Work: I Hate When I Hate It

I'm told by experts that one of the pitfalls of competitive endeavor is the tendency of the better team to play down to the level of the lesser team.  Pit a virtuoso against a piker, and the virtuoso will go slack and beat him/herself, underestimating the capacity of the opponent, who will seize its opportunity and thrash the better team, strike 'em out looking.

My students are not my opponents; they're my co-conspirators, is how I look at it.  We are all conspiring for their betterment, their enlightenment, their facility with the language, the literature and its culture.  Is generally how I look at it.

But then sometimes I get a batch who aren't into it for the right reasons, and somehow I feel like I'm a shitty teacher because they want a pass, they want the credits, they are full of excuses about why they haven't done their homework--chiefly, dead friends and relatives.  "I had to leave at the break last week because my friend passed away."  "My grandfather in Australia is on his deathbed."  "I just came in to find out what the homework is [without turning in tonight's homework] because my cousin is in the emergency room from a accident."

At times like these, I feel like I hate teaching.  I think, "What a load of crap! and how can you look me in the eye and say it?  Have you no pride?  Do you think I'm stupid?"

I have to act stupid, don't I?  I have to say Oh yes dear me that is dreadful yes of course you can turn your assignment in ten days late because of course you are so ill and your cousin is dead and far be it from me to infringe on your pain.

Just when I'm about to grind my back teeth to powder, I remember a raquetball game I played years ago, when I was teaching remedial composition at Berkeley.  As I bounced the ball, warming up for my serve, I told my opponent (and dear friend) that I didn't want to teach any more, I hated what I was teaching, it sucked, I wanted to go to law school, I didn't care whether anybody ever learned to punctuate anything as long as I lived no matter what.

She never missed a beat.  She returned my serve and asked me, "If you were teaching Paradise Lost, would you feel the same way?"

Uh, no.  Not at all.  What does that make me?  "Am I A Snob?" Virginia Woolf asked herself publicly in 1934.  She didn't think she was, and I really don't think I am; I just want the people I'm trying to connect with to meet me halfway.  Is that so wrong?