The Choice: Intellectual, Not Academic

I'm still thinking about the conversation I had last night with the "invisible man."  He said it was one of the most intelligent conversations he's had in a long time, and he is about my age.  He is certainly a very intelligent person who, lately, has had to answer a lot of questions for himself.  That's the key, I think:  He's had to answer them for himself.  No one else could have given him the answers he found for himself; without aggrandizing myself, I can say I understand what an excruciating process that can be.  I am lucky in that sometimes it has been exhiliarating, or at least a relief, to have come up with the answers I've found, or at least to have found my own way, wherever it might lead.


Now I am starting to understand why, although I often enjoy teaching, I find myself hating the academic world and, even more, its institutions.  I can say, in all honesty, that every year I have taught has left me hating the military/industrial/educational complex even more than I did the year before.  And, during the past few years, I wondered how in the world anybody could want to become a gender studies professor--or, for that matter, a professor in almost any area called "studies."   


What I am realizing is this: I had assumed that I could never fit into the academic world because I'm not an intellectual.  At least, I was loath to call myself one.  Isn't that ironic?  For so long, I was completely unwilling to acknowledge that in my heart of hearts, I am not a straight male.  Actually, I didn't have to acknowlege or indulge it; it was simply a fact of my life, just as the sun rising and setting are facts of this world.  And how foolish would anyone look in denying them?


Now I realize that, in some way, I had no other choice but to be an intellectual.  I can no more deny or suppress that than I could my femaleness.  All of us, even those of us who have been considered "stupid" or otherwise "less than," have had to think our way through some situation or another when our physical abilities, no matter how great they were, would not have been enough--or simply would have been useless or unusable.  When your body fails, or is just inadequate, you have no have no choice but to become a creature, and creation, of your mind.


That is not the same as living in your head.  That is what many in the academic world do.  That is why there are so many petty, pointless arguments in meetings of almost any department or office you can think of.  There is seldom any discussion or even fighting about actual ideas.  The latter is something you do when you are really looking for answers; you fight over procedures and "stuff" to score points, which can feed only your ego rather than your mind.  That's just as dangerous as eating Twinkies when your body is crying out for vegetables and fruit.


In other words, when your life depends on it, you're looking for answers.  Whether or not you find them, the search will keep you going.  The problem with that is that when you're doing something because your life depends on it, those who don't have that sense of urgency and peril can't understand why you're thinking and testing everything they say.  


Now I understand why I have never wanted this site, or anything else I write, to be academic.  It's exactly the same reason why I hope I will challenge, or at least stimulate, people mentally.  And most important of all, I want to continue learning. 


 Really, I have no other choice.  I can no more pretend that I can live in a non-intellectual way than I could pretend that I could live as a man.

Evaluation: Moving Forward

My workday started and ended with evaluations. First I was evaluated by someone who was probably born about the time I started my undergraduate education and has a higher rank than mine. And, at the end of the day, I evaluated someone I'd never before met.

Next week, I'll find out the results of the evaluation that was done on me. No matter how often I'm evaluated or how good an instructor I become, I think I'll always worry about the evaluations. Everyone tells me not to. But they didn't know me when a vindictive (over what, I'll never know) prof at another school wrote, by far, the worst evaluation I've ever had. The thing about being an English prof is that there are no statistics you can invoke to support your contention that your evaluator was biased. And, if you say that the evaluator had it in for you, the powers-that-be tag you with all sorts of labels, none of them flattering.

Whatever comes of it, I feel good about the class. They are a very good bunch of students, and I very much enjoy working with them--not only because they make me look good! And I can honestly say that I'm doing the best I can by them.

As for the evaluator: I hope I didn't seem resentful of her. She did what you're "supposed" to do in the academic world: Go to school from the time you're four until, oh, about thirty. And she got a PhD with a specialty that the college and department were looking for at the time they hired her. Whether she did those things by design or not, they worked. Plus, she's smart and a seemingly decent person.

In other words, her path--at least professionally--bears almost no resemblance to mine. Probably the only point of intersection between our trajectories is one of the schools each of us attended: She earned her PhD where I completed my B.A. But while she went "straight through" school, I spent more than a decade doing other things between the time I finished my bachelor's and started my master's. And I left the academic world for three years when I was with Tammy.

During the class, I didn't think of the evaluation as a "first." Of course, I had one good reason not to: I've been evaluated a number of times before. But I felt that I had an energy, or at least a level of energy, to which I am only beginning to acclimate myself. Even after the evaluator left--an hour into the two-hour class session, as is standard--and even after the class ended and the students left, I felt as if I could have continued forever.

The students knew I was there for them. And I knew that I was doing what I did for myself. It became very personal; what we did in that class had everything to do with the life I've led--at least, some aspects of it, anyway--and with them. Why else did they respond, not only as intelligently, but as passionately, as they did?

Sometimes I think I'm not an intellectual because....Well, actually, I never think of myself as an intellectual. Why? Well, the only way I've ever been able to learn anything is to take it personally. I am not someone who can learn "objectively" or dispassionately. That's certainly a reason why I was drawn toward literature, writing, history and language rather than to, say, math or chemistry.

Just as I can only learn something by taking it personally, that is also the only way I can teach it. And I can only reach students through that same sense.

To tell you the truth, I don't want it any other way. It's moving me forward now.