Almost Truth

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.”

-from Emma by Jane Austen

A few weeks ago, a woman I did not know walked into my office at work. “Are you Katie?” she asked. I debated saying, “That depends on what you want,” and instead admitted that I was, indeed, Katie. She told me her name and said that she had just starting working there a few days ago. Someone told her to come and introduce herself to me because she was a recent graduate of the Northwestern Learning Sciences master’s program – the same program from which I received my M.A. from in 2007.

We chatted for a bit about the people and the program, exchanging war stories and name dropping. When she left, she said something to the effect of “Well, it’s nice to know that there’s someone around here that knows what learning sciences is!” I agreed, and admitted that I often tell people that my master’s is in curriculum design, even though that’s not exactly true.

That small lie is just easier than explaining that design is only one of the three pillars of learning sciences, the others being cognitive science and social influences on learning. And actually, the design pillar is instructional design, which is broader than curriculum design, because it includes… well, I’ll stop there, because I think I’ve made my point. Learning sciences is a broad and complicated field, and since I am using my degree to work in the development of a math curriculum, it’s easier to just tell people that my entire program was about the narrow focus where I ended up career-wise. It’s not outright deception – the fields are so closely related that most people walk away with the right idea. But it’s not the truth.

This isn’t the only regular lie I tell, either. Just this morning, I was sitting next to my friend Meg at a volunteer training, and someone asked how we know each other. I said that we went to college together. Technically, this is not a lie; Meg and I did go to the same university for undergrad, and we each knew who the other was at the time. But we didn’t become friends until much later. I tell people that we went to college together because the truth is much too complicated and personal to tell to people that we don’t know; it involves liking the same guy, going through a period of disliking each other, and then finding out that the guy was not worth it. This all happened in Chicago, nearly a year after I graduated. So, “we went to college together” is not really a truthful answer to how we know each other.

The longer I think about this, the more of these habitual lies come to mind. Yes, I loved my study abroad program! (Actually, while I did love parts of it, my semester abroad was one of the darkest times in my life when it came to social anxiety and depression.) Yes, I understand that some people just are not good at math. (While I definitely believe that some people have a stronger natural affinity for math than others, I do not believe that there are any people who are inherently incapable of learning calculus. It’s all about your teacher and your attitude.) The list goes on and on.

These lies are, for the most part, harmless. Telling the whole truth would lead to many bad things; I’d bore the listener to death, say socially inappropriate things, or betray the trust of a friend. Yet sometimes I wonder if, each time I tell one of these lies, I slide further down a slippery slope. When do I cross the line from innocent glossing-over of the truth into outright deception? Am I slowly building up my tolerance for deceit, until one day I will feel justified in saying just about anything I like?

That thought truly frightens me, because I do not want to be a liar. Without a doubt, some of the most painful episodes in my life have been a result of finding out that someone I trusted lied to me. I don’t want to inflict that feeling on another person.

The funny thing that occurred to my while I was writing this, though, is that while there are clearly some situations in which I am reluctant to tell the truth, I’m perfectly willing to post the truth on the internet, knowing full well that at least a handful of people will read it. Maybe more people will read it than I’ll ever know. The people that think I have an M.A. in curriculum design could find out it’s really in learning sciences. People who think Meg and I know each other from college will find out we barely spoke there. But I don’t care.

It’s not that I’m unwilling to tell the truth. I just think the truth is, on some occasions, inappropriate. When I start to be afraid of what happens when the truth comes out, that’s when I’ll know I crossed a line. But until then, I’ll continue to spare people a speech on the three pillars of learning sciences. I think future casual inquirers into my education will be grateful.