I never had the dream where you stand in front of a class naked, although I have dreamt that I’ve taught class in a slip and in a nightgown. Neither of these dreams counted as nightmares, however, because both the slip and the nightgown were very flattering and, while rather sexy, were in no way less appropriate than what my adorable students wore to their proms.
But I do have a recurring nightmare about teaching. I had a version of it the other night.
The teaching nightmare goes something like this: I’m going to be late to class. The class I’m supposed to teach is being held in another building, and the weather is terrible—just rotten. Sleet, wind, rain, snow, inches of mud, and I think I’m supposed to ride a bicycle across campus. The campus doesn’t resemble UConn, where I’ve taught for the last 23 years, by the way, but instead looks either like Dartmouth, where I was an undergraduate, or like Cambridge, where I was a grad student.
I have a feeling that both of these places appear in my nightmare because I associate them with bad weather. While it probably didn’t snow every single day during my time at Dartmouth—after all, I did two summer semesters—and while it couldn’t have rained every day during my time at New Hall—after all, those flowers in the garden wouldn’t have blossomed without some sunshine—it sure felt that way.
Naturally, in the dream I’m wholly unprepared to teach the class. I don’t even have a copy of the book, let alone any notes. In this week’s dream, the book I should have with me is Huckleberry Finn.
I’ve never taught Huckleberry Finn. The last time I read it was in college, during one of those summer semesters in Hanover. I don’t think I even re-read it in graduate school. I can only tell you the details of plot now because I looked it up after waking. That’s how nervous I was: I was driven to Wikipedia to look up the plot of a book I was supposed to teach in my dream because I couldn’t recall it offhand.
The feeling in the dream is one of growing panic. At the beginning I’m feeling anxious, but by the end of the dream I’m feeling desperate. I can’t breathe. I’m feeling like I should just stop even attempting to pass myself off as a professional. I feel like I should quit my job. I feel basically like I’ve internalized every crummy thing anybody’s ever thought or said about me. It’s as if the nastiest of people who comment on my blog have taken over my brain and are setting up tents.
In the dream I keep thinking, “This time it’s not a dream. This time it’s real.” And I have even had, sadly enough, a commenter in the dream point out to me that my thinking it’s a dream within a dream is so clichéd that even in my dreams I lack originality and finesse, berating me for my pedestrian unconscious and limited imagination. (This form one of the guys in the tents.)
In an attempt to convince myself, once again, that I’m not alone in my nuttiness, I’ve started to ask other colleagues about their nightmares. Theirs are worse than mine, which confirms that I’m unoriginal, of course.
True, most of their nightmares involved various versions of being unprepared. Often, they were partially dressed, and several dared to go wilder than I and show up naked. One friend had to teach his class in a foreign language; another had to dance while she taught, which made it tough to write on the board.
Five or six people brought up a whole other set of nightmares involving an inability to control the class—that’s one I’ve had, too, and it’s a doozie. You know this one: The students refuse to sit down, refuse to take the test, start yelling obscenities, throw objects at the front of the room, laugh at you, or simply won’t stop talking.
In these nightmares the students realize something that we usually hope they’ll ignore, which is that without their willingness to learn, it is impossible for us to teach.
Yet, as I said, these are pretty pedestrian. Are yours any more interesting? What’s the most compelling nightmare you’ve ever had about teaching?
14 Responses to What’s Your Teaching Nightmare?
drtoc - July 9, 2010 at 10:52 am
Gina,what a coincidence! I was a student in that class, and I had thought this was my physics final. Imagine my dismay when I found the test was on Huckleberry Finn. I had never even read that book, and the classroom didn’t look even vaguely familiar. Why was I wearing a bathing suit? I suppose that dreams may serve to remind us that even on our bad days things could be worse.
anniepajamie - July 9, 2010 at 11:39 am
Dear Gina, After going to 6 schools by the time I finished first grade, and moving a few times after that, too, I’ll ALWAYS be the lost/late student in my dreams. But, I learned a lucid dreaming trick & it’s really pretty cool: if you can look at your hands, you can take control (or semi-control) of your dream! I think this is why we all seem to like to drive & fly in our dreams- they are empowering! So, next time you find yourself hussling off to class & feeling dream-like, hold that book you’re supposed to teach up in front of you with both hands, and tell yourself something positive! After a few increasingly successful tries, you’ll find the dreams taking whole new directions. I found myself standing up to a teacher who was insisting I read from a textbook in a language I didn’t know…”Listen, Lady! I’m here because I WANT to be! I WANT to learn! You need to help me out here- I DON’T have to take this crap- I’m MARRIED!” When I woke up I laughed ’til I almost wet myself- the married line was just so indignant & funny to me! (If you knew my ex’, you’d laugh, too…) …and speaking of the ex’: I once dreamed that someone else “morphed” into him, so I rightiously pointed a finger at him (thereby seeing my hand) and sent him from the room saying”Oh, no, you DON’T! Now, go on out there, and come back the right way!” AND he DID!! Best of Luck dreaming dreams you’d like to have come true!
rachelgnj - July 9, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Teaching a memoir writing workshop in a womens prison my nightmares were probably similar to the shenanigans of an episode of the prison show “Oz”!
leejacobus - July 9, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Yes, I have had most of these nightmare style dreams. Mine always seem to involve rushing off to an examination for a course whose classes I never attended and with a textbook, often mathematics, that I never read. And my future hangs in the balance. Apparently this is a common dream. However, I have been having another nightmarish dream in which I am told by my department head that because of a strange technicality in the way in which I was originally hired — apparently involving a federal grant that was now, after 30 years or so, rescinded — I was no longer a faculty member and that I had to return to the tiny college I once taught in, or else leave the profession penniless. It was not a good choice. But it’s obvious that anxiety of one kind or another is central to most of us in this profession. And the painful thing is that it lasts even into retirement.
pamkatz - July 9, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I dream that I have to teach “Moby Dick”–a book I’ve never read. It’s always MOBY DICK–which seems irritatingly unoriginal given the sea themes of most ordinary dreams. Perhaps, since I don’t teach literature, it IS someone else’s dream mistakenly given to me?If anyone would like to trade with me, I’d be happy to “take control” of my dreams and give this one away–cheap. I’d even take half a dream in exchange? Just make it anything but MOBY DICK, please.
performance_expert2 - July 9, 2010 at 6:25 pm
As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head, — that is, pull straight up to his forehead, — a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all the time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. –Chapter 134 (The Chase — Second Day)
sarite - July 10, 2010 at 3:40 am
Since I’m somewhat of a worrier–not to be mistaken with its homophone, “warrior,”–most of my nightmares actually occur while awake. My cuticles are proof of this. “Why do I need to learn?” my student earnestly asked me. “I’m jsut going to get married and have babies.” She had a good point. She was nine after all–just ten years away from her religious community’s ideal time for tying the knot. Personally, I felt like a noose was being tightened around my neck as I labored for a quick but nonetheless brilliant retort that would change her life forever. I could just see it. She would exit my classroom somewhat dazed and dazzled by this newfound information, realizing that her whole life was ahead of her, that she could be anything, do anything, and she would grow up to preach these beliefs to the other young women in her community, and they too would rise up from their sewing or put down their ladles, and gather in the streets, chanting, “We don’t have to get married until we know who we are and have found someone who respects our minds. But first we’re going to college!” As a new teacher at the school, I felt it best to consult with a veteran. “What should I say?” I implored. “women have as much right to learn and work? That she has choices? That education is a major value in her community?” I smiled smugly at this last one, sure that my more experienced and pious colleague would be impressed with my newfound knowledge and ability to apply it, a highly valued ability when you’re on the frontlines of educating our future leaders. “Tell her that she needs to learn so that she can teach her sons.” I emerged from her office and stood there a full minute before I remembered to pick up my students from recess. I hurried off down the hall, knowing immediately that my manicure would be ruined.
11182967 - July 12, 2010 at 9:47 am
I taught full-time for 20 years, but I’ve now been in one or another full-time administrative postion for another 20 years. I never had the graduate student dream about a test printed in hieroglyphics, nor have I had an administrator dream, exactly. In my recurring dream I am in some kind of non-supervisory administrative postion at a university (probably inspired by my three years as a writer for a unviersity president) at an unidentifiable university. Part of my position requires me to teach one class a semester, but I have never been to that class. It is near the end of the semester and I am trying to locate the class in order to meet the students and figure out some way to cover for the fact that I haven’t been there all semester. Somtetimes I can’t locate the class on the schedule to find out where and when it is; sometimes I identify the room and time but cannot find the building or the room once I’m in the building; sometimes I find the class but only a few of what should be many students are there. A few times, I’ve begun to lecture, but then the dream skips to some point after the end of the semester when I discover that, somehow, no one seems to have noticed that I didn’t teach the class or assign grades–and I still have my job. That’s the point where I usually to wake up.The best senior dream I recall hearing about was related to me by a former student who dreamed shortly before graduation that she was walking through the line when the registrar stopped her and said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Johnson, but we’ve reevaluated your transcript and determined that you are one hour short of graduation.” She reaches into the sleeve of her gown, pulls out a revolver, and shoots him dead.
rinasahay - July 12, 2010 at 10:49 am
My teaching-class-in-the-nude nightmare has a twist – in the process, I receive a note that tells me that I am still one course of graduating my Master’s / Bachelor’s / High School – depending on the vagaries of the nightmare gods!!
rachaelski - July 12, 2010 at 11:54 am
Since college, I’ve had the same nightmare–I didn’t graduate from high school. Somehow, I managed to trick “them” and get a bachelor’s and 2 master’s degrees, and the day I am to walk across the stage to get my doctorate, my high school counselor comes running into the building with a transcript in her hand…
walrus - July 12, 2010 at 12:15 pm
My nightmare also centers around being unprepared, but it’s also the sense that everyone already knows what I have to teach. So not only am I teaching common sense but I’m underprepared.I don’t get these classroom nightmares too much because one of my professors actually lived one that was worse than anything I can dream up. On the morning of the last day of class he apparently sat himself down and got royally drunk. He got to the class building, but couldn’t remember where our classroom was. As he was wandering the halls he urinated on himself. A couple of my classmates found him and brought him to class. He lit up a cigarette and started using someone’s Coke as an ashtray. Then he broke down and started sobbing about how he was going to miss the class.
jabberwocky12 - July 12, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Well, now I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had the “totally unprepared” nightmare.For “pamkatz” – I think you’re fortunate, because there is a fairly simple solution to your problem – The next chance you get, read Moby Dick. (If you want to go further, even prepare a lesson). The next time you have that dream, you’ll know you can handle it. Just walk in and teach. (Unless of course, your subsconscious gets mean and introduces a new novel).
deliajones - July 12, 2010 at 2:30 pm
I’ve had this dream at the start of every semester for about ten years. I’m in my office on the first day of classes and the President calls me. “I’m sorry there aren’t enough English classes for you to teach,” he says, “so for you to stay you’ll have to teach three math classes and one English. I’ll have someone bring the textbooks right up to your office.” I wait in terror. I could probaly manage one of the “developmental classes” with a lot of prep time, I think, terrified. But then the books arrive: Calculus with Analytic Trigometry, Calculus II, and Statistics. I never even TOOK any of these classes, although I did a very gentle statistics course as part of my Master’s. I know mathematics professors don’t like to hear about self-perpetuating math phobias, but I always wake from this dream in a state of panic.
margray - July 12, 2010 at 7:10 pm
I had one where I came back after a summer off to discover that our college had merged with another one. Everyone’s offices were in boxes in preparation to move elsewhere, the date classes were to start had changed to that day, and discrete subjects were no longer to be taught so instead of the math I usually teach, I was to teach cars, that is, everything about them from the invention of cars to design, laws pertaining to, consumer attitudes about, impact on the environment, impact on society, and so on, plus 6 other classes of the same type but different subjects. And these classes were starting right away in another location, to which I arrived late, lost, rattled, and completely unprepared. There were no text books, of course, and we had new administrators who would spend this first week evaluating whether we were going to remain as faculty in this new arrangement.When I woke up, I checked my retirement to see if I could retire quickly, if need be.