February 8, 2023

In less than an hour I will get in my car and head for my university to begin the last term of teaching before I retire. I’ll have my last first office hour of the term and my last first class. Though I may find myself occasionally in front of a lecture room at some point in the future, these first days are a singular experience that I am fairly sure I will not again experience. It is the one time in the term when most of the students will be alert and interested. Some will be terrified and looking for reassurance that they can actually pass the course. Some will be skeptical, but willing to open the door just a crack on this day to see if there is any reason for them to care about the rest of the semester. A few will be genuinely excited about the possibility of learning, thinking, and understanding something new. Most will fall somewhere in the middle.

As I enter the room, I will have, at long last, developed some degree of confidence that I can lure at least half of them into some meaningful engagement at some point. That’s a heady feeling, and it may be more or less the truth depending on whom you ask. To the extent that it is true, it seems a damn shame that my last time comes just as I think I might someday be good at it. I suppose I’m not the only one who feels or has ever felt this way. I suppose that’s life, filled as it is with constant irony.

Today will be pro forma in a way. The subject will be the content of the syllabus and what they can expect in and from the course. Mundane as it sounds, that framing is all important. This is where I can begin to draw them in by intriguing some and scaring others with the mixture of activities that has been laid out for them. I’ll try to create a sense of forward motion so that the train will seem to have left the station before they even think about getting off.

For them this will be an early leg of a long journey that I hope leads them somewhere fascinating and exciting. For me, alone, it will be the last train on this particular journey. When it pulls into the terminus in May, I’ll have to get off, ready or not. Then I will have to do something I haven’t done in a long time. I’ll have to board a different train to a new destination from an unfamiliar platform. I guess that could be pretty exciting too.