Old Tim Clark Fine

One of my colleagues at ConVal recently told me that some of her friends had asked her if I was all right. They thought they had sniffed something sour or disappointed in my recent columns.

It reminded me of a story about the late Cary Grant. At one point, a magazine editor wanted to determine his exact age, and sent the actor a telegram: HOW OLD CARY GRANT?

Grant wired back: OLD CARY GRANT FINE.

Old Tim Clark fine. Really. In fact, I couldn't be better. I don't regret leaving Yankee. I'm enjoying my students, enjoying my fellow teachers, enjoying my new career. I could go on, but it would sound sappy.
Worse, it would sound arrogant. During my first year as a teacher, I learned to be wary of what I called in my journal "the sine wave." Entries filled with optimism and pride were invariably followed by entries that read like suicide notes. As I tell my mythology students, excessive pride is always followed by horrific punishment.

Worst of all, it would sound complacent, like I've learned everything I need to learn about this infinitely challenging job, and I haven't.

I don't know, for example, what to do about high school students who can't spell. I can help a good writer to write better, but I don't know how to teach a poor writer to write well. I blush to admit that, in spite of 23 years as an editor, I don't know enough about grammar.

I'm hazy on the retirement system. I don't know which line of my paycheck tells me what I'm making. I don't know what books students ought to read, or what skills they must have to make a living in the 21st century. If I wanted to build a website, I wouldn't know where to start. I still don't know how to use an overhead projector.

I don't know how to teach a class of mixed abilities so that the brightest aren't bored and the slowest aren't overwhelmed. I don't know why some students just don't care about succeeding, and I have no idea how to change their attitude. I don't know what to say to a student who tells me she didn't do her homework because she's sleeping in her car.

The great Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, was walking along a beach with one of his graduate students, who was gushing about how much his teacher knew. Bohr picked up a pebble, showed it to the student, and said, "This is what I know." Then he turned and flung it into the North Sea. "That," he said, pointing to the waves, "is what I don't know."

I have been teaching now for three and a half years, and what I know about it is a pebble. What I don't know is the North Sea.

But I'm fine. Really.