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My Teaching Career – I Barely Remember it!

In 1975, I decided to shorten my PhD thesis by two full chapters—enough, I thought, I have proved that Shelley was ironically undercutting his romantic raptures in the final stanzas of most of his poems. Done, enough, I thought. I don’t need to analyze those last two poems on my outline. What if I just stop here? I brought it in to Dr.Thorslev, my advisor, and he smiled, nodded. You’re right! Write your concluding chapter and I’ll approve it! OMG, weeks (months?) of work avoided. I was very happy. Thus I was headed toward my goal, a job teaching at the college level.


In a few months I was legitimately applying for jobs around the country. But a hitch, so were hundreds of other grad students equally or more qualified than I, and there were about 35 openings, according to the Modern Language Association (MLA). The lucky few, and I was one of them, received invitations to interview in NYC at the yearly MLA convention. I had two appointments one at 10 and one at 11 at two different hotels. The first was Ohio State. I couldn’t really imagine taking my three teenagers to Columbus Ohio, but I dutifully answered all their questions in the hotel room and then ran out the door and down the street to another hotel and answered more questions. It was surreal. All men interviewing me in two different tiny hotel rooms. I didn’t expect to get a job. And I didn’t.


Back home in Santa Monica, I went on with my life as unemployed mom. But as the summer faded and kids started buying fresh notebooks pencils and erasers, I got a call from Dr. Thorslev. One of his former students, also an older woman who managed to get her PhD in her 40s, was now in her early 60s and wanted to take a leave of absence from her job at California Lutheran College. Could I fill in, classes started in 3 weeks. WHAT! I heard myself say, sure. I’d love to step in—could it possibly lead to full time? It might, he said. Wow!


I drove from Santa Monica to Thousand Oaks to meet Ted, the head of the department. We clicked. Done deal. I drove home in a daze. An hour and ten minutes one way. Hmm. Four days a week. Sure, I can do that. I started going over in my mind the course titles.

  • Comparative Lit, short stories by Gogol, Tolstoy, Camus and the like. I had never, during my long years in grad school, taken a single course in European Lit. Oh well.

  • Linguistics101. I pulled a complete blank here too. Oh well.

  • Film. (I could choose any topic). Nada.

  • Freshman English. Aha, I can do that!


One out of four. I found myself saying Oh Well, a lot.


I headed to UCLA to check out their book store for help. I hit pay dirt. Victoria Fromkin was teaching an introductory course, using her own textbook, An Introduction to Language.

Written with clarity and humor, the book even had a chapter on Boont, the language developed by the residents of Booneville CA for privacy purposes. I loved it immediately. AND someone had written up a complete set of class notes from the previous semester. I had all I needed. I typed up a 2 page syllabus.


I was now ok with 2 out of 4 of my courses and I had two weeks to prepare.


It took me a full week to figure out how to order films, what films to order, and what approach to take. This being the 70s, I settled on From Reverence to Rape as my guide (no I didn’t have the students buy it—too risky), but I used it to choose my movies and order them. And also to guide my (flimsy) lectures. I typed up a 2 page syllabus.


Using my predecessor’s text book, I roughly outlined Continental Literature.


I would have to wing it in Freshman English, but at least I had taught it once before for 3 weeks as a teaching assistant at UCLA.


Side note: At no time in my long years in grad school did anyone even mention the art of teaching. One was expected, it seemed, to simply model oneself on one's professors. I think I had one professor in 7 years worth imitating, but I knew well that I couldn't. I remember feeling totally at sea in the classroom, wishing someone had coached me or guided me or at least warned me. Blank faces staring at me, waiting for . . . what? I stumbled and bumbled along. During the 10 years I was teaching, it finally dawned on me that when I was excited about something, a poem, a novel or and idea, the students did follow. But that came so much later.


After a lovely party for the faculty to introduce new members, I felt very welcome (no matter that they were all Lutheran and I was a Jewish lesbian) and drove my hour and ten minutes home happy but terribly nervous. School started Monday.


I don’t remember a thing from that year of teaching outside of dragging huge movie reels to the classroom and threading an old-fashioned machine and praying lot. Oh, and I remember learning much from Victoria Fromkin. I actually taught some things too, I suspect.


But that’s all I remember. I commuted. I had 3 teenagers at home. I was in a new relationship, with a woman, for the first time in my life. My children were not happy with me. But that's another story.


I taught there for 4 years.

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