Faculty Spotlight
Sheryl LeSage
A Thing Just Happened
A Thing just happened and I have to share it with you all. In Intro to Literature today, I spent the second half of class doing a lightning-round of the history of literary/intellectual movements in the US and the schools of criticism that have existed alongside (or in opposition to) them, so that the (very few) students who want to do the harder/more fun version of the Analytical Essay can decide how they might approach it.
In this class, there is a group of guys who sit in the back corner and whisper a lot. They look like stereotypical frat-bros and seemed, at first, to be paying attention only about half the time. Except they all did well on the midterm and I’ve discovered that what they’re usually whispering about is the readings or the class discussion. So instead of being irritated, I’ve tried to draw them out and get them to contribute their thoughts to the rest of the room–their questions need to be asked and they advance the discussion.
Anyway. One of them really struggled through the early part of the semester. He would come up after class and be utterly bewildered, and say things like, “I’m really trying to do what you ask, but I’ve never been in a class like this before–I’ve never been asked to really _think_ about how these things work and what they might mean, so I think I’m going to fail.” But he isn’t failing; he’s just a fish out of water and he’s being too hard on himself. This class isn’t like athletic training (the comparison he is most fond of) and it throws him.
Today after class he hung back and let his friends leave, and then asked me, “So…the guy in ‘The Swimmer’ has spent his whole life lying to himself and avoiding reality, and then he has such a shock at the end… Do you think it’s better to lose all your illusions as a young person and flounder around and have a crisis and maybe fail at the things you try and then–hopefully–latch on to what you’re really meant to do, OR to just choose a thing and apply yourself to it year after year after year in the hopes that you’ll eventually love it and become great at it, and then have a crisis in, like, your 50′s or whatever and realize that it was all wrong for you?”
And, “I’m sorry for keeping you, you’re probably really busy, but really, how should a person educate himself? What should I pursue? Who should I listen to? How do I know who I really am, and what will make me happy in the long run?”
I explained that it’s _such_ a necessarily individual path and off we went into about a half-hour long discussion of the value of the Liberal Arts and whether the 10,000 Hour Rule is real and and and life the universe and everything.
Here’s what was happening inside my head: “Are you KIDDING me with this apology don’t you understand that you standing here and asking me these questions is THE ENTIRE REASON PEOPLE DO THIS FOR A LIVING and almost nobody ever gets a chance, ever, to really have an in-depth conversation that MATTERS with a genuinely curious young person and thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU for trusting and respecting me enough to ask me all this?”
After he left the room, I turned off the lights and locked the door and had to just stand there in the dark for a few moments, until I could get the big dumb grin off my face and people wouldn’t think I was high or in a cult as I floated back to my office.
–English Professor Sheryl LeSage