Students who graduate this May will have sat through an average 3,120 hours of lectures, handed in enough papers and exams to satisfy the annual turnover of Staples, drunk their way to the bottom of a keg without any hands, and then sat in the offices of more teachers explaining that their lap-top was stolen and the cat peed on their dissertation and that it wasn't a hangover but the very dangerous, very rampant campus-itis they had heard about. If they are lucky, they will now be able to reduce their resume font from the looming size 18 and still be able to make it look like they have a page worth of achievements.
At the end of it all, these glittering new graduates will turn their back on university life and laugh at the days when the empty packet of Ramen indicated your roommate was cooking something exotic and it was perfectly respectable to wear your pajamas to school. They'll probably thank their parents for coughing up the cash, the fraternity for making them men, and Dos Gringos for providing cheap beer throughout the whole ordeal. I wonder how many of them will remember to thank the people who took them from jibbering freshmen to swarthy seniors and got them on the podium -- the teachers.
We all like to regale friends with the "my professor is a nightmare" story, but we don't often talk so animatedly about the nice ones. The professors who listen when we don't understand, push us when we do and teach from the heart and soul, not just the textbook. We don't talk about the professors who stop the bureaucracy of teaching from darkening their attitudes toward students and still remember why they first walked up to the blackboard all those years ago -- for the passion of their subject.
So when my friend kept using sugarcoated phrases when mentioning a certain professor, I had to go to his class to see what all the fuss was about.
Lynn Nelson teaches ENG 494, "Writing and Being," although it seems to be less "teaching" and more "guiding." As I was sitting bolt upright in my chair awaiting the lecture, my friend gently told me I should be writing in my journal. Lo and behold, there was the entire class curled up in soft silence scratching away at their pages. When it seemed appropriate to do so, Nelson began the class.
For more than an hour, Nelson gave a gripping lecture. He danced on the edges of sensitivity and humor, often making a jester out of himself when he had the occasional brain fart and letting us submerge ourselves in the ebb and flow of professor-student interaction. In the last part of the class, I sat in on readings of the students' work and watched the 'feather-stick' make its way around the room, symbolizing only the author had the right to speak. I felt like he had shredded textbook literacy into tiny pieces and let them scatter in the wind. His class was an empty book, and I was his new disciple with a pen full of ink.
I walked away from the lesson furiously envious of my friend. I had found a golden nugget of a teacher who taught more than just the syllabus. In one evening he had made us delve into the shadowy recesses of our minds, where no textbook dare venture.
Admittedly, his class may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I'm not saying it should be. The point is, I will walk away from my time at this institution and feel like I have learned something beyond what I can surmise from the bookstore. I believe there are numerous teachers who make you feel like you've hit the knowledge jackpot.
I also believe there are a lot of you out there who just haven't given it a moment's thought. So show a little respect. Teachers are underpaid and overworked, but many of them thrive on knowing they've spread a little inspiration. And you didn't come to University to be underage drinkers, you came here to learn, as much as you profess you hate it. So let's make that less of a juxtaposition and start giving credit where credit is due. And if you see Lynn Nelson, hide in his classroom. You never know what you might learn.
Katie McCrory is a history junior. Reach her at kathleen-ellen.mccrory@asu.edu.