The Northward Contrail

A little breather

Today's the last day before Spring Break.  If they haven't already, the kids are starting to desert campus.  As much of a hassle as it is when they scram early, part of me can't blame them.  Heck, part of me envies them a tiny bit.

They're ready for a week off.  So am I.  It's not that I don't like being around them.  I love my kids.  Sure, they can tax you, but when things are good, they're really good.  On the other hand, spend enough time around anyone and you'll need some time to yourself.  I don't care how close your relationship is, or how much you love them.  Sometimes you just need to get away for a bit. 

For my part, it'll be nice to have a week without getting up way too early, driving through the dark so I can get into the office and have some time to get my head together and catch up on tasks before anyone can come by and want something.  It'll be nice to not feel the need to get my work done two days in advance so I don't have to fret about whether it's done.  It'll be nice to not put in a string of really long days when I've gone in before sunrise and gone home after sunset.  It'll be nice to be reminded what direct sunlight is like for more than a few moments.  It'll be nice to come back home after being out, not feeling like my body and mind are like a cigarette that's been smoked down to the filter tip.  (Bad analogy, I know, but that's the way I feel most days.)

And it'll be nice to take care of some personal matters that have gone undone.  There's some housework that's gone undone, a project or two I'd like to resume.  I'd like to get in the car one day next week, take a little drive, and renew some old acquaintances from too long ago. 

Above all else, I'd just like a little time to get my head together.  There's a lot coming up in the second half of this semester: big assignments, a bunch of meetings (they always come just before the end), two more newspaper layouts, and the guaranteed drama of seniors realizing that no, they won't graduate unless they overcome procrastination. 

There's going to be plenty enough for everybody come the second half.  For next week, though, my brain's going to enjoy the quiet.

The measure of success

"You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments or publicity." -- Eddie Rickenbacker

A few weeks ago, a former student came back to visit.  She's a recent graduate who now works as a television reporter, and I turned over my journalism class to her that day so she could tell them what it's like in the real world.  And the darnedest thing happened when we were talking before class: she told me that all the little things I made her do, all the guidelines I had the students follow on the assignments, all the rules I set down for my classes...once she got out there reporting for a living, and answering to a real boss, it all made sense.  In fact, she said, it's all made her one of the more on-the-spot people at that station.  Her bosses have noticed this, and have given her more opportunities because of it.  She told the class the same thing, too.

It'd be easy for me to get a swelled head over this.  Instead, it gave me reassurance.  It's the kind of feedback I appreciate most: hey, what you did back then helped me get where I am now, and I appreciate it.  That's why I come to work each day.

One of our occupational hazards is the instructor evaluation.  We have to do it.  And sometimes they're fun to read.  A former colleague used to talk about how reading evaluations was something you did with a good bottle of wine nearby to help you through it.  Sometimes the feedback is good, sometimes it's perceptive, but other times it's painful. The kids, they can be sharp sometimes.  Other times, they look at it from the perspective of someone who's just trying to get through something temporary, while what frustrates you is that you're trying to train them for a career, and for the rest of their lives.  I never have been that concerned that you like what I teach you now; instead, I'm teaching you for that moment a few years from now when you have to know what to do when the bell rings.

Evaluations hurt doubly when you're young and starting out, not only because the students can be sharp and pointy in their remarks, but because you know your future prospects at a job ride on them.  They're not the only thing, but let's just say you're acutely aware of them.  They also hurt because your skin hasn't yet thickened, as it will in a few years.  I've seen enough sideways comments now that when I brief the students on the evaluations, I give them self-deprecating (and made up) examples of the kinds of comments that won't provide me with the constructive criticism I need. 

(And there is a kind of feedback that I do need, of course.  But comments about my hair or my clothes, or how you think such and such an assignment was "stupid," don't help, especially if you don't tell me why it was so "stupid."  Was it "stupid" because you didn't see how the material fit into the overall course, or was it "stupid" because you didn't study for it?  In the first case, somewhat legitimate gripe.  In the second case, your failure to prepare was your own undoing.)

As you go on, one gift you get is the ability to deal with these kinds of things, and to tune out what doesn't matter.  You do the best you can, treat the students with kindness and fairness, handle the material with competence, but have high expectations.  Then you learn that, even then, you can't please everyone.  But even with that, if you're fortunate you develop a kind of peace about that.  You know what you're doing.  You've fixed the things that were broken.  You listen to your conscience when you're handling a situation.  And you're able to sleep at night after the decisions you've made.  Over time, you get that quiet satisfaction that comes with doing your job well, with heart and integrity. 

And you find that's the real reward. Like Cap'n Eddie said, the other things don't matter.  You know the real rewards come from within.  (Or the somewhat parallel Arline Feynman rule: "What do you care what other people think?")

Awards are okay.  (I've won one or two, probably by default.)  And money is helpful.  (Though too much can become a trap.)  And publicity is okay (though I avoid it).  I have a very nice education and a decent mind.  If I wanted, I could probably become a big deal at some big research institution.  But I don't need that, and I'm not sure I want it.  All the money in the world, all the compliments and awards, and all the publicity I could get don't matter as much as knowing I can come in each day and do what I do to the best of my ability, and come home feeling I did something.  That's the real reward.  And when a former student comes back with stories of life in the real world, and says "Now I understand," that's as good as a bowl of ice cream. 

Cap'n Eddie, you were on to something.

The musical ambush

I love music.  Sometimes I hate music.  And other times, I love and hate it at the same time.  There's a handful of very lovely songs like this; they tap too deeply into my heart and make me start crying because they remind me too much of how much I love.  For instance, I've never seen Dumbo all the way through because I know what's going to happen when the scene starts when Dumbo visits his imprisoned mom and "Baby Mine" starts up.  Not only is it going to make me cry then and there, but it'll stay in my head for the next few days, no matter what I do, and it'll whack me in the kneecap when I least expect it.

Right up there with that is "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Any version of it can do it, but Roberta Flack will forever own that song, and there's an ache in her voice as she sings it that really brings on the tears for me.  (Here's the story behind that ache, by the way, which will break your heart.)  It drilled me enough when I was single, but, oh, how it takes on new meaning once you've found someone and shared your life with that person for years and years.

And then one sneaks up on you.  That's what happened with "I Say A Little Prayer."  One night a few years ago, hubby and I were sitting on the couch listening to the radio, and that came on.  And I thought, "Holy cow, that's exactly what I do for him, too, isn't it?"  And the lump came to my throat.  I'd put that aside for a little while, but one day a couple weeks back we were at home and that song was played at the end of a Cold Case re-run.  Sure enough, there's that lump in my throat again, and the tears weren't that far behind.  Nor were they the next morning, when I thought about it.

Music, why must you be so eloquently accurate?  And why must you lodge in my brain like a Milk Dud in my teeth?

Knowing what you don't

Life's full of little lessons.  One of them is learning to recognize not only what you do know, but what you don't.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've been bitten by this.  Sometimes I've gotten away with it.  Other times, though, I've spoken -- whether out loud, or online, or wherever -- and, sure enough, someone who knew more came right in and said "That's not so, and here's why."  Once in a while, they're not right.  But, sometimes, they are.  The trick is in tamping down your ego enough to give them a hearing, to see if what they say passes the sniff test, to check out the evidence. 

I've never made any bones about what I do.  I was a minor-league newspaper reporter.  I didn't work for a big daily paper; I worked for a weekly whose trail from printing press to birdcage liner could probably be measured with a stopwatch.  Before that, I worked in radio, doing little grunt jobs at the station.  I've published some things here and there.  I accidented my way into higher education.  I fell into communications and journalism, and I'm having a blast there, but if I had my druthers, I'd be a research librarian or an archivist.  I have a craftsman's mindset, and I'd rather sit in the back and put great effort into creating little masterpieces than be out front and on top.

And I also grew up being reminded that I didn't know everything.  That's one of the weird blessings of my upbringing.  It was impressive that I could name all the Presidents when I was in second grade, but my parents were just as concerned that I knew the things they felt were important.  They never wanted me to lose sight of little things, little essential skills.  And my family -- both the extended elements and the nucleus -- never let me get high on my own knowledge, or above my raisin'.  And they reminded me that, no, no matter what you think, you don't know everything, and you should never believe you do.  From an early age, it was driven home to me that arrogance is a deadly sin.

As I've gone through life, I've frequently been the first to puncture my own balloon, or to admit a flaw in an argument, or to concede a point.  But I remain boggled by how many people I come across who are convinced they are absolutely, positively correct.  About everything.  Point out an inconsistency and they take it personally.  Disagree with them, and it means war.  You may as well have personally attacked them.  They don't recognize that, in some ways, those kinds of admissions can add to your credibility.  Nope, instead, it's all about them and their proclaimed right to not be wrong, to be on top and unchallenged and unchallengeable.

And that's...pretty bad.  That's not the kind of person I want to be.  And it's not the kind of company I want to keep.  There are all kinds of stories about arrogance costing people friendships, costing them jobs, sometimes even costing them their lives.  ("Ah, this ain't nothin' to worry about!  Only a wimp would worry about --" [followed by "sound of impact/end of recording"])

Yes, I know that I know a lot.  That's good.  But I'm also painfully aware of how much I don't know.  I'm also aware there are a lot of people out there who know more about certain things than I do.  The only things I really feel qualified to act as an expert on -- and even then, with certain qualifications -- are the things of, and related to, my own life.  I have a fancy title at my workplace.  I have a really fabulous education, with a couple of mildly expensive graduate degrees.  But it doesn't mean I'm any smarter or wiser than I was before.  If anything, it's made me more aware of what I don't know.

Somehow, though, the awareness of what you don't know sometimes has more power than what you do know.  And, often, it's what keeps you out of really bad situations.

What I've learned

I'm coming up on ten years since I took my first full-time teaching gig.  That's something that really makes me stop and think, because it doesn't seem like ten years.  Other times, it feels like I've been doing this forever -- and I mean that in both good and bad ways.

These ten years have taught me so much about teaching that I could never have learned as a student.  It's one of the funny things about education that you can only do so much in a classroom; for the rest, there's no substitute for actually doing it.  For instance, you can learn only so much about flying an airplane during ground school, but there's no substitute for actually getting into an airplane and putting your hands on the yoke and getting up in the air.  That is an education within an education.  It's the same with my classes: I can lecture about how to write a radio commercial, but I really don't think the students really grasp the concept until I give them a few copy platforms and tell them, "Write."  They always bomb the first few, but that's part of learning.  Once they get it figured out, they get it.  I could never get that across in a lecture, or in any other way.

And so it is with teaching.  I took a required course in educational methods as part of my doctoral work, and though it was helpful, it wasn't the same.  It was abstract.  No, for me the real learning began the first day I was sent into a classroom, told "good luck!" and the door slammed shut.  In that painful, disastrous first year, an education.  My second year, a new institution and different students...but, fortunately, an institution and higher-ups willing to wait through my rookie mistakes.  And, yeah, I made them, by the dozen.  But, over time, I started to figure it out.

It's funny to think about how much I've changed since then.  Ten years ago, I really had this rigid idea of what the students should learn, what they should know, what they should be interested in and care about.  All that did was frustrate me.  I never really understood the "lead a horse to water, but" thing until then.  I complained, I made bad jokes.  Sometimes I took my frustrations out on my class.  Part of it was frustration, and part of it was fear.  I wasn't much older than they were.  They saw a rookie instructor, and some of them saw fresh meat.  I tried to act tough, but that was the wrong move.

Over time, I've evolved.  I've learned that the things I worried most about back then turned out to be the things that have seldom happened.  I dreaded confrontations, and at my first job I had a few (sometimes my own doing, sometimes not).  Over time, I figured out how to defuse the problems that did come up, and how to head off potential crises.  My average since has been pretty good.  Not perfect, mind you, but not that bad.  One of my mentors in graduate school had a philosophy that was basically "it's more important to solve a problem than win an argument."  I've found that of endless utility since.

The other good thing?  Over time, I came to be more at ease in a classroom.  I used to be nervous.  I used to dread interaction with the students.  And I feared that one would see through me.  Well, I'm sure some did.  But, over time, that too gave way.  I've learned there's no shame in saying, "You know what?  I'm not really sure myself."  (Or a graceful deflection, such as when a media law student asks about a bit of arcana and I reply with a smile and, "Well, that's why they hire lawyers to handle these things and not communications professors.")

I've also learned to quit being other people.  I tried really hard to model my classroom interaction after the people who mentored me.  But it didn't work, for a number of reasons.  Some of the things they were able to do, you can't do any longer.  Or you have to have a certain gravity to you that I didn't yet have.  At some point, I quit trying to be those people, because it was making me feel ridiculous and it wasn't working.  I learned to be me.  Yeah, there are elements of my mentors I still use, but it's stuff that fits with my own style. 

Above all else?  I've learned to have fun, and not take myself too seriously.  Once I felt comfortable with the job, and felt comfortable with the material, I learned to let go.  Or, some days, I throw out the lesson plan and go with what will best serve the class.  That willingness to improvise has been good, too.  "You know what?  We were gonna do this today, but instead, given what's going on...."  On the really good days, sometimes the class becomes like doing improv.  There have been days when it's just fed on itself, and we laugh until it makes me cry...but, darn it, it works.

And that's what's best: learning what works, and making it continue to work.  That's how I'm able to go home at the end of most days and feel I may have accomplished something after all.