SLOW WALTZ IN CEDAR BEND

by Robert J. Waller

It's easy to lose perspective and become cynical when you're close to a profession or a person for decades. You start focusing on the ugly parts, forgetting the overall beauty of what's up close to you.

He’d begun graduate study with soaring thoughts of becoming a scholarand a teacher, indeed the highest calling as far as he could tell. In his early twenties he'd imagined bright students he would lead through the intricacies of advanced economic theory, maybe a Nobel Prize out there if the scholarship was diligent. But in some way he'd never been able to define, graduate school and his early years as a professor had taken the dreams away from him. Something to do with the emphasis on method, with plodding data collection and analysis. Something to do with social scientists trying to operate like physicists, as if the roiling complexities of social reality could be handled in the same way as the study of nature. And something to do with students who cared only for job preparation, who demanded what they called "relevance" and had no real interest in the abstractions he found so lovely, so much like a clear, cold mountain stream running through his brain. "Good theory is the most practical thing you can study," he told them. They didn't believe him.

He gave a little speech at a College of Business and Economics faculty meeting. "We are interested, it seems, not in creating, but only in maintaining— maintaining our comfortable, enviable life-style. If the taxpayers ever discover what's really going on around here, they'll march on us. We're like the goddamned students and the students are like us dumb bastards: it's come down to cooperate and graduate."

Two heads out of 137 nodded in agreement, 135 wished the dean would get on with the meeting and talk about next year's salary prospects. Michael didn't make any more speeches after that.

So the dreams eroded. And Michael Tillman began to turn inward, to follow only what made sense to him. He was trying to get back the old feelings, the awe he'd once experienced in contemplating the great sweep of time and space, wondering about the peculiar evolutionary magic that had put him and not someone else here at this particular time in a universe still expanding.

People saw him as distant, and he was. People saw him as arrogant, but he wasn't, quite the opposite. He simply decided to go off by himself, go his own way. People mistake shyness and reclusive-ness — both of those — for arrogance. It's a convenient label slapped on by those who see only the surface of things and nothing more. He understood as much and let them believe what they chose to believe.

As a teacher he was different, but effective. Good students liked him, the middling ones were afraid of him. The poorer students avoided his classes. He wasn't a kindly Mr. Chips, and never would be, yet he respected grit and determination, spending long hours with those who had trouble in his classes. And he reserved a special disdain for the talented ones who lazed through their student years.

"Do what he asks and you're okay, dead meat otherwise," the graduate students said. "He walks around barefoot in the classroom sometimes, but he knows what he's talking about."

The undergraduates wrote good things and bad things on his evaluations:

"Tests are too hard. Needs to understand young kids and parental pressure better."

"He's a little scary but gives me a lot of help outside the classroom. This is a hard course."

"His ideas have caused me to reevaluate my life."

"Seems arrogant at times, self-centered. Nobody can be as smart as he seems."

"I liked his aproach [sic]."

"Needs a haircut and sometimes takes the Lord's name in vain."

"Good in class but never seems to be around except for his office hours. I'm working at K-mart to pay off my Camarro and my schedule doesn't fit with his."

"Knows his stuff but lives in another world."

"Great teacher. One of the two best I've had."

Michael had come out of graduate school on the run. The twenty-six articles on his resume got him tenure in 1970 and a full professorship in 1978, a week before his fortieth birthday. After that he raised his head and began looking around, trying to get the magic back. People still called and asked what he was doing on this or that subject.

"Nothing," he'd tell them. "On to other things."

"Like what?" they'd ask.

He kept it vague, enigmatic, matching the drift of his own mind. "I'm fooling around with Jeremy Bentham's early work on the pleasure-pain calculus and its applications to problems of contemporary democracy."

That stopped them. There'd be a moment of silence down the long lines of Mother Bell. Then. "I see. Too bad you didn't keep working on the earlier material; I thought you were on to something with that."

6. List all the things, good or bad, that happened to the protagonist, Michael Tillman, during his years as a university lecturer. Pay special attention to the language the author uses. Explain what lies behind the veil of fine words. One example has been given to you.

· soaring thoughts of becoming a scholar and a teacher = the character had high expectations of his future job as a teacher, and wanted to get the best of the two worlds – one of teaching someone and the other of learning more of the subject and becoming a scholar with a world class reputation.

· the highest calling =

· a Nobel Prize out there =

7. “Do what he asks and you’re okay, dead meat otherwise”. That’s what some graduate students used to say about Professor Tillman. Would you like to be spoken about like that – by your students? Why (not)? Another question is whether such a phrase can/should be expected in relation to a school teacher.

8. Practice reflection on your own teaching. Imagine what your future students might write about your teaching style/behavior/approach. Write 3-5 short responses and explain their message. Don’t use your real name when writing.

9. In your group, play a little game. Collect student responses and draw some out of this pool. Read them out one by one and guess who the teacher might be. Evaluate the quality of evaluation. Choose the one that captures the young teacher’s personality in the best possible way.

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