The best class I ever taught

Every class is the best class I’ve ever had, and every class is different. Some are larger, some more talkative. Some show us their inspirations and enlightenments right there – as they happen. Some ponder quietly and it’s only later – sometimes semesters later – that people come back to tell me what happened. “Yours was the first class on my way to a law degree.” “I still remember that story we read.”

In December or spring, we leave our students – or they leave us. They’ve finished the semester. Sometimes we’re relieved, but more often we’re melancholy. By now, the classes are so much more than a roster of names.

One of the best classes was the semester I taught Women’s Lit to a group of extroverts. Nobody was afraid to share any topic, no matter how sensitive; and everyone had an opinion, no matter what the topic. They enlightened each other – usually at the tops of their voices. They used the text readings as lawyers search for support from court decisions. They began the semester despising someone else in the class, and ended it being friends – or the opposite.

We heard stories: how Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and life collided; the influence of art and nationality on learning; how thick-headed Slavic men could be; how irrelevant gender was to attitude: the hundred opinions and experiences that made these people who they were. As they came to know and trust their classmates, they shared revelations and past pain, incredulity, and ignorance – which their classmates were happy to resolve. Should this one leave the husband she married so quickly and so much in love? What would Nick and Andre battle this week, in their science-religion war? We argued. We created a class identity, and we also created our own vocabulary.

Charlotte, with two young sons, described how a mom can become immersed in being a mom. “You lose yourself. You don’t want to, “ looking at her classmates who were not above pouncing on opinions before they were finished, “but you just get so involved in what your children need. You – you go to the left.” She wasn’t talking about political leanings; she was talking about motherhood, and for the rest of the semester, every time we talked about a mother who over-mothered, we would say in chorus, “She went too far to the left,” and guffaw in unison. Nick told us about his favorite scientist, explaining and supporting before he revealed the name. “Why did you look at me that way?” he demanded when he had finished. “Because Feynman’s also mine,” I answered. “I’ll bring in my Feynman books next week.”

We began the semester with loud arguments, in pursuit of 3 credits and a minority studies requirement. We finished the semester and went on our paths: law school, hospital operating rooms, nursing studies, the MA in business, life. When we reached summer, more than a few of us thought, ‘This was one of the best classes I have ever had.’ I was one of them.