Some Days, I'm in Way Over My Head

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, by the time I'm done teaching, I've been at work for 12 hours. At 8:00 am I begin a stretch of teaching that does not stop until 12:30. Then, at 5 pm, I return for a stretch that lasts until 7:40.

The schedule is not the "over my head" part. The schedule just wears me down, slows the synapses. By 6 pm, I'm a babbling idiot. Whatever that 5 pm class learns demonstrates more their ability to absorb information than my ability to impart it. The schedule simply makes me vulnerable to this sensation of drowning in a sea of my own ignorance.

One of the best things about teaching community college is the variety of courses that you have to offer. In all of that teaching, only two are the same course. Some of the others overlap with one another, or with other course that I've taught at other times; but there is very little repetition within a semester. Very little room for boredom.

Of course, the very variety of courses, and their survey nature, means that my mind ranges across time and space throughout the day both in the classroom and in preparing for class. My mind, drifting further away from my fields of expertise -- my mastery of which is now faltering -- also must absorb large amounts of strange information and impose order upon it. I'm constantly compiling what amount to research papers, in the form of lectures, on completely alien subjects. This is particularly true when teaching world history.

For the past year, I've been "teaching" a course in 20th century world history. There might be a historical subject more foreign to my knowledge, but it isn't offered in this department. I warn the students on the first day that the class will have a very strong U.S. perspective. Very strong. My starting point for this subject is the foreign policy portion of the U.S. History since Reconstruction survey. I don't know what they learn from taking this course, but I do know that I learn the breadth of my own ingorance while I am teaching it.

That's not to say that I don't love learning about the 20th century world. For instance, until last fall, my entire knowlege of Africa consisted of "that's where Europeans enslaved people," "in the 1980s, rock stars sang songs about Ethiopia," apartheid, and Heart of Darkness. The horror. The horror. This meant that I had-- and have -- a lot of reading to catch up on.

The more that I read, the more that I am reminded of the reasons that I loved being an undergraduate, when my education was less focused (or treacherous, as in graduate school) and so many ideas and information seemed open and welcoming. In fact, the very lack of specific focus seemed to make everything so much more interesting because so many unexpected connections between different fields of study emerged. The more narrowly defined my education became, the more confining it has felt.

My knowlege has increased slightly since last fall, but not through any help of the textbook, which downplays conflict. (In fact, I could use a sort of handbook, "20th century world conflicts for dummies.") I stand in front of a class filled with people who have lived 20th century world history, and not from the comfy confines of American suburbia. Many of the students and not a few of the faculty are here, at this place, at this time, because of conflict. The conflict is on t.v. and I'm trying to get an understanding of it all, where it came from, who is involved, and why so that I can impose some sort of structural context. I look out at the class and feel like a total fraud. What the hell do I know? Most days, I just hope that it is enough to expand their knowledge or make them feel comfortable enough to share their experience and the class's knowledge.

This is, by far, the most challenging intellectual task that I've ever faced. More than either book, more than the hazing of comprehensive exams, more than clawing my way out of a trench of my own digging (i.e., the past four years of my life). This is more challenging than trying to create a character in a play, although the two experiences are not too different. The role that I am now trying to develop, through pure method acting, is that of a historian knowlegable in world history; and I'm not even certain of some of the lines.

So, somedays, I am in way over my head.