Although I fumbled in my first days as a teaching assistant at Elite National University, I had high expectations for the graduate classes I took. The professors at my alma mater, Flyover College, had been reasonably good, so I assumed that faculty members at a well-known university would be outstanding. In fact, I expected them to be benevolent geniuses eager to reveal to their apprentices the passwords and secret handshakes of literary studies.
A professor's response to my first graduate paper revealed that benevolent geniuses do not share their passwords and handshakes readily. That first paper was an interpretation of The Sound and the Fury for a "20th-Century American Novels" course taught by "Dr. Jason." When I got the paper back, I saw that the grade was a B+ and the comment a single sentence: "You argue well within your own limited means."
What did that mean? It looked like a polite way of saying, "You're not thoroughly stupid, but you don't belong in grad school."
I showed the comment to "Marcus," a more-experienced doctoral student in the program. Marcus smiled: "Coming from Dr. Jason, that's a compliment. Ask him what it means."
Asking Dr. Jason sounded like good advice, especially since he was my adviser, so I went to his office and asked. He growled, "A talented undergrad could've written that paper. Do something at the graduate level next time." At that point, he dismissed me.
Because Dr. Jason never explained what "graduate level" meant or how a person might reach it, I assumed that he expected me to improve my performance through intuition. To be fair, he did at least point me in the right direction, and not all professors managed to do even that. The most interesting case of cloudy communication involved a Renaissance specialist, "Dr. Benjamin." A jolly little man, he spent class periods scampering about, chattering, chuckling, and chalking words and arrows on the board. He had his own theory about literature, a big, big theory, and he applied it with hyperactive glee. Every once in a while, he halted and exclaimed, "That's what's going on!"
I'd write in my notes, "That's what's going on." But what?
One day, while moping in the cafeteria with several of my fellow students, I asked, "Does anyone understand Dr. Benjamin's lectures?"
"No."
"Nope."
"No idea."
"What should we do?" I asked.
"Lucy," a brave young woman with glasses that looked like welding goggles, said, "I'll ask him to explain his theory."
At the beginning of a session devoted to Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Lucy asked, "Could you please explain your methodology?"
"Of course." Dr. Benjamin beamed. "The Faerie Queene works just like King Kong." The good doctor explained that over the weekend he'd watched the 1933 film about the giant ape and realized that it called out for his interpretive talents. He scattered words such as "ape," "island," "boat," "skyscraper," and "blonde" across the board. Then, drawing arrows and squiggles, he shot into supersonic lecture mode. Toward the end of his monologue he made gestures toward Spenser's poem. At the conclusion of the period, Dr. Benjamin announced, "So you see, you can use the same methodology to interpret King Kong and Spenser's epic."
I made not one connection between the two, nor could I duplicate Dr. Benjamin's methodology. After class I went to his office and found him fidgeting with papers and paperweights.
"I want to write a paper about The Faerie Queene," I said.
"Wonderful," exclaimed Dr. Benjamin. "What do you want to explore?"
Since Dr. Benjamin liked King Kong, I chose the closest thing to a giant ape that Spenser offered. "The dragon."
"Terrific!" Flailing his arms joyously, Dr. Benjamin proceeded to draw and quarter Spenser's dragon. I found his exuberance contagious, but not enlightening. I nodded a lot and pretended to take notes.
After a time, his battery ran down. I thanked him and left.
I ran my experience past my fellow grad students, who abandoned all hope of passing the seminar. I knew, however, that Marcus had dealt with the hyperactive professor the previous semester, so I said, "I'll ask Marcus to show us the paper he wrote for Benjamin."
Marcus gladly produced the passing paper. I expected a document that bounced around like a hamster on drugs, but the paper simply plodded through a series of sources and then offered Marcus's own interpretation of one of Donne's sonnets. The only thing that made me frown was Dr. Benjamin's comment at the end. When I graded papers as a teaching assistant, I made two or three suggestions about how the student could do better, so I imagined that the restless Dr. Benjamin would comment on every paragraph, perhaps every sentence. But on the very last page of Marcus's work, in tiny blue scribble, sat only one word: "Excellent!" The grade: A.
I handed in a straightforward analysis of Spenser's dragon. When Dr. Benjamin returned the paper, I smiled at what he had written on the final page: "Not Bad!" The grade: A-.
Although no grad student could comprehend Dr. Benjamin, I was all alone in misunderstanding another professor, "Dr. Quentin," who taught a "British Novels" seminar. On the first day of a session devoted to Joyce's Ulysses, Dr. Quentin began by saying, "Describe your reading experience. Please feel free to tell me what it was really like."
"I felt in awe," said Marcus, who sat at Dr. Quentin's immediate left. "Joyce is such a genius. His mastery of language and craft is unsurpassed."
"The best novel I've ever read," said Lucy. Her comment struck me as odd, because in the cafeteria earlier that day she'd called reading Ulysses her worst experience ever.
And so it went.
I didn't doubt Joyce's genius, but the comments of my colleagues annoyed me. Dr. Quentin had asked us to discuss our reading experience, not dance like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. I assumed he wanted a serious discussion of the challenges that the novel poses for the first-time reader, so I said, "Joyce is clearly brilliant, but if we are discussing the reading experience itself, I didn't enjoy Ulysses at all."
Dr. Quentin's mouth fell open. So did the mouths of all 11 of my fellow graduate students. No one made a sound until Marcus said, "Henry, I don't know quite know how to interpret your statement."
Marcus was tossing me a life preserver, but I swam farther out to sea. Since Dr. Benjamin had used King Kong to explain The Faerie Queene, I assumed I could do something similar. "If I had to choose between rereading Ulysses or Tarzan of the Apes, I'd go for Tarzan."
Excruciatingly calmly, Dr. Quentin said, "You and I will talk after class."
The rest of that session involved unrestrained cheering from the others and disgusted silence from me.
After class, when every other student had left the room, Dr. Quentin told me about his love for Joyce's work and revealed that he had written his dissertation on Ulysses. He finished by saying, "As a reader, you are certainly entitled to your personal response. In the professional study of literature, however, there exist certain standards and customs that must be observed. You need to develop an informed opinion before you express yourself."
In other words, in graduate school, students should lie to their professors.
Dr. Quentin's advice didn't startle me. In my undergrad days at Flyover College, I'd learned that the surest way to an A was to absorb whatever the professor thought and give it right back in class discussions, essay tests, and term papers. When an instructor said, "Tell me what you really think," that phrase meant, "Tell me that you agree with me." The more fervently the person holding the grade book insisted on getting my opinion, the more desperately that professor needed his or her own ideas parroted right back. Following the parrot principle earned me many an A on the way to my B.A., but for some reason, that day in the "British Novels" class, I assumed that a graduate seminar worked differently from an undergraduate one, so I gave Dr. Quentin the answer he asked for, not the one he wanted.
That incident with Dr. Quentin made me realize that I was a victim of an academic bait-and-switch, just like the freshmen I was teaching in first-year composition courses. They came to Elite National University assuming they'd be taught by professors, but they got me instead, just as I came to the university expecting professors to reveal passwords and secret handshakes but ended up with a man who expected me to intuit skills, a man who inhabited his own world, and a man who asked to be lied to.
When it came time to write a paper for Dr. Quentin, I should have raved about Joyce's novel, but instead I went for The Way of All Flesh. I recalled comments that Dr. Quentin made in class about Samuel Butler's contempt for social hypocrisy, and I crafted an interpretation that simply elaborated on the professor's opinion. When I got the paper back, I flipped to the end and saw Dr. Quentin's only comment: "Good job!" The grade: A.
Perhaps Dr. Quentin had revealed the passwords and secret handshakes after all.
Comments
1. gmd1057 - October 27, 2009 at 09:42 am
I found it very liberating, in grad school, to realize that regular professors were not really any smarter than other basically idea-focused people. That was more than worth the price of admission.
2. notdoc - October 27, 2009 at 10:58 am
Very encouraging for those of us interested in grad school. I'm glad it'll be worth it.
3. gmd1057 - October 27, 2009 at 11:20 am
yvw
4. thundering_ - October 27, 2009 at 12:44 pm
It is ironic that this is the experience of the paying customer, while the service providers scramble to regain 'peer-review' control of an eroding tenure track.
5. d_f_b - October 27, 2009 at 02:00 pm
What I want to know is whether "Henry Adams" continues this process for his students, or whether he's willing to entertain (and, perhaps more importantly, give high grades to) readings and opinions he vehemently disagrees with.
6. john_drake - October 27, 2009 at 04:12 pm
This guy's experiences ring true. Many of the profs I had in grad school were buffoons.
7. prissi - October 27, 2009 at 04:39 pm
The section about Joyce and Ulysses resonates if you have read South of Broad by Pat Conroy. And if you haven't, at least read the first few chapters. How would you like to have a mother who did her dissertation on the novel? Probably worse than having a professor who did the same!
8. cowellcollege - October 27, 2009 at 06:11 pm
My experience in graduate school was totally unlike that of "Henry Adams." For me, it was a period of intense work, discovery, fear of failing, and deep rewards in intellectual growth. The best of my professors were role models who taught me what it meant to study seriously and professionally, rather than for one's own edification (which is also a worthy pursuit, but becoming a scholar is different.) It saddens me to think that someone as cynical and bitter as "Henry Adams" teaches students today, graduate or undergraduate. And it angers me that the Chronicle of Higher Education lately favors such anti-intellectual writing.
9. john_drake - October 27, 2009 at 07:35 pm
Would you have the Chronicle of Higher Education print only pieces that glorify the profession? Would you have the Chronicle pretend that everything that goes on in academia is ideal? Wouldn't that be as pathetic as the grad students who told the prof that they loved Ulysses when they didn't?
10. gmd1057 - October 27, 2009 at 09:21 pm
Face reality, cowell. There are a lot of not especially thoughtful, articulate, or insightful professors out there, and owing to variuos combinations of circumstances some will be encountered by grad students at major universities. One of the central points of Ulysses is that people that are generally seen elite are not always smarter or better than people generally seen as mediocre. (Full disclosure: I've published peer-reviewed work on Ulysses. But that doesn't mean I can't admit that there are professors who seem to rely on evoking its reputation, instead of bringing out for student, through solid analysis, its worthwhile points.)
11. septentriones - October 28, 2009 at 12:54 am
My first semester in grad school, I took a graduate seminar with the chair of the department. The grade was based almost entirely on an end-of-semester paper and presentation. I was careful to get my topic pre-approved and to use all the sources the professor recommended. I spent the whole semester writing the perfect paper: deep research, sourced within an inch of its life, proofread until there wasn't a comma out of place. I gave a two-hour presentation without notes and received a standing ovation from the rest of the seminar--including one of my other instructors, who shook my hand and told me he could see he would be working for me some day. When the paper came back, it was essentially unmarked except for a comment at the end--something about how my topic (which, remember, the professor had pre-approved) was not germane to the subject matter of the class. Grade: D.
12. gmd1057 - October 28, 2009 at 11:53 am
septentriones -- The truly mediocre are the people who are, in practice, the people most concerned to use any lever they have (for example, of absolute grading authority) to maintain or extend their power or status by harming others unfairly -- as opposed to the morally positive and in fact good-for-everyone method of competing by building a better mousetrap or actually accomplishing something.
He was jealous, and felt better when he "put you in your place" and "showed you who was boss."
The issue mentioned in the first paragraph is at the heart of a whole lot of "academic politics".
13. john_drake - October 28, 2009 at 01:55 pm
"The truly mediocre are the people who are, in practice, the people most concerned to use any lever they have (for example, of absolute grading authority) to maintain or extend their power or status by harming others unfairly"
That sounds like a description of all too many of the profs I knew in grad school.
14. bajan - October 29, 2009 at 01:27 am
I had a professor in grad school whose stated agenda (he actually said it) was to "humble" his students. He did this by creating tests that were extremely difficult to answer satisfactorily, much less get a decent grade on. Another professor at this prestigious institution graded presentations by putting a dot next to the student's name on his roll sheet. The final assignment was to write an essay, which was not returned and thus you never found out what grade, precisely, you got for it. Your course grade was then mysteriously arrived at subject to his whim. On the other hand, for my doctoral degree, when I attended a less prestigious university, I received detailed feedback on my essays from professors who were genuinely interested in my academic progress.
15. amnirov - October 30, 2009 at 10:02 am
It sort of sounds, and I don't want to seem unkind, like you were a bad fit for graduate school. Never once did you consider that you weren't getting it because you simply weren't getting it? And anyone who would rather read Tarzan than Joyce is perhaps beyond redemption.
16. bajan - October 31, 2009 at 01:37 am
Beyond redemption? Does that mean someone who would prefer to read Tarzan rather than Joyce is less intelligent? Popular literature is also read in graduate school, all of which is more comprehensible and accessible than some of the esoteric and unnecessarily dense reading with "passwords and secret handshakes."
17. bochierd - October 31, 2009 at 02:03 pm
I didn't attend elite university for my literature degree. But my advisors for my MA, while not at elite u, were top notch in their field, and what's even better were not the "repeat what I say" sort. In fact, both of my MA mentors were men who were rather hard on the "repeat after me" sort and appreciated a true demonstration of skills that they were seeking to inculcate. Because I don't come from elite u, I'm having some difficulty on the market competing against those who do; but I know I have a much better grounding in my specialty because of my MA mentors. PhD director pretty much left me to my own devices, knowing who I studied under for my MA, and as a result I have a pretty good dissertation that doesn't just ape the field. As I say, I was fortunate.
18. austinandie - October 31, 2009 at 10:44 pm
This should not demean the good and noteworthy professors who are out there and do explain and actually do teach not just the topic but model the pedagogy that connects. I do agree to some extent and found that while many professors have great content knowledge, they lack the ways in which they can teach it. In addition, some lack the technology for new and emerging methods of teaching.
Unfortunately, from the comments here, it appears that some may have entered the field to support their ego rather than teach or further the field.
Let's hope that some sof those who have commented here, get their degrees and are able to combine the content with the pedagogy to reach more students. It is up to us to see what is wrong with education and change it.
19. k_zinger - November 01, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I find some of the comments the author expressed surprisingly childish, undergraduate in nature. I'll start with the professor who had a theory which the seminar did not understand. The presumably graduate students sat through class after class without serious attempt at comprehension which is puzzling. They finally asked, did not get it and went on whining! Fellows, the professor surely did publish something on that theory, no? Somebody else did, perhaps? Develop some research skills here, read up, see him more after class! This is a clear example of what professor #1 commented on - lack of depth.
I am also puzzled by the "paying customer" comments some of my presumably colleagues made. These are not *customers*. We are not in business of selling pies! These are *clients*, who bear the responsibility for their education.
The professor who wanted to be lied to... well that's a different story, this sort of narrow-mindedness and vanity do not belong in academia.
Then again, maybe it's different in the Languages.
20. nassa - November 01, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I am grateful for the last comment from k_zinger about the importance of initiative in graduate school. Much of incomprehension and "secret codes" to learning comes from basic lack of initiative and a consumerist attitude to intellectual life. I paid the fees, hence show me the way! Nothing can be further from the truth. I forget the name of an educational theorist who says that education is impossible to impart, it is an essentially lonely process. Education is above all self-education. Professors who are worthy of their salt, and in this hiring climate very few are not, instinctively know that and feel it in their students. If you are someone looking in from the shop window and asking to "show you the way", you do not understand how knowledge is "done". It is done by meditation, by solitude, by burying yourself in other people's books and articles, by seclusion, and through painful confusion and "madness" of sorts. It cannot be served, it is esoteric. Hence professors have an easy rapport with those who have the innate sense of how to study and grow knowledge. And vice versa, they find it amusing when people would go to the extent of enrolling in and paying for costly PhDs or MAs without as much as asking themselves do they have what it takes. I was one of those students. I knew I wanted to know more, but I didn't know how to learn. I spent several years in grad school frustrated with my supervisors, only to thank them for their aloofness, when I finally got the handle at the end of the 5 years PhD. You cannot teach someone how to do those things - they need to discover it themselves.
21. john_drake - November 02, 2009 at 12:19 pm
nassa,
You think it good that professors are amused by their students who don't get it on their own? That sounds like sadism. You are thankful that your professors let you flounder for five years? FIVE YEARS? That sounds like masochism. Grad students certainly aren't customers, but that doesn't mean that grad school should be based on s&m principles, as your comment seems to indicate.
22. juillet - November 17, 2009 at 09:17 pm
"If you are someone looking in from the shop window and asking to "show you the way", you do not understand how knowledge is "done". It is done by meditation, by solitude, by burying yourself in other people's books and articles, by seclusion, and through painful confusion and "madness" of sorts. It cannot be served, it is esoteric."
This is...not true at all. Knowledge is built by collaborative work. If knowledge was done by solitude and meditation people certainly shouldn't have to spend 5-10 years working on a PhD, including 2-3 years of coursework and mentoring by others. We could just go read everything in the university library. There is confusion involved in the learning process, but what is really important is good mentorship and good teaching. Yes, every scholar has to learn that individual drive and merit is a big part of the process, but it shouldn't be an isolated endeavor. This is the kind of attitude that is killing academia. Frankly, it only serves the professors who would rather spend their time ensconced in their offices writing their next book than interacting with students and educating them and turning out new scholars in the field. Education is generative.