When I first met professor Dalecki, I respected him greatly. He walked in the class in formal business suits as if he was prepared for a conference. He greeted everyone with a loud and clear "Good morning" like Jon Stewart from Daily Show. Then he started introducing himself and told everyone his name is Jacek, atypical Polish name that no one knows how to pronounce. He shared his frustration with the class and said, "People have already invented more than ten odd ways of calling my name in the past decade, and most Americans prefer to call me Jay-cek, but it is really ya-cek. " From that moment, I knew there was something about him that made him stand out among all the professors I'd known before.
Professor Dalecki never believed in exams. He understood the huge workload that students have and never intended to make the exam questions hard for us to memorize. I once told him that I almost felt like the hell gate opened for me if I got a C. But he laughed and said, "If it were not for my loving girl friend giving me the exam questions, I can tell you I'd still be in high school somewhere in Warsaw. "
What impressed me most was the extent he would go to avoid bias (偏见) in the classroom. He could turn an entire class into a battleground where everybody gets excited for a heated debate while staying objective as a mediator (调解人) who refused to force his own opinions on any side.
I visited him during his office hours once after class, eager to find out what his stances are on some of the issues we've covered in the class, so I asked, "In China, people really aren't that serious with when it is okay for teenagers to drink. What do you think of the minimum drinking age in America being set at 21?"
"I'm not supposed to answer that question, " he said.
"But why? You don't seem to take any side during the class and I'm just curious to hear how you really feel!"
"I choose not to share it because I don't want it to cloud your own judgments about how you think about certain things. "
At that moment, I finally understood how much effort it really took for Dalecki to let us do our thinking on our own. His incredible mindset (观念模式) still has a huge influence on me till this day. So I will end this article with his quote: "It is at this stage in the class that I must ask myself, ‘Did I lie to you?'"
