question one/take one

Like I'm guessing many others have recently done, I contacted my local book rep, eager to get my hands on a copy of Todd Taylor’s Take 20. In the meantime, I printed up and shared with a colleague as well as my 486/686 class the 20 questions Taylor asked interviewees to respond to, encouraging the people in 486/686 to think about how they might respond to these questions. In the spirit of playing along:

Question one: What do you remember about your first time teaching?

Take one: After receiving my letter of acceptance for the lit program at U of I and learning that I would be teaching Rhet 105 (a fyc course), I recall not being really sure what the course was, what it was about. My best guess was that it would involve (to whatever degree) tending to grammar and mechanics issues. In this way, I assumed that I would hate it. What’s more, I knew that if this was, in fact, what it was about that I couldn’t help but fail at it.

Flash forward to the end of the summer of ’97. While attending the intense week-long teaching orientation I get this idea in my head (one that I couldn’t seem to let go of no matter how many times the orientation advisors assured me that the students here were good students, eager students, students who would do pretty much whatever the teacher asked) that this will be Dangerous Minds. I saw myself walking into the class that first day, asking students if they have their books, asking them to do an in-class write or whatever and having them say, “#$%@@-you lady, we don’t gotta do #@#^& if we don’t wanna.” I don’t know that this was even a line in the movie. My point is that I worried a lot then about classroom management, authority and respect: How I’d do it (manage things), if I’d get it (respect), if I deserved it (authority), how I’d keep it, etc.

Flash forward to first day of that semester: I don’t recall many specific details after entering the classroom. That first day was (much as every first day thereafter has been) lost in an adrenaline blur: Not sure what I said, what I did. But I'm pretty sure I wore the black and white polka dot dress I once borrowed from Tammy and never ended up returning. I know for sure that I didn’t really see (meaning that I couldn’t get my eyes to focus on) anyone or anything save for whatever I was handing out that day—the course description, the syllabus. I do remember that it was decidedly not like Dangerous Minds though. The advisors had been right about that.

I remember this also about the first day (and about almost every first day since then): Having to take that longest walk. Getting myself to move out of my office (one at the time that I shared with many, many others) to whatever classroom I had been assigned. Thinking all the way there that I can’t do this won’t do this might die if I do this can’t do this what was I thinking? Thinking then of Laura Wingfield. Thinking that I would likely not be able to turn the knob and walk inside. Thinking that I could always go to the park instead. My mom wouldn’t know, at least not for a while, that I wasn’t where I said I’d be, or doing what I said I’d be doing. When she called to ask about the first day, I could make something up. I'd always had a pretty good imagination and my mom hadn’t, after all, even seen Dangerous Minds so I knew I'd have something to work with.