded how one could do better. And, of course, I feel that deeply now because I'm not able to do as much with my students as I am because of the constraints that are on me all the time. But there's this wonderful kind of uplifting, energizing part that comes with teaching, and to be excited about ideas yourself, to see the excitement develop in others. And then there's this humbling part. But it's a beautiful kind of humbling. It's not a painful humbling.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

You said you were "captured" to teach, in a way.

John Sexton: Yes, well, I guess that's the right word. I was surrounded by wonderful role models in my life who caused me to want to be like them.

We ask people in this program their concept of the American Dream, and I wondered if you might give us a few thoughts about that? What is the American Dream in 2005?

John Sexton: Well, I'm not sure that I view the American Dream positively. I was in a conversation last night with some very thoughtful people about Tom Friedman's book The World is Flat, and I had just come from two days with the Federal Reserve in Washington. And a lot of the conversation last night was about what's going to happen if we keep seeing the drain of jobs and talent and so forth that Friedman describes in his book.

And, you know, I said to the group -- and it was a very special group of people about which you could say this without fear of contradiction -- I said, "This is a group that embraces the other. This is a group that is acutely conscious of American racism and ethnocentrism and so forth. Why all of a sudden is this group speaking in the voice of 'we'?" You know, 'we' lose when jobs go to India. Why aren't we thinking about the people of the world as the 'we' and why aren't we recognizing the fact that there may have to be some reconfiguration -- hopefully, with the pie getting larger, but certainly some redistribution of the wealth in the world -- in the same way we realize there has to be redistribution of wealth in this country? That thought didn't receive universal acclaim, even in the audience last night.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I would hope that the American Dream, increasingly, will become not a dream that is self-serving, but is a dream that can lose the adjective "American." Okay? Because what is the dream? And there will be an embrace of the other. I think -- my great teacher said to me this great maxim -- another musical metaphor -- play another octave of the piano. I think Americans, especially, have to become more acutely aware of the need to be humble, the need to listen, the need to embrace the other. And I think that there will be a transformation, gradually, if things work out as I hope they will, to different kinds of satisfactions that aren't so tied up with the material satisfactions. This connects to the life of a teacher, again. And, you know, when we get to a world where people can understand that it's a more fulfilling life to be a teacher than to be an investment banker, then maybe we'll be closer to a world where we can understand better that the American Dream should be a dream that raises the standard of living in Delhi, and that there's nothing wrong with that.

[ Key to Success ] The American Dream

Thank you very much.

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