The Graves of Academe | Page 8

that I was able to teach, to the complete
satisfaction of my colleagues and supervisors, and with no visible
detriment to my students, a subject of which I knew practically nothing
at first, and of which, after a year of teaching it, I knew just about what
anyone could know of it after one year of study? Was there something
wrong with that? Was there something wrong with me that I suspected
that there was something wrong with that?
It took me many years to find answers to those questions, and, when I
did, it wasn't because I was looking for them. It was because I finally
settled in what was called a State Teachers College. (Like Pikes Peak, it
had no apostrophe.) As it happens, it is no longer a State Teachers
College. The legislature later enacted a long and complicated law
which had, as far as I can tell, the sole effect of removing from that title
the word "Teachers." The college has not changed much, except that
where it was once unashamedly a teachers' college, it is now ashamedly

a teachers' college. There I was, and I couldn't help looking around.
At the end of my first semester, I walked into a classroom where I was
to give a final examination. (We don't do much of that anymore, since
it may just be a violation of someone's rights.) On the blackboard was
the final examination that had just been given to some other class. Very
neatly written it was, too. The last question - I'll never forget it was
worth fifty-two percent of the grade: "Draw all the letters of the
alphabet, both upper and lower case." Draw.
There is some truth in the "ivory tower" notion of academic life. I had
spent my whole life in one school or another, and I was, of course,
faintly aware that I was only faintly aware of what was going on out in
the world. When I looked at that blackboard and imagined all those
students dutifully "drawing" the alphabet in their blue-books, I realized
that I didn't even know what was going on down at the other end of the
hall. Nevertheless, it still didn't occur to me that this astonishing
examination had something to do with those questions that I had long
since stopped asking myself.
It turned out, of course, that what I had seen was a final examination in
one of those "education" courses, about which, at that time, I knew
nothing. Well, that's not quite true: I did know one thing, because
earlier that semester I had looked into a classroom where something
amazing was happening. There, in front of the class, stood an unusually
attractive young lady, a student, tricked out in a fetching bunny outfit -
not the kind you're probably imagining, just a pair of paper ears pinned
into her hair and a stunning puff of absorbent cotton somehow or other
tacked on behind and clothes, too, of course, but I can't recall any
details. She was reading aloud, with expression, and even with an
occasional hop, from a large book spread out flat at about hip level,
glancing down at it remarkably infrequently. Large type. She was doing
a practice lesson. I awarded her instantly an A plus.
So I knew two things about the making of a teacher. Both seemed
engaging rather than repellent. After all, who can be against legible
writing on the blackboard? To be sure, I myself wouldn't have assigned
it a value of more than half the grade on a final examination; perhaps,

had it been in my charge to foster, I would simply have required it as a
tool of the trade without bestowing upon it any special credit at all. And
it did occur to me that what the students drew in their examination
books might not be an accurate measure of their skill in drawing the
same things on a blackboard, an unusually intractable medium, but the
motive seemed good. And as for pretty girls in cunning outfits, what
could be more cheering? It seemed to me that those teacher-trainers
must be amiable and playful folk with well-developed aesthetic
sensibilities and a penchant for drama, in bold contrast to the rest of us
who taught what you call "subjects," dour and narrow people reciting
lectures and devising "thought" questions. And who knows? Could it be
that I would now actually remember the political consequences of
Henry's sad pilgrimage to Canossa if only my history professor had put
on sackcloth and lectured on his knees?
And I began to watch the teacher-trainers in idle moments, in my idle
moments, that is, not theirs. They were rarely idle. They were busy
rumbling down the hall pushing metal carts laden with projectors and
loudspeakers, which they actually