I received the Bachelor
of Arts degree in English at Southern State College, now Southern Arkansas
University, in June of 1967 and immediately moved to Alabama to do graduate
work at Auburn, where I eventually earned the Doctor of Philosophy. My wife,
also a recent college graduate, got a job in the Textile Engineering department
there and my teaching assistantship started in the fall semester. I will never
forget first walking into my assigned Freshman English class. I had no teaching
experience at all and I am introverted and shy. But I knew I wanted a career as
a college English professor, so I studied the Freshman English books with
vigor, backed my ears, opened my mouth and taught.
By the second week I
had learned that my talent for drawing came in very handy to gain and retain
attention. I could illustrate poems such as “Ode on a Grecian Urn” on the old
chalk board while explaining the poet’s intentions. Drawing a sprawling cartoon
of the dramatic situation behind Browning’s “My Last Duchess” was a real crowd-pleaser,
bringing robust laughter even from the thick-necked Southeastern Conference
football champs. So, I got the hang of entertaining as I sought to impart
insights into the material at hand.
Entertainment and
enlightenment go hand in hand in all teaching, speaking and writing. Professors
who are as dry as dust never learn this. It is as if they are so eager to get
the subject matter across that they bore their audiences to tears. But there is
another side to the issue as well. During the years when I was an academic
dean, I had to bring subtle correction to several faculty members whose desire
to entertain classes resulted in loss of credibility often culminating in loss
of control. As the wise Roman Horace admonished, we must keep entertainment and
enlightenment in balance with each other. Otherwise, we run the risk of being obtuse
on the one hand or frivolous on the other.
During that first
semester of teaching at Auburn, I learned some other things that have helped me
through almost a half a century in the profession. As a general rule, college
students lose more points from failure to follow instructions than from
anything else. If the instructions say, “Discuss two of the following topics in
a brief essay,” it is wrong to discuss one in great detail or three scantily.
If the instructions say, “Answer the following questions in complete sentences,”
responding in phrases will be incorrect. If the professor marks the phrase
wrong, the student may counter, “But I obviously understood the material.”
Unfortunately, however, the student didn’t understand the question. Another
thing I have learned is that students who come to a professor’s office
frustrated are seldom looking for a solution. Instead, they are looking for a
listener. Very often, when students know you are listening intently, they
verbalize a solution to their own problem.
The most important
thing I learned in my first college class was that if I treated students with
respect, I received respect in return. Even when recording an “F” on an essay, one
should give written encouragement as to how to improve. People whose English is
non-standard are not thereby bad people. Our linguistic skills have nothing to
do with character.