Although the misconceptions that students can have are often very amusing, it usually feels good to set them straight, because those are the times when I can be sure that someone at least learned something that day. Rarely, however, are they as life-changing as what one of my students recently discovered while working on her research paper.
The danger, of course, of having students do research is that they often think that whatever they read is true, particularly when they themselves are sweet, innocent, trusting students, such as this girl. During the course of her research on Margery Kempe and medieval views of marriage for women, she had come to believe, as Kempe claimed, that chastity within marriage was the purest option for women. She had based her thesis, which argued for Kempe as a paragon of womanly virtue, on these sorts of assumptions.
In the interest of scholarship as well as biblical truth, I had to inform her that in fact, the Scriptures discourage married couples from refraining from sex with one another, and that they are supposed to enjoy one another. Clearly, Kempe was not so praiseworthy in her celibacy once scriptural truth was brought to light. The student was a bit disappointed to realize how much of her thesis, and consequently, support, she would need to rework. However, I reminded her what a good thing it was to realize this at this stage in the whole process, because she still had time to revise. But, the most fun of all was to give her a good teasing about the terrible fate I had saved her from, for now, she was free to fully enjoy her husband if she were to get married someday! Her eyes wide, she gave a startled laugh and gently slapped me on the knee, a faint blush creeping across her cheeks.
If all research projects dealt such clear life applications, I should probably never have another student complain about them again.
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