Late this afternoon I will perform an aria in the role of Zorastro, the high priest bass in Mozart's The Magic Flute, for the assembled music majors and faculty. This will be my first solo performance using the techniques of my new teacher. It will be my first formal solo performance in a long time--two years, I think.
I'm reminded of other first performances. My very first as a teacher was in the fall of 1975, teaching Freshman English at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I was nearly sick with fear that time. I had no teaching experience whatever and was supposed to teach people nearly my age, or, in one instance, my father's age. I wasn't at all sure I knew anything. I remember nothing about that first class meeting. Nothing. Three weeks into that term the retired Air Force colonel in my class told me he was enjoying the course and, after thinking about that for a moment, I realized I was too. That one course--and maybe that colonel--ruined me for any other career. Medicine's loss, I guess, though the medical field seems to be surviving without me.
Another was my first day as a high school teacher in Cromwell, Minnesota in the fall of 1980. My predecessor at that school, as its only high school English teacher, had resigned to take another job at another school only twenty miles away. When he found out his replacement had been hired he then investigated to find out who the fool was who had taken the job and actually came to my house to warn me: Cromwell was a terrible place with an administration that wouldn't support me and students who would make it their goal in life to run me out. I was about to be the 21st person to hold that single position in fifteen years. They ate English teachers. One previous one was gone before Thanksgiving.
He was right. They tried to take me out, but it didn't work. Their misbehaviors tended to make me laugh, which made it hard for them to resent me when I immediately followed with whatever consequence seemed fitting. They knew I was enjoying them, so reluctantly they started to like me. I was the English Department for seven years, left only out of a sense of mission, and continue to go back to visit.
Since then I've had other teaching firsts at the U of Minnesota, UW-Superior, Northland College in Wisconsin's Ashland (how many Ashlands are there, anyway?), Plymouth State in New Hampshire, and here at Bemidji, and none of them have been traumatic, all of them have been rewarding. Each time I get nervous; each time I relish the experience.
I expect to do the same this afternoon.
I'm reminded of other first performances. My very first as a teacher was in the fall of 1975, teaching Freshman English at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I was nearly sick with fear that time. I had no teaching experience whatever and was supposed to teach people nearly my age, or, in one instance, my father's age. I wasn't at all sure I knew anything. I remember nothing about that first class meeting. Nothing. Three weeks into that term the retired Air Force colonel in my class told me he was enjoying the course and, after thinking about that for a moment, I realized I was too. That one course--and maybe that colonel--ruined me for any other career. Medicine's loss, I guess, though the medical field seems to be surviving without me.
Another was my first day as a high school teacher in Cromwell, Minnesota in the fall of 1980. My predecessor at that school, as its only high school English teacher, had resigned to take another job at another school only twenty miles away. When he found out his replacement had been hired he then investigated to find out who the fool was who had taken the job and actually came to my house to warn me: Cromwell was a terrible place with an administration that wouldn't support me and students who would make it their goal in life to run me out. I was about to be the 21st person to hold that single position in fifteen years. They ate English teachers. One previous one was gone before Thanksgiving.
He was right. They tried to take me out, but it didn't work. Their misbehaviors tended to make me laugh, which made it hard for them to resent me when I immediately followed with whatever consequence seemed fitting. They knew I was enjoying them, so reluctantly they started to like me. I was the English Department for seven years, left only out of a sense of mission, and continue to go back to visit.
Since then I've had other teaching firsts at the U of Minnesota, UW-Superior, Northland College in Wisconsin's Ashland (how many Ashlands are there, anyway?), Plymouth State in New Hampshire, and here at Bemidji, and none of them have been traumatic, all of them have been rewarding. Each time I get nervous; each time I relish the experience.
I expect to do the same this afternoon.
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