The Company You Keep

                A shorter blog post as I am revving up as I am revving down. I start teaching for the fall term on Tuesday which means tomorrow, yes all of one day, is my summer vacation. I plan to make the most of it by sleeping in and reading a library book (luxuries rarely present for busy academics).

Maybe it is because a new semester is upon us and I haven’t really stopped since the summer semester ended (less than 2 weeks ago); maybe it is because I am really on the E on my gas tank right now and I definitely need a recharge; maybe it is because I have been spending a lot more time looking at writing and the process of writing in general – but I seem to be finding errors everywhere and I have lost patience with what I see every day. It started with a line in a puzzle book I opened in an attempt take a break. It read: “How many four-sided figures (squares and triangles) are there in the figure below.” What struck me after the initial shock of the ridiculousness of a four-sided triangle, is how though logically flawed, they managed to get the hyphen in the compound adjective correct. The next day I was reading my horoscope and came across this “…just take the lead and others will surley follow.” It was enough to make me surly indeed. 

I know that part of my ire about errors is that I haven’t stopped for a moment this summer and I definitely need extended downtime. But part of it is that I also have this moment, this one shining moment from my undergrad that I will always and forever use as a yardstick to measure potential. In my last year of undergrad I had the pleasure of taking a Renaissance literature class with one of the finest people and professors I have had the honour to meet. Professor Patenall was the kind of professor who could see potential in his students. Even the students who rarely did the readings or had a tendency to skip lecture, would somehow pull up their metaphorical socks in his class. I often wondered why that was, or what it was about him that made us all strive for our best. After much deliberation with classmates whom I am still friends with to this day, we decided it was the combination of students in that class that made it so great. We all worked towards excellence and it in turn made those who often preferred to coast through actually read and study. The D students became C students, the C students became B students, the B students…you get the picture. Part of the class was weekly reading quizzes where he would try to stump us with the most obscure questions imaginable (how many types of trees does the Redcrosse Knight encounter in Canto X and which is the last type he sees?) These were questions that required extreme close reading and comprehension. But we did it. We all did it. We did it because as a community of learners we were stronger than one individual scholar. The company we kept pushed us to be the best. 

Professor Patenall later told me, when we were speaking about grad school options, that my class was by far the strongest class he had ever taught in all his years of teaching. That as a group of 35 or so, we had the highest averages individually and as a class. His class was proof positive that if you surround yourself with smart, insightful, clever individuals the results will be impressive. However, I often wonder about the reverse. I am sure studies have been done demonstrating what happens to a singular over-achiever in a class filled with students very happy to coast through learning and material without putting in extra effort. It is of course part of a mob-like mentality that acculturates norms; if no one else is trying why should I? I don’t want to be singled out as different, so I’ll just blend in. 

On a larger scale, institutions and departments also need to think about this idea of the company they keep. Apathy is easy, energy is hard. If you are in a department where everyone is happy to put in their few hours a week teaching then call it a day, things will be left undone. If you are lucky to be in a department where colleagues support each other, where there is collaboration and a desire to strive to provide the best for students, then work doesn’t feel like work. 

As we start the semester I challenge you all to think about the company you keep. It sometimes takes just one person to start a sea-change and increase modes of collaboration and support within your department or institution.  This is why tomorrow I am taking a day to charge my batteries, because semesters are long and I want to go in there Tuesday with my energy levels at maximum ready to give the 110% that my students deserve. 

Good luck to all!