An updated version of a post that appeared last year.
The fall semester begins today at Pasadena City College. If you look back through my archives, you’ll see that I usually have a “first day of school” post up on the last Monday in August. This year shall be no exception.
My mother tells me that my formal education began forty-one forty-two autumns ago, in September 1969. I was two when I first went to Santa Barbara’s long-vanished Humpty Dumpty Nursery School. Since that year of Woodstock and moon landings and the amazing Mets, I’ve been in school every fall without fail. I went from nursery school to graduate school without a break, and began teaching full-time at the community college while still finishing Ph.D. work at UCLA. I’m in my fifth decade in the educational system, which astounds me. And I’m beginning my eighteenth 19th year as a professor at PCC; this year, my youngest students will have been born after I started teaching here.
In August 2004, I wrote about still having butterflies in my stomach the first time I met a class. Six Seven years later, things remain very much the same in my innards. I wrote then of the reasons for my nervousness:
The obvious question is this one: why, after all this time, do I still get so nervous about the first day of school? It’s not stagefright; public speaking has never been a fear of mine. It’s not new material, at least not this year; all four courses I am teaching this fall are courses I have taught in the past. It’s not fear that my students won’t like me; though I do struggle with vanity, it’s not at the root of my jumpiness this morning. All three of these might be small factors at different times, but the core reason for this almost-pleasant state of anxiety is more basic: I still believe that I have the best job in the whole dang world, and I can’t believe they pay me to do it.
Even after all these years of full-time teaching (the last six 13 with tenure), I still expect someone to show up, and with an apologetic and yet officious tone, tell me “We’re sorry, Hugo, we made a mistake hiring you. There was this terrible mix-up, you see; we intended to get someone else. Though I can assure my readers that I did not lie or stretch the truth when I applied for this job, somehow after all this time I still suspect that I “got away with something” when I was hired to teach here.
I’ve talked about this with my parents and other colleagues who teach. My father (who taught philosophy for forty years at Alberta and UCSB) calls this feeling the suspicion of one’s own fraudulence. That phrase seems to sum things up nicely. Whenever I share these feelings, I note that it is often my most talented colleagues, students, and friends who say Really? That’s how I feel too! (One of the worst teachers I ever worked with, now thankfully retired, claimed never to feel this way.) I wonder if there isn’t some connection between periodic bouts of self-doubt (the imposter syndrome) and the drive to prove one’s self. Actually, that’s silly: I don’t wonder that at all, I know it with total certainty!
My office is a cheerful mess, I’m caffeinated and be-BrooksBrothered and readier than ever to begin the grand journey again.
UPDATE: Both in person in the hallways, and on my Facebook page, former and soon-to-be-current students have wished me “good luck” today. This isn’t new; I’m wished good luck each time a new semester begins. It might seem odd to wish it to the tenured professor; I’m not applying for anything, I’m not being evaluated this semester, and I’m not trying to get into a class. But I’m wished luck nonetheless.
I like to think it’s more than just a pleasantry offered when someone begins something new (or in my case, resumes an old and familiar task.) I like to think that it’s because even the very young recognize that there is an element of chance and mystery in teaching; some classes sizzle with chemistry while others, as we all acknowledge, are duds. Perhaps they are wishing me great students, or wishing me success in avoiding spilling on myself or teaching with my fly unzipped. Or perhaps they know that anything really can happen in the classroom, from the marvelous to the heartbreaking, and they are wishing me luck and grace and strength to cope with whatever comes, and to be as present and effective as I can be for all whom I will call my students.
Yep, I know the feeling. I’ve struggled with it my entire life, stemming back to grade school. Part of it is the “you’re so smart, you could be doing better, Andrew” that I heard nearly my entire school life to the point that I now believe that no matter how well I do at something or the response I get, I think I could have done better.
And since I could always have done better, whatever I did wasn’t quite good enough and therefore not up to my potential and therefore fraudulent.
I’ve found that it isn’t only the talented who carry this, but the caring. Those who genuinely care about putting their best out there and constantly feeling as though they fell short of that.
I’ve learned over time to let go of a lot of that. (That’s one area therapy comes in handy.)
There are even times I, gasp, DON’T do my best and feel frickin’ fantastic about it.
Oh, and good luck.
Yes, I know how that is too. It’s only been in the last 5 years, as I draw on my social science background that I’m able to sort out all the negative and contradictory messages I’ve always heard about myself. Even in my first year of university as a mature student, I got all queasy and had to ask that old question: “What the heck is wrong with these people that they’re treating MOI as if I had Down Syndrome?”
Well, what’s usually wrong with these people is that they’re drawing on a mental model, taught to them in teacher’s college that lists sets of warning signals (that apply to childless 18-to-22-year-olds) with a corresponding set of intervention strategies (that apply to the same group). These models are designed to preserve grade point averages for the sake of the marketability of the school, and they’re often being implemented by some TA or social worker who’s barely older than my daughter and who’s never so much as ridden public transit or done his/her own laundry. And I SO don’t fit the model. Reasonably attractive and intentionally manless, STILL dirt poor in my middle years, disheveled and always in a hurry, slightly wall-eyed when I’m too tired or angry to control it (Imagine walking around your entire life crossing your own eyes to correct your own vision. Can’t accuse me of being weak-willed!!) Add to that 160 IQ with a kickass learning curve and killer parallel processing abilities for someone my age. I just turned 39 and I’m almost on par with my daughter’s ADD riddled friends
So they see me frequently stumbling into class 15 minutes late, missing the little assignments, and trying (badly) to fake it through the lessons I didn’t do the readings for. All the things a 19 year old who still lives with his/her parents has no excuse for, unless s/he is a meth head, right? To paraphrase Robin Williams: “You don’t need drugs. Just have kids! It’s the same damn thing; you’re awake, paranoid, impotent, you smell bad…”
Then my sister gives me a blissful kid-free weekend and Lo and Behold! I use all of my astonishing mental abilities to get caught up and write those essays and get through those tests.
“Well,” says the TA. “This is just not possible. Drug addicts are incapable of this level of competence. How dare she do this when my tax dollars are paying the welfare system to put her through school!” No, that’s not how it works. We poor Canadian students have to borrow money and pay it back with interest just like poor Americans now. But you’d be amazed how many people believe the welfare system paid for my education. And drugs that I’ve never done, and alcohol that I can’t drink bc I’m allergic.
And then come the wrongful accusations of plagiarism. These investigations aren’t as bad in an academic setting bc I’m one of those old fossils who still remembers how to write a first draft in pencil without spellcheck. THAT is the draft I usually go over with my TA before the big due date. I’ve been accused in an informal way, but the accusations never stuck, because I was always able to prove myself.
But translate that pattern to living in a community with a bunch of fiscal conservatives, with no option but welfare to pay my bills while I raised my disabled child. It was absolutely nerve-wracking to maintain the facade of being a whupped dog every time I left my house.
As much as I loved school, it was one of those things I had to constantly hide from saboteurs, like a successful fitness routine or expensive jewelery. The scapegoating rituals always came during the happiest years of my life, shortly after I blabbed about healthy indulgences like these. Is striving for a strong body and a strong mind a guilty pleasure that I ought to hide from the neighbours? Absolutely not. But I have an easier time if I hide certain successes.
And you’re right, Hugo. The classroom is a wonderful place. It’s well worth all of those ulcer-like sensations in my belly to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Deserving and count myself as one of them. Maybe I’ll have to hone my sensitivities even more, so I’ll be better able to hear the prof who says that working with me is the best job in the world