I remember my grade nine English class with Art Topshee. Every day, he asked us to sit down and write for twenty minutes. The results were typically lackluster: a hodgepodge of hypothetical questions with no answers, flourished by the occasional comic drama. If he had taught us how to write first, things might have been different. As it stood, I ended the semester with a book full of nonsense, and nothing to show which might later prove to be historically interesting.

The problem with secondary school education is that they expect very little. University is a bit different, but still tolerates mediocrity. Even my graduate classes are lame. No one thinks for themselves. No one stays up at night thinking of natural mysteries. No one questions punctuation conventions.

Perhaps this is why a land breaking thinker comes around only every so often. PhD students everywhere with nothing to say.