Talking at Teachers

The head of the English department at a college where I used to teach once asked--and then insisted that I tell the faculty what I did in my composition classes.  I'm not sure why, or why she was so insistent, but it distressed me because she seemed to think that the faculty needed some kind of correction and that I could get them all straightened out in half an hour.  While they ate lunch.  Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor.  Maybe she wanted me to make a fool of myself.  Anyway, I was feeling a bit grumpy about the assignment.  Tried to get out of it, but in the end decided that it might be an interesting experiment. 

But I realized that it would be folly to tell my colleagues what I did in my classes because they wouldn't have any idea of why I did it.  Instead, they'd focus on surface details, and most would probably just decide that I was completely loony.  Instead, I decided to go for the why.  I'd tell them what had happened to me that led me to teach as I did. 

But I wanted to begin with something that would shock them out of their skins, hoping that then they might be more receptive to what I had to say.

As it happened, my favorite aunt was dying of pancreatic cancer and I was driving 110 miles a day to the nursing home.  She had turned down a marriage proposal back in 1924 or 25 in favor of a PhD in French.  (She married that same guy when she was 75, her only marriage--but that's another story.)  She taught at a college until WW II and thereafter worked at the National Security Agency (starting before it had that name).  So I began my little talk with something she had told me just the previous day: 

"I used to believe in God.  Now I believe in Kevorkian."

She meant that her salvation from the cancer was to die quickly.  And I meant by quoting her that education dogma was no salvation.  Salvation required a drastic measure.

Oh, well.  My colleagues were polite, but they probably got more nourishment from their lunch than from my little talk.  (My aunt couldn't get Kevorkian, so she stopped eating and drinking instead.  The last thing I heard her say was, "Hurry up.")

Recently I came across a copy of the handout I gave them that day.  Here's a scan of it.  Take it as it is--no apologies, no corrections--for whatever it might mean to you.




I'm posting this page 15.5 years later.  Not quite sure why--because the handout doesn't make a whole lot of sense without the talk it was supposed to remind my colleagues of.  But maybe you'll find it interesting.  Or amusing.  Or irritating--whatever.  If you'd like to talk about it, please email me.
 
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