Overconcerned?

Three weeks back, I stayed up late into the night feverishly grading the last of a set of papers for a course on Modern American Literature that I'm teaching this semester. The papers bothered me tremendously because I couldn't help but feel a certain level of casualness in the way they were written. I remember turning in to bed, jaw clenched at the nerve of my students, to wake up not much calmer. Later that morning, I attempted to shoot a dose of rigor into my classes (by personally doping up on caffeine beforehand), hoping I could magically make the disaffected spirit that I had detected disappear forever. During, what by my standards were, two successful classes, I dropped a short, but sharp criticism about how the last three weeks of discussion had been sub-par. Although they didn't seem too distressed by it, I still felt guilty. And then I almost followed up with an email reminder about the level of effort I expected. Basically, I was mad at my kids, who are supposed to substantiate my view that I'm a good teacher by dazzling me with fabulous papers. Luckily, I caught myself before sending out this supplemental raillery as all the external factors like the dragging winter, my own preoccupations with my dissertation, and the sheer difficulty of the novel we were reading forced themselves into my view. It occurred to me that most of my students were trying... hard... to get 'A's in the class. (Several of my students confirmed this view when I met with them later to be told that they had gone to writing center twice, put in hours of labor, and other forms of preparation that they now thought of as time wasted.) It occurred to me that for the first time in my teaching career I had become so invested and obsessed with my students' performance that I was going too far. So I backed off and spent the rest of the semester encouraging and cultivating their strengths as opposed to pointing out their weaknesses.

Although I knew deep down at the time and see it very clearly now that this sort of paranoid sensitivity to the mood swings of a classroom is dangerous, it somehow had the positive effect of opening up a new perspective on my teaching. Once more, I leave a set of classes thinking of my students as my best ever. But what isn't usual this semester is that I can actually say that I have genuinely come to love teaching. Every semester since I've started, I've liked my students more and more. And even though I firmly believe that each incoming class at this university has been smarter than the last, I still believe that, regardless of this fact, my attitude has shifted. For the first time, I allowed myself to feel their highs and lows, ups and downs, euphoria and desperation. I guess I realized this semester that one can't help but step out from behind the wall of formality and professionalism teachers must build between themselves and their students. This leaves me in an unfortunate bind. I know it's not healthy to become personally invested in my students, but if I don't become attached, then I tend to put the ball in their hands with a kind of "college is what you make of it" attitude. This was the cliche chosen by my mostly forgotten college president at my commencement address. (How many 17 year olds really have their lives together enough to make good this advice?) I guess this is the difference between envisioning myself as the seller or the advertiser of a product. When I'm invested, I'm actively pitching my practice, trying to convince my students of its merits, while carefully monitoring their reactions.

I know that there's a scholarly debate related to this very subject. Is literary criticism a field that ought to be tailored to the general public or kept in its less accessible, esoteric forms? I'm not saying that I'm dumbing down my field to my students-I'm not feeding it to them with a spoon-but that I'm trying to kindle interest. If I were steadfast in the belief that literary studies is available to the initiated only, then I'd naturally relate to my students in a self-satisfied, cynical, and pessimistic manner. I wouldn't be bothered one bit if they couldn't... or just wouldn't.

I can ask them to sink or swim, but only if I can convince them that swimming is a worthwhile activity in the first place. And no one actually drowns for failing intro to modern american literature.