Roger Federer

It’s been said that during Roger Federer’s youth, he would be very temperamental on the tennis court. This is sort of a contradiction to his present day demeanor, or I should say, his demeanor on the court during his prime. I bring this case up because today in architecture class, one student, a younger individual, had an outburst because he could not handle the advanced material. It’s interesting because I sense that it’s not entirely his fault: the material was taught in a way that rightfully could not be followed and you had to sort of learn it in this ad hoc, creative way. The point of the exercise is not to master the software, but to be introduced to it so that if you were to spend the time to learn it, it would not be from a blank slate. He didn’t know that, how could he at his age and experience? 

This brings me back to my youth when I’ve lost my temper. I think it’s the rare person, especially for men and boys, who go through their entire youth without lashing out at least once. I can count a handful of times, and it is usually followed by a sense of regret. It was typically–though not always–preceded by someone poking fun at me, so it may have been justified. However, I do feel that the act of losing one’s temper is generally not a good thing: it’s an act of losing control. With time though, I’ve noticed that I’ve mastered my temperament. Perhaps it’s the maturity and the wisdom that I’ve accrued over the years and the lessons learned from losing control. Now, I possess the intuition to stop the flame from spreading before it becomes a wildfire, so to speak. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that losing one’s temper is a common thing in academia and should be something to be aware of if you’re an academic. There’s usually really high stakes and a lot on the line when it comes to school and professional placement. People put a lot of time and effort into their professional lives and so tensions can get high. Especially at the elite level, I imagine that the stress can get out of hand with accusations here and there of, for instance, cheating. I guess if I were to go back to school, I wouldn’t exactly be past that stage. Just look at the recent report coming out of Brown University with cheating accusations associated with AI in an economics class. One has to wonder if the educators are as much to blame as the cheating students themselves for not putting in preventative measures? Or perhaps that was their intention…