By Tom Dodge
Dallas, TX – When I retired from teaching seven years ago, I needed rest and time to reflect. I was making the same assignments, using the same tests, quoting the same passages.
Also, after Watergate, I detected a disturbing cynicism among students. Pre-Watergate, in the 1960s and '70s, they were likely to say they were in college to learn and somehow make the world better. After Watergate, though, many of them replaced Albert Schweitzer and Buckminster Fuller as heroes with sports stars and other celebrated trivialities. Donald Trump's name came up a lot, as did Ivan Boesky and Michael Milkin. Too many students told me all they wanted to learn in college was how to make a million dollars. One of the best things about retirement is waking up every morning and saying, "This day belongs to me." One morning I woke up and said, "This day belongs to me - and I'd like to spend it teaching." Actually, I've never stopped teaching. No real teacher ever does.
Like the retired teacher in "Schoolsville," the wonderful poem by Billy Collins, I could often be seen "lecturing the wall paper, quizzing the chandelier, reprimanding the air." More often I could be heard lecturing the checkout girl at the grocery store or the cashier at the restaurant. "That'll be fifteen-nineteen," she might say. "The year Cortez conquered Mexico!" say I.
So, I decided it was time for a comeback. I have just finished my first week at a new college, The University of Texas at Arlington, where I graduated in 1964. As I hurried to my first class, I was overcome by memories - not only of my other first day of teaching many years ago. Suddenly, I saw specters of myself as a young student and my own teachers in this building, in this very classroom. There was the vision of Professor Norton McGiffin, looking like Jimmy Stewart, whispering behind his hand when he wanted to make a salient point. Egal Feldman, my long-departed history teacher, in his horn-rims and trim, three-piece suit, outlining his lecture on the chalkboard. A ghostly C.D. Richards, the glass of finery, lecturing in British history in his tailored suit and bright vest.
My classmates and I were idealistic and were told we were on the verge of a new frontier. What are students like now? I look out and see faces of many colors. The names on my roll reflect many cultures. But this is only superficial. What are their hopes and goals? What do they place store by? Will they appreciate it that I have come to them from the past, transformed and renewed in idealism with bright ideas and new textbooks, to try to guide them into their future?
What is their future? I don't know. But this is what I have learned during my years of reflection: one morning, very soon, they will wake up and they will be living in their future. Whether or not they have a million dollars will pale in importance then, in comparison to the health and safety of their grandchildren, and the hope of living in a land where education is more important than money or fame. Can any teacher, no matter how eager and renewed, ever really hope to teach the value of anything so simple as this?
Tom Dodge is a writer from Midlothian