I remember when I first met Tack McTeague. He burst into the men\u2019s room and flushed every urinal by punching the handle, then stopped at the last one and said, while digging himself out through his fly, \u201cThis is how I know we’re doomed. I\u2019ve been teaching here nearly twenty years. When I started, kids flushed the toilets. Not these days. Today\u2019s kids are fucking primates. They\u2019re disgusting,\u201d he growled over the spray of piss hitting the porcelain. \u201cEat like shit, fucking life spent in a vap cloud. They don\u2019t take care of themselves. They have all this technology they don\u2019t actually know how to use. Like us navigating the stone age. I told some kid the other day, \u2018eh, wash your hands after you shit. What\u2019s wrong with you?\u2019\u00a0 He looked like it was the first time he\u2019d ever heard it. These kids will be running the world soon.\u201d Tack stuffed himself away and flushed the urinal. \u201cRunning everything right into the fucking ground.\u201d He pivoted to the sink and flipped on the water. \u201cNice suit,\u201d he said, lathering his hands. \u201cYou new?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet. I just finished an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah?\u201d said Tack, ripping paper towels from the dispenser, \u201cfor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFaculty. The Department of English.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded. \u201cIf you\u2019re lucky, I won\u2019t see you again.\u201d He clapped me on the shoulder and left me standing before one of the freshly flushed urinals, my belt undone.<\/p>\n
I got the job and within a month and a half moved. It was the first week of August, just two weeks before the semester started. I was setting up my office when Tack rounded the corner and paused before my open door. He had earbuds in. I couldn\u2019t make out for certain what he listened to, but there was a lot of drumming and screaming. Tack\u2019s jaw flexed below the thin penciling of a five-o-clock shadow as he gnawed gum. He was in a Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned one button too many, and his hair was astray. I could see the very small form of myself in his mirrored aviators. He popped out an earbud, and the hall filled with a distant screaming, like a genie immolated inside a bottle.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t sure he remembered me, but I said, \u201cI got the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stared at me a moment, switching his gum from one side of his mouth to the other and back again, then stopped chewing, a ripple of me shifting in the round of his glasses. He nodded, then turned to unlock his office door directly across from mine.<\/p>\n
On the first day of the semester, I returned from my classes to find a swell of students crowding the hall outside my office and Tack\u2019s voice roiling from his open door and booming along the walls. I asked them if everything was okay. Most didn\u2019t look up from their phones. A couple moved their heads just enough that I could interpret it as a nod. I worked my way through them to my door, fumbling with my key, as I heard Tack railing at a student in his office.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollege isn\u2019t for you,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not your fault. You didn\u2019t build the American education system, but you want to be a part of it, and it\u2019s not made for everyone. In fact, it\u2019s just the opposite. It\u2019s made to make all of you a certain way, and if you can\u2019t be that way, you don\u2019t make it through, and if you do, then you\u2019re really fucked because you\u2019ll be outside of this every-one-gets-a-trophy university, in a world that eats its young. That\u2019s Tu-Pac,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world eating its young. Not the Trophy thing. Write it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s literally the first day,\u201d the student responded, too quickly to have written anything down. \u201cI haven\u2019t even had a chance to prove myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need a chance to prove yourself,\u201d said Tack. \u201cLook at all these accommodations. They prove everything. You need an audio recording of everything I say. You need someone to take notes for you. You need extended time on all tests and quizzes. You will likely have infrequent attendance. You may need to leave class unannounced. You need to complete all reading, quizzes, and tests in your own quiet space. \u00a0You know what these accommodations really say? You need your own personal classroom and your own personal professor who will do everything the way you need it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
I heard the ruffle of papers being shuffled and realized I hadn\u2019t finished sliding the key into the lock.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, there\u2019s nothing wrong with you,\u201d Tack continued. \u201cYou wake up, shit, shower, eat breakfast. Do you have a job?\u201d<\/p>\n
The kid mumbled something<\/p>\n
\u201cSee, you work. You do your part. Pay your taxes. There\u2019s nothing wrong with you, kid. You\u2019re fine. If it wasn\u2019t for college, you wouldn\u2019t need accommodations in anything, would you? But now that you\u2019re here, you see all these problems, and you need all this shit so that you might be able to skirt through your degree, just to be qualified in a world that isn\u2019t interested in accommodating you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProfessor, I know that thi\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all due respect, kid, whatever you\u2019re about to say that you know, you don\u2019t, not in this context. I can\u2019t make these accommodations for you. How many students do you think I have?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking you to think. Take a guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFifty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFifty?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how many students you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you don\u2019t. Fifty? Jesus. Try one hundred and seven. That\u2019s how many students I have this semester. Think about that. And I\u2019m supposed to teach you all how to write. Every time you all turn in a ten-page paper, I have a thousand pages to read and grade. One thousand. Have you read a thousand pages in your lifetime?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say no,\u201d said Tack. \u201cI\u2019ve read one-thousand pages many times, and it sucks. When you do it, you know. But do you see now? That\u2019s why I can\u2019t give you your own private space or let you come and go as you please. It\u2019s real nice that the institution makes it look like they give a shit by making these accommodation forms. Then they hand them out like fucking Adderall and leave it up to teachers to figure out how to make it all happen. The truth is if the American education system really gave a damn about you and what you need, I wouldn\u2019t have a thousand pages to grade every time my students turn in an essay.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a moment of silence, then, in the closest thing to a comforting voice I heard Tack employ, he said, \u201cI know you feel like you need a college degree to get what you want, and you probably do, and I\u2019m sorry about that. A long time ago, we linked our economy and industry to education so that education became all about training kids to fit certain jobs as adults. The problem is the model doesn\u2019t fit everyone because the workforce doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s why you have a bunch of fucking idiots running around with college degrees, and kids spending five years at a community college and accruing debt, and kids graduating from universities, then moving right back in with their parents. Well, I\u2019m not going to be a part of it. Every student in that hall right now needs a specialized education. With one-hundred and seven students, I don\u2019t have time to specialize shit, not for you, not for anyone. I\u2019ve been forced to make my teaching as generic as possible to meet supply and demand. Read your Marx. It\u2019s not because you\u2019re not worth it, kid; it\u2019s because the education system says you\u2019re not. Now, you have to go because I have to tell this to twenty other students today.\u201d<\/p>\n
I heard the student shuffle from the office and through the warm bodies in the hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext,\u201d Tack said, as I finished inserting the key and opening the door.<\/p>\n
I sat in my office, and though I tried not to listen to him excoriate neurodivergent or disabled students, it was impossible not to. Kids with ADHD, dyslexia, auto-immune diseases, to which Tack responded: \u201cIf you can\u2019t focus on something for an extended period of time, how do you expect to read a book? Ditch your cell phone for a year, then come back to me,\u201d or \u201cYou literally cannot read, literally. How are you supposed to pass a literature course? Work with a speech pathologist until you can read at the college level, then come back to me,\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019re so sick you can\u2019t be in class? How are you supposed to pass an English class if you can\u2019t attend? Take an online course.\u201d Everything he said was against everything I had ever learned about teaching students. True, I was young, new, fresh out of grad school, but that also meant I was on the cutting edge of research in my field, and the research said Tack should be terminated. But I was scared, it literally being my first week, so I sat there, tried to work, and listened to him cut down one student after the other. After the last student left his office, the heavy door clapped shut with a bang. All was silent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For the next two weeks, students came and went, and though the discussions sometimes grew heated, they were nothing like the first week\u2019s, until a student came to discuss his response to a reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me, professor,\u201d I heard the student say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d Tack asked, the click of his keyboard unflinching.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to talk with you a moment about my thoughts on the reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. What are they?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think we should be reading something so graphic. This is very sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNoted. Have a great day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProfessor?\u201d<\/p>\n
The typing stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I should have to read something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, Tyler, I don\u2019t care what you think you should and should not read. This class isn\u2019t about you and your preferences. Besides, if you don\u2019t like what I assign, don\u2019t read it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I don\u2019t read, I\u2019ll fail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair tha\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing what criteria, Tyler? You don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair based on what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyler was quiet a moment, then said, \u201cBased on the fact that the reading is gross. It really upset me. And it\u2019s about sex. It\u2019s like my dad said, can\u2019t you assign literature and not smut.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow old are you?\u201d Tack asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought I must\u2019ve heard him wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen?\u201d Tack repeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever fucked someone, Tyler, at fifteen?\u201d When Tyler didn\u2019t respond, Tack said, \u201cThat\u2019s what I thought. And your dad, is he a big reader?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you do, Tyler. He\u2019s so up your ass he knows what you\u2019re reading in school. Now, does he read a lot or no?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really or not at all. Tyler? I asked you a question. Not really or not at all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was the last time you saw him read a book.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s what we got, then, a fifteen-year-old virgin who\u2019s bitching about a reading because it\u2019s too graphic, sexually, as if he\u2019d know, and a father who doesn\u2019t read, both telling me I need to assign literature. Look, read the shit or don\u2019t. I don\u2019t care. I also don\u2019t care whether or not you like it or approve of it because you\u2019re fifteen and don\u2019t know anything about reading, literature, or sex. You enrolled in my class, so do not question my assignments again, not until you have a degree of your own. And, Tyler, you\u2019re in college now, at least for this class, so cut the cord with your pa. Now, shut the door when you go.\u201d The typing started again.<\/p>\n
I wanted to storm across the hall and tell him I had a degree and thought he was a prick and a bully and that I couldn\u2019t believe after so many years of teaching he could be so piss poor at it. But I couldn\u2019t. Even if I were not new, I knew enough men like Tack to know that hostility or directness would just lead to more conflict. I knew that to get through to people like him, you had to work your way into a conversation where questions or gentle criticism presented themselves organically, so I crossed the hall and knocked on his door.<\/p>\n
In a muffled voice, Tack said, \u201cI\u2019m going to get up and open that door, and if that\u2019s you, Tyler, be gone when I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited. Then there was a click, and the door opened.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. It\u2019s you. What\u2019s up, rook?\u201d<\/p>\n
It felt like my heart beat in space, thumping and thumping in the weightless vacuum of my chest. I told myself, You\u2019re just as qualified as him, his equal. You\u2019re not a grad student anymore. Stand up for those students. It\u2019s your responsibility now. \u201cI wasn\u2019t eavesdropping,\u201d I started, \u201cbut did I hear that student say he was fifteen?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tack studied me a moment, then exhaled and said, \u201cCome in. Sit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I followed him into his office and sat in a chair across from him. He sat, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back. \u201cYou think I\u2019m too hard on the students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Of course! That\u2019s why I had crossed the hall to his office, but when he opened the discussion for me that easily, my cowardice barreled forward. There was nothing organic about this at all. My hazy plan for addressing my concerns was derailed, and now it was like I was being interrogated, like Tack had turned a giant floodlight on me, when he asked me the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll answer it for you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do. You do feel like I\u2019m hard on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really my place to tell you how to address your students,\u201d I said, disgusted with myself before I finished the sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am hard on them. I have to be. And I don\u2019t mean in that abusive-father-banjo\u2019s-deep-down-here kind of hard. I\u2019m not trying to teach them hidden lessons they\u2019ll learn years later or any of that shit. I\u2019m trying to trim the fat. The education system is the most fucked thing. It\u2019s a joke.\u201d Tack paused a moment, likely to let me gather my thoughts on the state of the education system, then continued. \u201cYou\u2019re all pumped about being in the classroom and blowing minds and fixing students\u2019 problems, helping them be successful. I\u2019m not shooting that down. We all start there. We, me, the education system, the world needs new teachers to start there. But as the system gets more fucked, it grinds everything to pulp, the students, the economy, the teachers. I don\u2019t want to dispirit you. You go into your classrooms and change lives for as long as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you feel like the education system is so fucked?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tack laughed. It was genuine. \u201cTake Tyler for example. To answer your question, yes, he\u2019s fifteen. In fact, I had a fourteen-year-old in my class a couple of semesters ago.\u201d Tack shook his head. \u201cChildren are allowed, no, fuck it, in this state, they are encouraged to enroll in college classrooms. All they have to do is get the right score on an SAT, and they\u2019re in, even if they\u2019re fourteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had been told during my interview that the state had, just two years earlier, integrated a new initiative to help students graduate college by allowing them to enroll earlier, while they were young enough to still have the stability of high school, family, and friends. I thought it sounded like a considerate and forward-thinking way to deal with a problem. I said, \u201cI guess I don\u2019t really know how I feel about a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old being in a college classroom, but I think a state-led initiative to help students succeed in school is promising.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s short-sighted,\u201d Tack disagreed. \u201cThe state\u2019s pushing students through because too many aren\u2019t finishing college. They show up, party, and drop out. They don\u2019t know how to manage their time, so they fail a semester and drop out. They don\u2019t really know what they want to do, often because they\u2019re eighteen fucking years old, so they drop out. Instead of addressing any of those issues, or, better yet, just letting the chaff be separated from the wheat, they create a protective shelter for them, allow them to be college students while they\u2019re still children, while mom and dad can make sure they get their homework done every night. Sure, maybe more of them will make it through college. Time will tell, but how much will they offer the workforce or the betterment of humanity when they enter the workforce with a BA at twenty, little life experience, and no parents to babysit them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it makes sense to some degree,\u201d I added.\u00a0 \u201cThink about it. College is getting more and more expensive. It\u2019s a good thing to ensure students get through instead of taking out a bunch of debt and then failing or dropping out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, they think the same way at the State House, but you want to know the problem with that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t fix the problem, rook. The problem is the cost of education. The students who graduate and make it through college, students like you, still have to pay that high cost for the rest of your lives. Letting children into college doesn\u2019t fix a single issue in education that\u2019s actually hindering students\u2019 success. But it will create a list of new ones. Besides, it\u2019s not like this generation is the first to have students who fail out of college. The millennials and Gen Xers didn\u2019t invent failing in college. It\u2019s been around a while. But this is the first time we\u2019ve tried to address it, and, as usual, we don\u2019t address the actual problems. We fuck our way into new ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
I still felt Tack\u2019s behavior was uncalled for yet realized I didn\u2019t know enough of what I was talking about to support my position. Tack\u2019s office was not social media, where I could spew whatever trash I wanted, then close my browser. If I said something stupid, Tack would eviscerate me. Luckily, I didn\u2019t have to figure out what to do next. There was a knock on Tack\u2019s door, a sullen-eyed young woman with a ballerina\u2019s figure, her eyes cast down. I took that as my cue to leave and crossed the hall to my office, where I shut the door and turned music up so I couldn\u2019t hear him peel her apart.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When taking the job, I moved to a place with seasons, something I wasn\u2019t accustomed to. The humid, warm air faded just long enough for the trees to burst in color and lose their leaves. Tack went from button-downs to old sweaters. His hair grew in full and shaggy, his beard like Tamarack bark.\u00a0 Toward the end of Fall semester, I attended my first department meeting. We discussed summer course options, reducing printing costs by not printing emails, and the possibility of hammering out a new transfer agreement with a local community college. The rest of the meeting was Tack castigating the university and higher education in America. A few faculty members pitched solutions, action plans, offered to chair workgroups that might begin to tackle some of the problems, but Tack cut them down, arguing that those steps had been taken before or that the ideas were too lofty, noting that if more members of the department had institutional history, they\u2019d see the foolishness in what they said. When Tack preached, he did so peripatetically, as if in his classroom. He slammed his fist into his palm and ground it there as he macheted any positive momentum. Just once, I cast a furtive glance at the department chair, a sniper-eyed woman (who, even in August, when on my interview committee, wore a scarf and complained about the cold), expecting her to pull rank at some point and put an end to his foul-mouthed philippics, but it never happened. The whole department let McTeague tear through the room like a ricocheted bullet. I was exhausted by the end of the meeting, though I\u2019d said nothing, just watched a middle-aged man grouse about the world as if we were already living in the post-apocalypse.<\/p>\n
That was the end of fall. I spent Christmas break looking for houses but couldn\u2019t afford any I was interested in on my income. I had done the math, and in ten years, when I was forty-three, I\u2019d make enough to get a small place without it being fiscally irresponsible. But I still liked to look at properties anyway, just to keep the future close in mind. Until then, I\u2019d make do at the apartment complex where, all Christmas break, I\u2019d spot the snaking tracks of children\u2019s feet in snow but never see the children.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After a grueling winter, it was hard to believe there would be another spring. I never knew the sky could be grey for so long. But it got a little easier when classes started. It was still cold and gray, and there was still snow, but I was able to keep busy and focus on things, and even my own students started coming in to see me, a testament, I hoped, that I was becoming a bit more competent in the classroom. \u00a0Across the hall, Tack\u2019s discussions with students were less hostile. Many students came to Tack\u2019s office to review their writing and discuss readings and, in some cases, even chat about the world. I heard him chuckle once, at something a student said. Despite the occasional McTeague lecture on life, a few of which seemed merited for once, the space across the hall was less volatile than in the fall. \u00a0That\u2019s why, after the end of a long day, I knocked on Tack\u2019s door. He turned from something he read below a small desk lamp.<\/p>\n
\u201cRook,\u201d he said, as if we were long-time friends who hadn\u2019t spoken in decades. \u201cWhat\u2019s good?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s the end of the workweek, and I wanted to see if you wanted to grab a drink.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho gives a fuck about the end of the work week? Drink every day.\u201d With that, Tack shut off the lamp, grabbed his coat, and left the office as it was. Though it was cold, we walked to a bar a mile or so from campus, a bar I wouldn\u2019t have pegged as Tack\u2019s kind of place. It was nice once, the bar and walls decorative wood, a stamped tin ceiling. But the age was evident, the bar deeply grooved and chipped from wear, the wood polish flaked in fractured shapes like continents seen from space. The walls were covered in tacky paraphernalia that made no sense to me, a license plate from Texas, a lacrosse stick, a pair of pink and green panties hanging from a boar\u2019s tusk, a ferrotype of a family sitting on old chairs. The bar was dark and, to my surprise, full of students. I assumed Tack would want a nice cocktail or scotch. I figured the students would want club music and laser lights. I was learning I didn\u2019t know anyone or anything like I thought I did.<\/p>\n
Tack ordered two pints of something from a local brewery. He didn\u2019t offer to pay or ask what I wanted. He simply ordered, and when the drinks got there, he lifted his beer, foam sluicing down the glass, and said, \u201cTo the beginning, which has always already been the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
I touched glasses and took a long drink of what tasted like pennies, then set the glass on the bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s your semester so far?\u201d Tack asked, watching sports highlights on the T.V. on the wall across from us.<\/p>\n
I felt good about my semester, had had a couple of really great classes, felt I was starting to hit my stride in my composition courses. But as I studied the side of Tack\u2019s face as he watched the T.V., I knew there was no reason for me to gush like that. Besides, he\u2019d take my good experience by the balls and explain to me why such a sentiment was a waste of energy. I suddenly wondered why I was there, what I was hoping to accomplish. If I were being honest, which I was not then, I was just lonely. That\u2019s all. \u201cSuitable,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
Tack turned from the T.V. and looked at me. He took a drink and asked, \u201cYou\u2019re not getting burnt out already are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I ask something, I\u2019m genuinely curious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou genuinely care about how my semester is going?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tack laughed from his gut. \u201cOf course! You think I\u2019d come out here and buy you a fucking beer to make small talk about shit that doesn\u2019t matter to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to avoid giving him the chance to hack away at my words by saying little, yet there he was, cutting away. \u201cIt\u2019s been pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSay that, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him a moment, then took a drink.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou thought if you said shit about being happy, I\u2019d try and bring you down?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWouldn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDepends on what you say. If you say something stupid, I\u2019ll let you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there you go. I didn\u2019t really feel like being attacked like that.\u201d Attack wasn\u2019t the word I wanted to use, but I could feel a bolt of adrenaline blooming within my head, a tingle on the back of my neck, a swirl like my guts were breathing on their own, all in anticipation of words he hadn\u2019t spoken but that I believed he would.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttack? Telling you I think an idea is ignorant isn\u2019t an attack, rook.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what we do?\u201d he continued. \u201cWe are idea makers. We are purveyors of human thought.\u201d He jabbed his head with an index finger. \u201cWe challenge the old and the new, even as we make it. If as professors in the humanities we can\u2019t call bullshit on bad ideas, what are we doing? Really, what\u2019s our role?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s no\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get what we have now,\u201d he interrupted, \u201can ignorant president, an ignorant electorate, the death of facts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, that\u2019s no\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get a bunch of peo\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTack,\u201d I growled too loudly, slamming my beer on the bar, the bartender peering at me while drying a glass. My face was flush, my ears so hot I could feel their radiant heat on my neck. \u201cI\u2019m not one of your students.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d he confirmed. \u201cI apologize. I asked a question and should let you answer. Go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought back to the question but couldn\u2019t remember it. I was angry, logic and memory like a ribbon on a balloon too high up. I couldn\u2019t ask him what the question was, not after taking such an aggressive stance. I wasn\u2019t his student, but I also couldn\u2019t recall his question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are we supposed to do?\u201d he asked, my face no doubt belying the uncertainty of my words.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the question, about our roles. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I said, finally. \u201cI\u2019m just a writing teacher, Tack. I mean, you\u2019re always talking about the big networked systems, the government and the education system and economy, and you\u2019re using those to inform how you teach students.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell of course I am,\u201d he boomed, like he did in department meetings. \u201cThey\u2019re all related, so of cour\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
This time I cut him off. \u201cWe\u2019re all supposedly related to a big bang, too, but it doesn\u2019t mean we have to take every star and galaxy into consideration when we\u2019re trying to teach students how to put a sentence together.\u201d What a stupid analogy, I thought, though I hoped my face didn\u2019t show it. But when Tack didn\u2019t respond, when he just stared at me and appeared to study the ephemera of my words, I felt emboldened, sturdy confidence rising through the tumult of ambling adrenaline. \u201cI mean, look, sure, all kinds of everything are very big and very connected. That\u2019s right. I don\u2019t disagree. And I\u2019m subject to challenges and so are you and so are our students. But we each have individual roles to play, regardless of those other forces, and we have to play them. We have to do them. We have to fight them, if that\u2019s what it takes, and I see you as a fighter, Tack. I do. I see you as a person who sees a bunch of really bad stuff, and you strike out at it with your words and what you tell students, and it\u2019s not that it\u2019s wrong, what you say to them. It\u2019s not false or inaccurate. It\u2019s brutally honest, but honesty without empathy is cruelty, Tack? How are you fixing any of the problems by burying your students like you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
My whole body felt like it might float away. I realized I was squeezing my pint glass as if it were anchoring me there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just the point, rook. I\u2019m not burying them. The system is burying them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell it\u2019s a system we\u2019re both a part of, so what are you doing to fix it? To change it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m transparent about it. I\u2019m honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think they don\u2019t already know all that stuff you tell them? You honestly believe your students with ADD, your students with dyslexia, don\u2019t understand the education system isn\u2019t made for them? Christ. Of course they understand. They may not understand it like you understand it, with the whole history of education slant, but they know it, Tack. They know it personally. They know it every day they wake up and come to a class they can\u2019t pass but enroll in just to be able to put a foot forward in their lives, just to have anything at all. Then they get you, no gentle reminder of how they will never make it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I laughed. \u201cI\u2019m not debating that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019re not sharing that with them. Who are you if you don\u2019t tell them? If you don\u2019t identify that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTack, telling them isn\u2019t fixing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you just try and not fix it then? Just ignore the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet them learn how fucked everything is from their history professors and their sociology professors. Show them how fucked things are through the literature of the world, but don\u2019t tell them how fucked they are. That puts you at fault because you said can\u2019t and won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI try and make it right the way I know how. How do you fix it?\u201d Tack asked, squarely.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy making things right the way I was trained to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy teaching students how to write sentences?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd paragraphs,\u201d I joked.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd critical thinking and analytical thinking and argument. All of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you think teaching students how to write sentences and argue in papers that are unlike anything they\u2019ll ever write outside of a classroom about shit they don\u2019t care about and never will, shit they\u2019ll likely never even understand, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to fix everything? That\u2019s what\u2019s going to make the world go \u2018round? It\u2019s utterly brain-washing bullshit, rook. A hot pile of bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, but that\u2019s my skill set. That approach is what I know how to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not your approach, rook. You didn\u2019t make it. It\u2019s been around a long time, all the shit you teach and how you teach it, your field, its methods, all of it, and do you see what\u2019s out there.\u201d Tack looked out the window. \u201cIt\u2019s a fucking war zone, and those people, the problems, the violence and ignorance and small-mindedness, it\u2019s all from college-educated people as much as anyone else. They\u2019ve taken your classes and my classes and all the classes just like ours all over this fucking country. There\u2019s your model. That\u2019s what it gets you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t respond. I just took a drink of my beer and let out a long exhale. I was suddenly tired.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, rook, I meant what I said before, about you being passionate and caring in your job. You\u2019re right. You\u2019re working with human beings, young human beings. It\u2019s a tremendous responsibility, a real honor and privilege. And maybe your approach, your trained approach to making the world a better place will stay with you until you die, and maybe it won\u2019t. My way is not right and yours wrong or vice versa. But for me, to teach what I was trained and how I was trained, that\u2019s what led to what\u2019s out there now. Though I may not be doing something better, I\u2019m doing different. I refuse to be complicit in the mess. I mean, really, how does a country more educated than it\u2019s ever been behave this way? How could it not know any better?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tack\u2019s voice broke as he asked the last question, like he wished someone could answer it for him, like it often kept him up at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess that\u2019s the hundred-dollar question.\u201d My brain felt fatigued, like it had been grappling and exchanging blows in a grueling fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe million-dollar question,\u201d he corrected, finishing his beer, then nodding at the bartender for another.<\/p>\n
We each had one more, then headed back to campus in a whisper of fat snowflakes that fell hush atop each other, gradually building. We didn\u2019t speak for blocks. As we approached Old Main, Tack stopped and looked at the four-story building, at the way the snow stacked on the column work and fenestrations, the way it clutched to the Rhododendron that stretched around the brick foundation like a long white sarong. \u201cSome days I don\u2019t know what I believe in anymore, rook. Then, some days, I think that\u2019s my belief; I don\u2019t believe in anything. There\u2019s one thing I know, though. That is beautiful,\u201d he said of the building. \u201cIt always is. But I can count on one hand the days in a year it looks like that, the days it\u2019s covered in fresh snow.\u201d Then, Tack clapped me on the shoulder. \u201cI\u2019m heading home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s back to the office for me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll see you tomorrow. And, eh, thanks for the invite. Let\u2019s do it again soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that, Tack turned and made his way towards a faculty lot, and I stood there taking in the way the snow laid across the angles of that very old building, the first building on campus, at one time, hundreds of years ago, the only building. Back then, it was the whole school. Despite its indelible history and place on the campus, it was as Tack said\u2014the building looked like it did right then so few times a year, so I studied it. I wanted to see it that way, wanted to see it just like that, while I could.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
College isn\u2019t for you. That\u2019s not your fault. You didn\u2019t build the American education system, but you want to be a part of it, and it\u2019s not made for everyone. In fact, it\u2019s just the opposite. It\u2019s made to make all of you a certain way, and if you can\u2019t be that way, you don\u2019t make it through, and if you do, then you\u2019re really fucked because you\u2019ll be outside of this every-one-gets-a-trophy university, in a world that eats its young. That\u2019s Tupac. The world eating its young. Not the Trophy thing. Write it down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3463],"class_list":["post-19622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-mitchjamesauthor-com-twitter-mrjames5527","writer-mitch-james"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19629,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622\/revisions\/19629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}