Missed Anniversary

I let an anniversary pass in January without much notice. Sometime during that month, I finished my twentieth year of teaching. That's probably some sort of milestone. I can't quite believe it myself. There are days when it feels like I've been teaching twice as long, and there are some days when it feels like I've only started my career. I have been teaching full time only since August 1994, but my first day to enter a classroom as an English teacher was in January 1988.

If you've heard the story before, I apologize. I've shared it a few times with other people, but I have no idea who is familiar with it and who isn't. I had just started graduate school in English at Mississippi State University, thanks to the encouragement of the graduate student advisor, with whom I'd had a couple of classes. He asked me if I were going to get my master's degree, and I said I hadn't really thought about it. He said that if I applied and got accepted, I could teach a couple of classes of freshman composition and my tuition would be paid for by the university. So I would get a salary for teaching and I wouldn't have to pay for school? Sounded like a pretty good deal at the time.

I already had a job, by the way. I was working as a reporter and editor at the Starkville Daily News (affetionately known as the Starkville Daily Mistake). I had previously worked for the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus (affectionately known as the Comical Disgrace). So I had work to do. That wasn't what motivated me. I just wanted to learn more, and it seemed that graduate school was the way to go. I loved going to school; I think that's why I always try to encourage people to stay in school and learn as much as they want rather than graduate early.

That first day I got myself ready for class by putting on what were my nicest clothes (other than the one suit I owned). I think I even wore a tie. I put all of my copies of the syllabus in the briefcase my mother had bought me for Christmas, along with my textbooks, and I headed out to class. We had offices (shared, of course) in Lee Hall, and my class was in another building (I can't recall which one at this point). I was feeling a bit nervous before I left home that morning, but the nervousness grew even stronger the closer it came to the moment I had to leave for class. On my way, I threw up. Yes, threw up. I was so nervous that I made myself sick. That must have been a pretty sight for everyone walking by me on the sidewalks of MSU.

I pretty much decided then that I couldn't do this. I was going to have to give up going to graduate school because I couldn't get over my fear of standing in front of a classroom full of strangers. And I had done that sort of thing before. I'd been in public speaking contests and had taken speech in both high school and college. So I was no novice. It was just the thought of being responsible for all of the students that got to me, I think. So I made up my mind that I would go to class, take roll, and come back and tell the director of freshman English, the legendary Mary Ann Dazey (Miss Dazey, to everyone she ever met) that she would need to find someone else.

Then it happened. When I walked into the room, I saw that they were all more afraid than I was. The look of fear on their faces was overwhelming. Here they were, college freshmen, away from home for the first time, taking a class in writing at the university level, scared out of their wits by this teacher who was going to judge them. My heart went out to them immediately. I felt such a bond with them. I decided then that I had to pull myself together for them. They needed me. I know that sounds ridiculous now, but if you had only seen their faces that morning, you would have felt the same way.

I got over my fear, of course. Now I actually look forward to the start of each semester. New faces, new ideas, new people to teach, new attitudes--it's all exciting. Yet somehow I let the memory of that first day pass this January, and it was probably about the same day that we started the spring semester too. Perhaps I'll remember and do something more monumental when I reach 25 years of teaching. It's not that far away, after all.