Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do (i.e., teach), and when that happens, I’m reminded of Michael Frayn’s comedy, Noises Off. It’s a play within a play, with the actors rehearsing for a piece called Nothing On. A disgruntled director (Lloyd) tries to quiet one of the actors (Freddie) who’s agonizing over his character’s motivation. Lloyd answers by pointing to another member of the cast (Garry), whose only apparent function in the play is to drift on and off the stage at peculiar and unpredictable intervals with seemingly endless plates of sardines (yes, sardines). Here’s the exchange.
Lloyd: Freddie, love, why does anyone do anything? Why does that other idiot [pointing to Garry] walk out through the front door holding two plates of sardines? (To Garry) I mean, I’m not getting at you, love.
Garry: Of course not, love. (To Freddie) I mean, why do I? (To Lloyd) I mean, Jesus, when you come to think about it, why do I?
I can appreciate Garry’s anxiety.
The first time I carried a plate of sardines into a classroom, I was two months shy of my nineteenth birthday. In a moment of questionable judgment, the faculty had dispatched me, a mere undergraduate, to teach German to a class of some twenty graduate students in an eight-week intensive workshop. I didn’t have a clue. Still, I survived, and the experience ended up changing my life.
Looking back, I blame it on the sardines.
Or maybe not. Maybe, instead, it was the impression left by some of the exceptional teachers I’d known. Unseen but not unheeded, they stood at the head of the class with me — nudging, cautioning, reassuring. They moved in to fill the void that was the sum total of my experience, and they did what they had done before: they taught me, and taught me well.
There’s a fine line between teaching and learning. In fact, the two sustain each other. Below are a few things I’ve learned from teaching:
- Prepare for (each class, or whatever), and then trust my instincts when they tell me to abandon my (lesson) plan.
- Admit I don’t know something when I don’t know it, then do my best to know it next time around.
- Pay attention to what’s happening (in class) as it’s happening, and then, if possible, put it to good use.
- Take neither myself nor my subject matter too seriously, but always take my students seriously.
- People can enjoy their time in a classroom — provided they actually learn something.
You don’t have to hang around academia long to hear the line “Nobody ever got tenure for being a good teacher.” Pity, that. While it’s true that a well-written book can move and inspire, you won’t see many academic books doing that, much less scholarly articles. But teachers? Good ones move and inspire. Great ones change lives.
I’ve always (well, almost always) enjoyed reading the remarks my students have written in their evaluations. “Thanks for a great course” is a common one, “I always looked forward to coming to your class,” “Best class ever!” Perhaps my favorite: “Give this man tenure. In fact, give him anything he wants!” (Bless that student’s soul.) I wonder what they would say if they knew that their words, probably written in haste at the end of the class hour, would resonate with me so long.
I still have all the student evaluations I’ve ever received (after 43 years, that’s a sizable bundle), even the card that those graduate students of my first class gave me at the end of our eight-week course, a date that happened to coincide with my 19th birthday. I’d like to think that there’s some kind of meaningful arc of history here, but I doubt it. Am I a better teacher now than I was when I started? More experienced, certainly, but there is something about being naive that taps into spontaneity. I’m more reflective now, I suppose — or maybe I’m just mistaking slow for thoughtful. But the challenges remain essentially the same: you bring your sardines on when they should be on, and take them off when they should be off, and you wonder, occasionally, to yourself and maybe aloud, I mean, when you think about it, why do I?
