An Apple a Day-Part II

My first class as an English Instructor, at Valencia Community College, Orlando, Florida, was Introduction to Literature:

1/3 poetry; 1/3 prose; 1/3 drama. And I did the very best I could to keep an even distribution. One of my surprises during the semester was how well the class responded to Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller's classic comment on modern life. Since Valencia is a community college, many older students come back to school, and there's always a good mix of ages and opinions, one of the reasons I like the community college setting. The night I went home after the final exam, I wept because it was over, as I wasn't prepared for the kind of bonds that can quickly form in a classroom, but my grief was shortlived as the assignments for the next semester were quickly given out.

I was hired over the telephone, sight unseen, given my textbook the night of the first class, and wished good luck. It wasn't the most auspicious of beginnings, but I got through by doing what I always did -- being myself. A class can spot a phony a mile off, so just be yourself.

I stayed at Valencia Community College as a adjunct instructor, then was hired on a tenure track, full-time position in 1986. By this time I had also spent a year teaching the the University of Central Florida. We part-timers couldn't have enough jobs. A laugh-out-loud thing happened in one of my Valencia composition classes after I told the class to write about anything they wanted. One young woman asked, "Anything?" I said, "Anything." I should've known better. Her paper turned out to be a detailed description of a birthday present she had given her boyfriend -- a threesome. If you don't know what that is, it's okay. Suffice it to say that I never let my classes write about "anything" again.

I left Florida for California in December 1986, and I didn't get another teaching job until 1990, when I was invited to work as an adjunct at Los Angeles City College. This was truly the Los Angeles teaching experience, as I had students from all over the world, all struggling to get a foothold in the land of opportunity. My first class was a remedial English class that from a teacher's point of view was almost perfect. They were hungry to learn, to "do it right," and they worked hard, listened intently, and joined in every discussion. When this wonderful class was over, they gave me a teddy bear and a Lakers' shirt. Of course I still have them.

I would've stayed at City College forever but for the exigencies of working as a part-timer during budget cuts in education.

It was also at City College that I received my all-time favorite student essay. It was entitled "The Village We Left Behind," and it was as sweet a posting as I had ever received before or since. A young Vietnamese woman had had to leave her homeland as the Americans left, and she wrote about it in an honest, evocative way that still brings tears to my eyes. It's good that she wrote it before some idiot writing instructor had ruined her naturally beautiful style forever! I liked the Vietnamese women in my classes, one of whom had been born in an underground shelter in Hanoi as U. S. bombers blasted the earth above them.

One of the things that Chair of the English Department told me when I was first hired was that most of my students will have never been told they can succeed, will have never been encouraged. Part of my job was to convince them that they could. I worked hard at teaching them both English and an attitude, the attitude that they could go out in this big world and have a life. It was difficult at times, especially when their own parents had discouraged them from pursuing higher education. I'm sure that some of them heard me, and I miss them still. It's too bad that intellectual achievement isn't revered in all cultures.

Good news on the education front today is that my son's M. S. Thesis in Psychology has just been appoved by the Provost of his university. He's 44 years old and has earned this degree while working full-time and being a father and husband. I received my M. A. in English at the age of 43, having worked full-time and having tried to be a husband and father. I'm really proud of my son because I know how hard it is. Way to go!