I Glorify Myself in Young Men's Tears

Today, a milestone has been set, and as I write this, it is the end of a very long first day that started with me teaching my first class at UNT as a teaching fellowship professor. While many would have been content to only get through the first day without too many problems, I am not one of those conventional people who hope for the bare minimum. And my day exceed my wildest dream for many different reasons. However, as the witching hour is now in full swing, I will make this somewhat short and sweet... two adjectives that are used with me often; usually with other, more explicit, terms either preceding or quickly following.

Woke up early -6:40- after having a fitful night of sleep, where I awoke many times from odd dreams. Guess it was nerves, but can't really say for sure. Anyways, got to my 8am class early, and handed out the syllabi to those who were already there, and then made the rest of the students pick one up as they shambled like zombies past me towards their seats.

I did the usual speel, reading through the syllabus, telling them not to cheat, and also the absentee policy. It's the established norm, so why mess with a good thing. After this, I had them do a writing assessment using a quote from Nietzsche: "There can be no feast, without first a slaughter."

I told the entire class that once this was done, they could leave for the day. So, I made a mental note to stop them in ten minutes, and spaced out. Nine minutes after they had started writing, at 8:25, another freshman student walked into my classroom. I asked him if he was here for my Rhet Comp class, and when he affirmed gave him a syllabus. One minute later, I told the entire class that they should stop writing; hand in their papers; and to have a good one.

Accordingly, the student who came in had written one sentence, and it wasn't even a good one. I then told him, that if he ever planned to come in that late again, that he should not worry about coming to class at all that day, and made him hand in his paper, too. At this point, the kid started getting teary eyed and squeaked out, "But this class will affect my GPA."

I responded, some might say harshly, however I feel appropriately, with "Yes, it will. Now turn in your paper." Then took his paper, and left the class.

Nothing of interest happened in the second class at 9am. I let them out at roughly the same time as the class before (about 30 minutes in) but stuck around in the classroom, to look over the assessments. A freshman student strolled into the classroom at 9:40, and I asked her if she was suppose to be there for my 9 O'clock class. She, I believe, said yes. So I lecturing her too, telling her that if she's going to be this late to a class, that she, in my opinion, wasn't here at all, and there's no point to be showing up to my class; and it'd also better not happen again.

Turns out she's not in my class; she showed up 20 minutes early for the 10am class in that room. So I quickly appologized to her, told her what had happened not an hour earlier, and thankfully, she laughed off the lecture.

It's funny, now that the day has finished and I'm able to look back with at least a little perspective, I wasn't at all nervous while standing in front of the classroom, and really enjoyed my first day. And boy, I have to tell you, I sadly reveled in making a student cry (I count glassy-eyedness as crying)... and, I being the deplorable person that I am, have also told quite a few people about the shock I but this poor bastard through on both his and my first day. Oh well, I bet if he's still in my class on Monday, he's there early.

And though some believe that my being a hardass wasn't helpful to the situation, I felt that my authority needed to be established quickly, and was really not willing to allow a student to show up 25 minutes late to one of my classes. It's much easier to loosen up (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID) as the semester goes along than to keep trying to grab for that elusive authority halfway through a semester, an authority that you never had to began with, since you didn't established the power/authority situation with your students early in the semester. And now that I've tasted the sweet sweet sugary power of authority, I want more... if need be, I'll become the Prince that Machiavelli spoke of, to rule this kingdom that I have commanded over for one day from 8-8:50 and 9-9:50! I really should put above the door to my classroom Abandon hope, all ye who enter here... and to end with one more literary allusion, Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven... bitches.