Absent-Minded or Engaged Professors?

I recently put together, with the help of families and friends, a video designed to humanize the image I project to students: See the video.  The video opens with my explaining that I was about to give a long-winded speech on the usefulness of history but realized that I could instead just interview family and friends who could speak at great length and eloquence about how blessed they have been to know someone with a Ph.D. in history.


Of course the interviews don't go exactly as planned.  My wife defers to our dog, who chases his tail.  My son stares off into space or at his computer or cell phone for a couple of minutes, then says, "I can't think of anything."  The manager of the soccer team I play keeper for says he had hoped that someone with a Ph.D. in history would learn from his mistakes, but it hasn't really worked out that way--though perhaps the three decades of academic study "keeps him calm."  And so forth.  Then I come back on screen and pontificate for awhile about how history is useful.


I like the humorous and earnest mix because too many students (if not my family and friends) take professors too seriously.  It's often assumed that we spend all of our time pondering imponderables, not dealing with spouses and offspring who think we are full of baloney.  It's the interaction of academic or intellectual study with real-life relationships, I think, that offers all of us our best chance at wisdom and insight.  Knowledge entails going into the world, not retiring from it.