My first class

I will always remember my first class. The prospect of teaching had haunted me for such a long time, and for a while I considered unrealistic options, thinking that I could continue to apply for fellowships and postpone it indefinitely or, worse, withdraw and try to find a more amenable career, even it is meant starting over. The truth was, there was no starting over. I was getting older, this was already my second career and I could no longer avoid the day of reckoning. And, in a way, it was a relief.

It is a truism worthy of those shameless purveyors of pop psychology who shuck their wisdom on a naive public that we all carry around anxieties that are difficult to purge. These can become part of the framework of our identity, and are difficult to resolve, however troublesome they can become. In my case, I had been worrying about teaching ever since I entered grad school, and had hoped to postpone it for as long as I could. I was deluding myself, and I knew it, but I continued with this fiction.

In the year leading up to my fateful class, I undertook a project to observe a few of my fellow grad students who were already teaching. I did it under the pretext of learning about their methods, but in reality, I may have been looking for excuses to convince myself that I couldn't and, thus, shouldn't teach my upcoming class. I was impressed with I., an older student from Catalonia who had a natural grace and who seemed to connect with her students seamlessly. I was less than impressed with M., a Polish student who always seemed like a rascal and who seemed to be improvising on the spot. Others fell within these two extremes, and I was grateful to all for allowing me to view them, but at the same time I felt that their style, for this exercise allowed me to confirm that they all had individual styles, didn't seem to suit me. There was nothing there that I could imitate, nothing that seemed essential, nothing that would offer me comfort as I planned for my own experiences. The sense of dread was pervasive and, all that summer, I viewed the countdown until the start of the semester with dread, imagining myself as a Death Row inmate whose crime had consisted of having enrolled in graduate school. Unhappy as I was with the program, this seemed to make it worse.

Well, the orientation for new graduate student instructors came and went, and I was taped giving a demonstration lesson to imaginary students. I couldn't bear to watch the tape, nor to listen to my voice which seemed altogether too feeble and lacking in confidence. I seem to remember that I didn't even face the camera when I was taped, and spent my time writing on the wall, like a recluse who refused to abandon his home. The other students were by and large supportive, but I'm sure they were actually generous when it came to critiquing my performance, sensing that I would be crushed. All but my friend Alejandra, who was never able to moderate her thoughts and was always brutally honest, and who told it to me as it was. I needed drastic improvement.

Well, the day came, and I picked up my roster from the office and saw that I had a full enrollment, and more students on the waiting list. It would be a full class, and they were probably up there already, sitting impatiently and waiting to tear down that instructor who would be unlucky enough to dare to enter that room. Even though these were elite students at an elite university, I felt as if I had seen enough cynicism on the part of my fellow graduate students to not imagine that the undergraduates must possess a reservoir of this caustic sensibility that was present in its primordial form. After all, I had been an undergraduate and I had been at times a less-than-motivated student who was merely taking up space in a chair and sharing comments about my professors as, for example, when I traded remarks with Kenny about an Engineering professor who looked like Benny Hill. Who would they say that I looked like, and how would they criticize my teaching?

The building wherein I would find my almost windowless classroom (the only window was on the door) was on the other side of campus and up a hill. It was a beautiful building built in a modern style, and surrounded by the canyon that is such a landmark on the eastern end of campus. If we were to look out west on a clear day (it is, alas, frequently foggy), we have a wonderful vision of the Pacific Ocean, and at nights we can see the lights of the "City", that jewel of the bay. In my mood on that day, however, my thoughts were not with landscapes but instead consumed with darkness and the feeling of an impending defeat, as if I would be discovered to be a fraud and dismissed laughing from the classroom. I felt sure that I would enter quaking and be quickly sized up by the class before being mercilessly ejected. I always did tend to carry these fantasies a little too far.

Before class was to begin, I thought of taking refuge in the bathroom. Not because I had to take care of any needs, which I didn't, but only to postpone the moment until I needed to enter my room. There was a swirl of activity around me, as students entered and left, and when it seemed that they had all cleared out, I took a look at myself in the mirror. For a moment, I am embarrassed to say, I thought I might have to throw up, but then I felt ashamed. What was I doing in there? Was I such a coward? I pulled myself together and walked to my class.

And thus I entered that fateful room. Needles to say, as my roster had indicated it would be, the class was completely full, and I had to thread my way through students who were sitting and standing against the walls, undertaking my own safari to make it to my place of refuge, that little table out in front. It was a miracle that I didn't feel overcome by claustrophobia. They all looked at me expectantly, this scruffy and large graduate student with the mein of a frightened animal, dressed shabbily as was the style with many of us graduate students (by necessity as much as by fashion), and they waited. I don't recall that I looked at any of them in particular. I just proceeded to write my name on the blackboard, taking refuge in that blank space that my sample lesson from my orientation had indicated I would use in just such a fashion. This was a chronicle that I had seen before, and if it proceeded according to plan, it wouldn't end well. Could they sense my fear?

After all these years (this was the fall of 1996), I still have this memory of my voice quavering as I introduced myself, and of being annoyed by this because as I taught on that first day, I was having an out-of-body experience and was evaluating myself throughout it all. I ploughed through, however, and took roll, then passed out the syllabus, then proceeded to go over it. In the back of my mind I remember repeating to myself as if it was a mantra what one of my professors, Emily, had said to me a few days ago when I confessed my fear. She said that the students would always be more nervous than their professors and that, in the end, I was the one with the power. I didn't know if she was joking, because when she mentioned "power", it made me see her in a whole new light. The mild-mannered and mousy professor revealed for the pitiless tyrant that she aspired to be (but wasn't, of course).

In the end, I finished, and we went through introductions. I had them share their name with the entire class, one by one, and talk about their interest in learning this particular subject material. Then, I made some introductory remarks and finished with some activities that I had obsessively planned in the preceding months, and which didn't quite seem to gel. As I was finishing I saw the bearded face of a friend outside the door, peaking through the window to check up on me. It helped.

Somehow I finished, and after talking to the many students who desperately wanted to enroll and who I had to discourage, I went outside and walked back to my department. Everyone asked how it had gone. By then, it was well known how terrified I had been. I talked to my teaching coordinator, and assured her it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but I felt otherwise. I was already panicking about the next day. Would this happen every day I was supposed to teach, in a class that was to meet five days a week?

Well, when I went in on Tuesday, things couldn't have been more different. Something clicked inside me, and I thought to myself that I was the instructor, and that I was the one who was going to lead them, and that it was up to me to set the norm. I guess I was tired of feeling afraid, and indeed, things were different. The experience of the first day, and all the dread I had felt during the previous year, seemed suddenly to vanish, and I felt as if I had been overtaken by a new persona, that "ringmaster at a three-ring circus" that had been offered to me as a metaphor by another graduate student, Francine. I was more spontaneous and able to connect with my students. It was actually exhilarating, and the tigers were actually not as ferocious as I had imagined.

And this sensation continued for what would become my most memorable teaching experience. I bonded with that group of students, and grew to enjoy their company tremendously. Each day was a new challenge, and while I was new to teaching, I felt myself growing more confident with each day. I would push them, and try to bring up references that were current, and joke with them, and in general, treat them as friends and allies. And they collaborated with me, throwing themselves into the activities, culminating with some of the most wonderful skits I will always remember when I assigned this bit of theater.

Of course, it also helped that I wasn't the only member of my department there. We also had a Belgian office worker who asked me to let her audit the class, and I did. She seemed to really enjoy the class, and of course, I fell in love with her. Nothing came of this, and to tell the truth, it was only a crush and not a more permanent sentiment, but I did cherish her support.

The semester ended before I was quite ready to see it end, and I felt as if I had brought out something new in myself as well as my students. Perhaps they could see that I wasn't quite the type of graduate student instructor that others were, and that I had reached out and claimed the persona that I would adopt as an instructor. It wasn't as hard as I had feared, and I had discovered something about myself. I could actually relate to my students, and I wasn't going to be cowed by my anxieties that had, somehow, mysteriously, disappeared.

Somewhere I suspect I have the tapes of their skits because I arranged to have them videotaped. That is if they haven't been discarded as a result of my journeys after having embarked on my career. If I don't, it isn't important. That first group gave me a sense of confidence that I hope that I repaid them in some small measure by teaching them well. I may not have been Robin Williams but I had been who I could be, and I didn't need to be Robin Williams, nor did they need to be slavish acolytes. They gave me a better sendoff on my future academic career than I could ever have expected, much less repaid.

Those students have by now long graduated, and I hope that they have established themselves in their careers. Rich, Jesse, Errol, Siska, Dennis and all the rest, I hope you are doing well. I haven't heard from any students from those years up in that university in the Bay Area, and it seems like those experiences took place a geologic age ago, when prehistoric mastodons in tweed coats droned in dim lecture halls. While I hope not to become such a prehistoric beast, despite feeling less energetic than in the past, I still recognize the passage of time. And, when I feel a little weary and frustrated, such as I felt today when I was teaching my two classes at my current university and had my first group leave after I opened up the class to their questions and let them establish an agenda (they didn't have one other than to leave if I let them leave), I still reflect back on that past experience and feel a sense of satisfaction.

It seems to me that it was a magic semester, one that was utterly transformative. For a while, I was on a magic bus, up in that hippie university in a hippie city in a hippie state, loving my new career. And that love of teaching stays with me, despite the occasional difficulties that are par for the course.

"Okay, class, let's talk about a thesis statement. A thesis statement is the architectural plan for a building of words that we erect, and this building can assume the most amazing and beautiful shape despite drawing from the humblest of materials. The thing is to be creative, but also to think logically, and design your building with an appropriate structure commensurate with your goals."

And the most important thing, don't be afraid of heights.