Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
I fondly remember Steve with tears streaming down my face. He was 85 when he took a class with me. He was a brilliant writer and a beautiful soul. He inspired me and his classmates with his wit, intelligence, kindness, and humor. He came to visit me two years after that class. He hugged me and told me he'd never forget me. It is I who will never forget you, Steve. Rest in peace, my friend.
I had a young man I'll call Jeremy. He was a quiet student, intense. He was in a literature class and he would seemingly save up his energy for the last few minutes of each class and he would let go with a startling barrage of comments, usually picking off earlier students and their "stupid" interpretations.
He came by the office frequently and I often asked him to ease back a bit, to voice his own ideas as strongly as he wanted, but not to invalidate others. And that worked.
He was a loner; it was clear because it was a tiny campus and I saw him always by himself. He was 500 miles from home, which for this school was light years. And as his freshmen year wore on he became less and less interested in class, but more interested in sitting with me and talking about things he'd read, things he thought.
One Monday morning I arrived at my office to find the department chair going up and down the hall talking to my colleagues. Jeremy had tried to hang himself in his dorm over the weekend. There had been a note, but the RA had turned it over to the Dean and nobody I knew ever found out what it said.
He survived and was turned over to a psychiatric hospital nearby. After about a week I asked my chair if she thought it was okay if I visited. She'd been kept apprised of his progress, and apparently some family had come and that he was doing well.
I visited this very peaceful hospital floor and sat for a few minutes in a waiting room until a nurse came around the corner with Jeremy following in a gray bathrobe and white slippers. He smiled when he saw me, shook my hand, and sat down across from me. He was lucid enough, but maybe a little medicated so that his words were slow and there were long pauses.
He pulled a paperback book out of his bathrobe pocket and read a bit to me. It was a sort of pulpy novel not really in keeping with what I knew he normally read. He asked, after a while, if I knew the book, what I thought of the narrative. I told him I'd read a bunch of the same stuff when I was younger and always loved it.
There was another silence and then he looked at me. "Are you someone I know? Are you my teacher?"
"Yes," I said.
He smiled. "I just got here today," he said. "Yesterday was something else. But today is good."
And then he stood up and turned and walked to a main desk where an orderly took him by the arm and headed him back to where he'd come from.
About a year later, after I'd left that college, I got an email from my chair.
I'm sorry for that. He was the first student that came to mind. I still carry unresolved sadness over what happened to him.
Of course, there are all sorts of students with happier stories, and I'll share this short one.
A 17 year old girl took my writing class when I was a brand new t-t professor in Texas. She got more joy out of a writing class than anyone I've ever known. She worked hard. She worked in groups. She helped others. She didn't darken my door even one time all semester. She was just one of the 8 am students.
On the last day of class, after the final was over, she showed up at my door with a paper sack and a card. She sheepishly handed me the sack which contained an awful skinny blue tie that had some kind of paisley pattern. It wasn't something like I'd wear, but I was tremendously moved by it.
She started to say something, tried to start. She said something like: "I wanted to tell you..." But she ran out of air. She handed me the card, smiled, and turned and hurried off.
I still have the card, and it's 30 years old now. Inside it says this:
"My brothers told me I'd never make it. They called me stupid Stacy from the time I was born. And now I'm in college."
I just spent a half hour or so running through (in my mind) the various classrooms and campuses where I've taught, conjuring up the faces of students past. The environments and circumstances matter a lot. Some environments produce more of these students than others. Yes, there are students who would probably be exceptional anywhere, but they always exist and behave within the context of other classmates, a particular physical classroom, a culture, etc.... There have been environments in which I've dreaded teaching, because they made it so much harder for the students to thrive and learn--or even to just be civilized.
When I tutored at our writing lab, a student came constantly. Always ready and grateful for help, always early with his drafts, always interested in what he was writing for its own sake rather than for the grade alone. When he walked into the lab to see me, I could feel my own energy surge.
Over the two terms I knew him, we would spend a few minutes chatting. He was the child of farm workers, the first of his family in college himself. His parents were immigrants, legal or not I don't know. I got the impression that he himself had labored in fields. He told me after I had known him for months that the year previously, he had been going through treatments for Hodgkins disease. He had felt unwell and his skin had been itching. He told his Dad--apparently a no-nonsense man intolerant of complaint and probably a lot else--who dismissed his son's concerns as the product of overreaction or imagination. My student eventually made himself an infernal back scratcher--a wooden paddle into which he hammered nails. His mother caught him using it one night and had him at the doctor the next day. All the time he was going through treatment, he stayed in school. I'd be willing to bet he was working every bit as hard as he was when I knew him, when he was healthy. This was a kid who had little and whose earlier education clearly hadn't been the best: not abysmal, but certainly generously described as average. But he was one of those shiny people who could transform the world around him, whose openness and desire made other people--including me--better.
I have no idea what became of him. I can't even recall his name. But he was a force. I'd bet he has established himself as a success in whatever he's chosen to do. I've had lot of students I like, a lot I admire, and a small group who have inspired me. Knowing them has been one of the privileges of the profession that I don't talk about enough.
A physics student in one of the first freshman classes that I taught was also my first research student. He was quite a character but hard working too. He coauthored a paper about his research. He worked in my lab for three years. I met his mom when he graduated. She almost cried telling me how appreciative she was that her son had a role model (me!) to guide him through college. He got a job teaching high school physics then quit to become a priest. We reconnected with each other on Facebook now.
I remember the ones who are quirky and passionate. The one who taught herself how to pronounce Shakespeare in early modern English, and then undertook to teach the rest of the theater department for her Honors project. The one who fell in love with a particular sentence in Virginia Woolf: That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. The one who got outraged when she found out most productions of The Taming of the Shrew cut out the opening scenes with Christopher Sly, because she thought they were key to understanding the whole play. (I agree.) The ones who aren't necessarily the most conscientious or correct students, but who feel, and feel intensely, about books and ideas.
This is my favorite thirsty ever. I can't decide, so let's talk about...
Mr. Wolf. That was his name. He was a "returning student". He was... interesting. He snarled like a viscous wolf in his ID photo. Because that was his name. He was smart and I'm no doctor, but I'm a mother/step-mother to 2 children with ASD, so I'm going to go ahead and say he had ASD. Couldn't contain himself when I had to review BASIC algebra for his classmates (it was the chem before the chem that counts - he'd been out of school too long to place out, but he didn't belong there). He was on a trajectory to be my all time least favorite student ever. He was disruptive and mean. It was even poisoning the class. By this date 3 years ago, I was confident I was teaching what would be the biggest failure of my career.
There were about 4 half-way nice kids in the class. They did not do half-way... good on the first exam. I was recovering from a catastrophic car accident that had taken me out mid-semester the semester before. The day I was handing back exam I, I was tired, physical therapy had been brutal, my arm hurt, and the nicest kid in the class was going to get the lowest grade. It wasn't my most professional moment ever, but as I handed back the 37/100 paper, I started to cry. I blurted out "just don't quit yet - if you fail, I'll withdraw you - but just don't quit yet, ok? We'll get a handle on this, ok?"
You could hear a pin drop while I passed out the rest of the papers.
I didn't bother to wipe away the tears because I already had chalk on my hands and I didn't want yellow stripes on my face. I just started teaching. 80 seconds into the lesson there was a step that was going to require careful, tedious algebra. In anticipation of Mr. Wolf's explosion, I raised my voice, made eye-contact with Mr. 37, and spoke in a tone to power through the disruptions, to break it down into tiny baby steps for Mr. 37 whether Mr. Wolf liked it or not.
But there were no disruptions. Mr. Wolf suddenly had a new look on his face. He looked like he just walked into a new situation for the first time. Like he hadn't been in the class for 5 weeks already and like he didn't already know the people around him. He looked nice. He looked like he was sorry but didn't know why. He was looking at Mr. 37 and I could see him mouthing the answers unconsciously - he wasn't trying to hurry Mr. 37 - he was trying to will Mr. 37 to victory. It was like it never occurred to him that I was teaching pre-gen-chem because the people in pre-gen-chem were not ready for hard core science. It was like he never realized anyone needed what I'd been trying to give.
Mr. Wolf stayed after class. I was expecting that. He regularly stayed after to tell me how much time I was wasting and how many times I'd said the same thing or explained something that was "basic" or.....
But he wasn't staying for me. I was staying for Mr. 37.
It snowballed. Before spring break he was helping a good 40% of the class.
Mr. 37 got a D+ for the semester. Mr. Wolf got an A. Most of the class hugged me after the final. There was a space-pen in my mail box with an unsigned card in Mr. Wolf's handwriting that said he had a lot to learn after-all.
I've been enjoying these stories so much, and trying to think of a student, of one who comes into focus in the chaos of my mind right now.
I can't do it. But this story.
This.
The students who make the difference for me are the ones who jump a hurdle...turn a corner....come into a new realization of life...whatever trite phrase you want to paste onto it. They do it right in front of us. Sometimes it is because of something WE ourselves did. Sometimes it is because of the amazing process of learning and becoming that so many are doing, to some degree, right there in the room with us. When it happens, and it does happen often enough to make everything else worth it, it is life affirming and amazing and it leaves an imprint on your soul, even if you cannot pull the details out of the murky oil of consciousness during the more difficult parts of your life. It is always there. It is part of the wonderful privilege of what we do.
I fondly remember Steve with tears streaming down my face. He was 85 when he took a class with me. He was a brilliant writer and a beautiful soul. He inspired me and his classmates with his wit, intelligence, kindness, and humor. He came to visit me two years after that class. He hugged me and told me he'd never forget me. It is I who will never forget you, Steve. Rest in peace, my friend.
ReplyDeleteI had a young man I'll call Jeremy. He was a quiet student, intense. He was in a literature class and he would seemingly save up his energy for the last few minutes of each class and he would let go with a startling barrage of comments, usually picking off earlier students and their "stupid" interpretations.
ReplyDeleteHe came by the office frequently and I often asked him to ease back a bit, to voice his own ideas as strongly as he wanted, but not to invalidate others. And that worked.
He was a loner; it was clear because it was a tiny campus and I saw him always by himself. He was 500 miles from home, which for this school was light years. And as his freshmen year wore on he became less and less interested in class, but more interested in sitting with me and talking about things he'd read, things he thought.
One Monday morning I arrived at my office to find the department chair going up and down the hall talking to my colleagues. Jeremy had tried to hang himself in his dorm over the weekend. There had been a note, but the RA had turned it over to the Dean and nobody I knew ever found out what it said.
He survived and was turned over to a psychiatric hospital nearby. After about a week I asked my chair if she thought it was okay if I visited. She'd been kept apprised of his progress, and apparently some family had come and that he was doing well.
I visited this very peaceful hospital floor and sat for a few minutes in a waiting room until a nurse came around the corner with Jeremy following in a gray bathrobe and white slippers. He smiled when he saw me, shook my hand, and sat down across from me. He was lucid enough, but maybe a little medicated so that his words were slow and there were long pauses.
He pulled a paperback book out of his bathrobe pocket and read a bit to me. It was a sort of pulpy novel not really in keeping with what I knew he normally read. He asked, after a while, if I knew the book, what I thought of the narrative. I told him I'd read a bunch of the same stuff when I was younger and always loved it.
There was another silence and then he looked at me. "Are you someone I know? Are you my teacher?"
"Yes," I said.
He smiled. "I just got here today," he said. "Yesterday was something else. But today is good."
And then he stood up and turned and walked to a main desk where an orderly took him by the arm and headed him back to where he'd come from.
About a year later, after I'd left that college, I got an email from my chair.
She just wrote, "Jeremy killed himself at home."
I'm sorry for that. He was the first student that came to mind. I still carry unresolved sadness over what happened to him.
DeleteOf course, there are all sorts of students with happier stories, and I'll share this short one.
A 17 year old girl took my writing class when I was a brand new t-t professor in Texas. She got more joy out of a writing class than anyone I've ever known. She worked hard. She worked in groups. She helped others. She didn't darken my door even one time all semester. She was just one of the 8 am students.
On the last day of class, after the final was over, she showed up at my door with a paper sack and a card. She sheepishly handed me the sack which contained an awful skinny blue tie that had some kind of paisley pattern. It wasn't something like I'd wear, but I was tremendously moved by it.
She started to say something, tried to start. She said something like: "I wanted to tell you..." But she ran out of air. She handed me the card, smiled, and turned and hurried off.
I still have the card, and it's 30 years old now. Inside it says this:
"My brothers told me I'd never make it. They called me stupid Stacy from the time I was born. And now I'm in college."
That's it. No closing. No name. Just those lines.
I remember them all fondly. Just as soon as they are gone.
ReplyDeleteI just spent a half hour or so running through (in my mind) the various classrooms and campuses where I've taught, conjuring up the faces of students past. The environments and circumstances matter a lot. Some environments produce more of these students than others. Yes, there are students who would probably be exceptional anywhere, but they always exist and behave within the context of other classmates, a particular physical classroom, a culture, etc.... There have been environments in which I've dreaded teaching, because they made it so much harder for the students to thrive and learn--or even to just be civilized.
ReplyDeleteWhen I tutored at our writing lab, a student came constantly. Always ready and grateful for help, always early with his drafts, always interested in what he was writing for its own sake rather than for the grade alone. When he walked into the lab to see me, I could feel my own energy surge.
ReplyDeleteOver the two terms I knew him, we would spend a few minutes chatting. He was the child of farm workers, the first of his family in college himself. His parents were immigrants, legal or not I don't know. I got the impression that he himself had labored in fields. He told me after I had known him for months that the year previously, he had been going through treatments for Hodgkins disease. He had felt unwell and his skin had been itching. He told his Dad--apparently a no-nonsense man intolerant of complaint and probably a lot else--who dismissed his son's concerns as the product of overreaction or imagination. My student eventually made himself an infernal back scratcher--a wooden paddle into which he hammered nails. His mother caught him using it one night and had him at the doctor the next day. All the time he was going through treatment, he stayed in school. I'd be willing to bet he was working every bit as hard as he was when I knew him, when he was healthy. This was a kid who had little and whose earlier education clearly hadn't been the best: not abysmal, but certainly generously described as average. But he was one of those shiny people who could transform the world around him, whose openness and desire made other people--including me--better.
I have no idea what became of him. I can't even recall his name. But he was a force. I'd bet he has established himself as a success in whatever he's chosen to do. I've had lot of students I like, a lot I admire, and a small group who have inspired me. Knowing them has been one of the privileges of the profession that I don't talk about enough.
A physics student in one of the first freshman classes that I taught was also my first research student. He was quite a character but hard working too. He coauthored a paper about his research. He worked in my lab for three years. I met his mom when he graduated. She almost cried telling me how appreciative she was that her son had a role model (me!) to guide him through college. He got a job teaching high school physics then quit to become a priest. We reconnected with each other on Facebook now.
ReplyDeleteI remember the ones who are quirky and passionate. The one who taught herself how to pronounce Shakespeare in early modern English, and then undertook to teach the rest of the theater department for her Honors project. The one who fell in love with a particular sentence in Virginia Woolf: That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. The one who got outraged when she found out most productions of The Taming of the Shrew cut out the opening scenes with Christopher Sly, because she thought they were key to understanding the whole play. (I agree.) The ones who aren't necessarily the most conscientious or correct students, but who feel, and feel intensely, about books and ideas.
ReplyDeleteNow, now, folks! Remember, since they are SO much like SUCH young children, you mustn't show favoritism, or else they'll FIGHT.
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite thirsty ever. I can't decide, so let's talk about...
ReplyDeleteMr. Wolf. That was his name. He was a "returning student". He was... interesting. He snarled like a viscous wolf in his ID photo. Because that was his name. He was smart and I'm no doctor, but I'm a mother/step-mother to 2 children with ASD, so I'm going to go ahead and say he had ASD. Couldn't contain himself when I had to review BASIC algebra for his classmates (it was the chem before the chem that counts - he'd been out of school too long to place out, but he didn't belong there). He was on a trajectory to be my all time least favorite student ever. He was disruptive and mean. It was even poisoning the class. By this date 3 years ago, I was confident I was teaching what would be the biggest failure of my career.
There were about 4 half-way nice kids in the class. They did not do half-way... good on the first exam. I was recovering from a catastrophic car accident that had taken me out mid-semester the semester before. The day I was handing back exam I, I was tired, physical therapy had been brutal, my arm hurt, and the nicest kid in the class was going to get the lowest grade. It wasn't my most professional moment ever, but as I handed back the 37/100 paper, I started to cry. I blurted out "just don't quit yet - if you fail, I'll withdraw you - but just don't quit yet, ok? We'll get a handle on this, ok?"
You could hear a pin drop while I passed out the rest of the papers.
I didn't bother to wipe away the tears because I already had chalk on my hands and I didn't want yellow stripes on my face. I just started teaching. 80 seconds into the lesson there was a step that was going to require careful, tedious algebra. In anticipation of Mr. Wolf's explosion, I raised my voice, made eye-contact with Mr. 37, and spoke in a tone to power through the disruptions, to break it down into tiny baby steps for Mr. 37 whether Mr. Wolf liked it or not.
But there were no disruptions. Mr. Wolf suddenly had a new look on his face. He looked like he just walked into a new situation for the first time. Like he hadn't been in the class for 5 weeks already and like he didn't already know the people around him. He looked nice. He looked like he was sorry but didn't know why. He was looking at Mr. 37 and I could see him mouthing the answers unconsciously - he wasn't trying to hurry Mr. 37 - he was trying to will Mr. 37 to victory. It was like it never occurred to him that I was teaching pre-gen-chem because the people in pre-gen-chem were not ready for hard core science. It was like he never realized anyone needed what I'd been trying to give.
Mr. Wolf stayed after class. I was expecting that. He regularly stayed after to tell me how much time I was wasting and how many times I'd said the same thing or explained something that was "basic" or.....
But he wasn't staying for me. I was staying for Mr. 37.
It snowballed. Before spring break he was helping a good 40% of the class.
Mr. 37 got a D+ for the semester. Mr. Wolf got an A. Most of the class hugged me after the final. There was a space-pen in my mail box with an unsigned card in Mr. Wolf's handwriting that said he had a lot to learn after-all.
Nice story. I'm borrowing the phrase " the chem before the chem that counts."
DeleteIs that like "scholarship that counts"? Could be heartbreaking!
DeleteI've been enjoying these stories so much, and trying to think of a student, of one who comes into focus in the chaos of my mind right now.
DeleteI can't do it. But this story.
This.
The students who make the difference for me are the ones who jump a hurdle...turn a corner....come into a new realization of life...whatever trite phrase you want to paste onto it. They do it right in front of us. Sometimes it is because of something WE ourselves did. Sometimes it is because of the amazing process of learning and becoming that so many are doing, to some degree, right there in the room with us. When it happens, and it does happen often enough to make everything else worth it, it is life affirming and amazing and it leaves an imprint on your soul, even if you cannot pull the details out of the murky oil of consciousness during the more difficult parts of your life. It is always there. It is part of the wonderful privilege of what we do.