Atonement with the Father

I invoked the spirits of two dead colleagues yesterday while consulting with a student in freshman composition. The first sitting for the big do-or-die, department-graded final exam starts tomorrow, and I have been meeting with everyone to discuss the last in-class practice essay. I had given the topic "something that everyone should get for free" and read a number of papers on health care and textbooks. Julia, however, had written her essay on underwear, explaining why bras and panties shouldn't cost a penny.

The essay was fresh and interesting, but Julia made a common mistake: she used second-person pronouns, you and the like, throughout the paper, addressing me, the reader. I explained to her that Professors Fielding and Hammond, both male, might be the two evaluators of her final exam and would not want to be addressed as if they were women with bra and panty concerns. I advised her to replace the yous with first-person Is.

I know why I invoked Dave and Glen in my explanation to Julia. They were already senior colleagues when I began working here at 21, and the inexperienced, younger I thought them ruthless, careless evaluators who failed my students after just glancing at their papers, inconsiderate of the whole semester I had spent training those writers. [Today, I would substitute objective and experienced for ruthless and careless; that's what 22 years of classroom experience have done for me!] Speaking their names conjured their presence in my office, even though both men died shortly after retirement, bodies destroyed by too much abuse.

When I was younger, Dave and Glen were the antithesis of what I wanted for my professional life. Both were burnouts, but in different ways. Dave took campus politicking seriously—but not anything that happened in the classroom. Despite his ennui, his classes filled faster than anyone's when registration began; students considered him fun and easy. He sexed up every paper topic, every piece of literature he taught, and passed anyone who made an effort. He didn't bother to learn his students' names, but the easy As made everyone feel good, made everyone love him. Glen, too, had long since lost his enthusiasm for the job, but he blamed his students. He believed that the students had changed, not he himself. In his mind, the inadequate, unprepared folks who sat in his classes deserved nothing but his contempt and anger; his students dropped like flies. These two men were best of friends; at department gradings they competed to see who could read the most essays.

Years ago, the young-snot me couldn't understand why Dave and Glen appreciated their positions, tenure, and influence so little. I desired what they had, and I vowed that I wouldn't turn into them. Not all old-fart faculty were burnouts like these two; I had role models who were courteous and professional, who still enjoyed students and the classroom—or at least did a damn good job pretending.

But after 22 years at the college, 18 of them as a full-time instructor, I have reached the stage that Joseph Campbell, in his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, calls "atonement with the father." During the life-altering adventure detailed in this book, Campbell claims the hero must experience "at one ment" with his biological father—or a father figure or a strong masculine force. During the "at one ment," the hero realizes that an undesirable quality of the father resides in himself as well. Sometimes, after this recognition, the hero can keep the quality at bay. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker realizes that the undesirable dark side of the Force can tempt him, too, but he does not cross over as Darth Vader, his father, did. Sometimes, the hero embraces the once-undesirable quality, as does Neo in The Matrix, who realizes that he has the same level of commitment that Morpheus, his father figure, has shown.

I am at the point where I now understand Dave and Glen, where I have reached "at one ment" with my "fathers." Too many semesters of the same—the same student errors and excuses, the same accomplish-nothing committee work, the same predictable comments made by the same colleagues at department meetings, the same drive on the same road to work—are the cause of my own ennui. I don't think that a Zen master could sit through 22 three-hour graduation ceremonies, sweating in the hot robe, squirming on the uncomfortable folding chair, and not be over that experience. I cannot begin acting like a young snot again; that would mean that I would have to give up the maturity that makes me good.

So I am at a three-pronged fork in the road. Do I follow in the footsteps of the faculty who were pleasant and professional until retirement—even though I believe that they were secretly going through the motions, nothing more? Do I go where Glen beckons, down a path of anger and bitterness? Do I choose Dave's route, where fun process matters more than competent product? Or do I just get off the damn road, preferring to tramp through a field without the conventional guidance of concrete beneath my feet? These are the questions I am considering after atoning with my fathers.