On Teachers, Students, and Relationships: Part III

In my last post I left off the primary reason that I know my Platonic relationships with students are not problematic. That I relate to students in a way that reflects the symbiosis of living and learning is one of the features of my teaching and my Self that I most happy with. The beauty of this approach is what happens after they are not students anymore: they become friends.

When I applied for my current position as Director of the Buffalo Center at Cool University, they asked for a statement of my philosophy of student mentorship. I had never heard of such a thing, but I liked it and thought it represented that Cool University and the Buffalo Center were serious about what they wanted from their new director. I thought about it a long time, and when I was checking my email one day, it became clear what I would say. Here is an edited excerpt of my statment of student mentoring.

Enclosed you will find teaching evaluations from Prestigious University, Backwater University, and Parochial College. I am glad, however, that you asked for evidence of mentoring because I find that few institutions look at that aspect of a teacher’s job. I was mentioning to a colleague just recently that it would be interesting to get student evaluations years later, after the students had some perspective on their learning. This thought occurred to me because rarely does a week go by where I do not have an email message from a student at one of my previous universities. As evidence of successful mentoring, I would like to share with you some stories from my email in-box just last week.

Kerron was my advisee at Parochial College and is now teaching English in China. He is one of those students a teacher never forgets because he tried on every idea he encountered like it was a suit. He would inhabit philosophies and world views and test them from the inside. If they did not fit or had holes in them, they were discarded, and he moved on. After he and I both moved on from that college, Kerron continued to write me to tell me what he was thinking and doing. I heard from him in London where he had became a “freegan,” a person who ate only food that was free or discarded. He then decided to walk across the United Kingdom, and I began to call him Diogenes of England. The next time I heard from him, he was in India, and finally, he was teaching English in China. He wrote me just last week to tell me that he had married a Chinese woman, and they were looking to move to another country where he could attend graduate school.

Deborah was also a Parochial College student. One of the most natively brilliant students I have ever had the pleasure to teach, Deborah was interested in everything from science to science fiction and had even created her own language for a fictional group of people in one of her works-in-process. Deborah was a biology major, but she was frustrated with the limitations of disciplinary study, so she came to me to ask me to direct a self-designed interdisciplinary major in mythology. We put together a marvelous curriculum of existing courses (including my mythology course), directed studies, and off-campus courses. Deborah succeeded in completing both majors with exceptional grades, and I consider her a person who will change the world in some significant way. She wrote me last week to tell me that she was back from Japan where she had spent a year and a half teaching English. She was continuing her work on mythology and wondered if I would be a reader when she had a draft of an article ready.

Finally, Lane was a religion major who was quiet and somewhat shy but could slash through an argument with considerable skill and had a unique gift of interpreting popular culture through the lenses of religious studies. He took a number of courses with me, and when I moved from the religion department to chair the English department, he continued to take courses with me, even the dreaded senior seminar in literary theory, which he was not required to take as a religion major. Lane married another Parochial College student, and last fall she asked if I would write her a letter of recommendation for her application to law schools, which included Prestigious University. I happily agreed, and in one of those lovely moments of serendipity, Lane and Mary are now in Boston where she is at PU Law School and he is in his first year at Across the River Divinity School. Lane wrote me last week to ask if we might work together for his internship in religious education, which is broad enough to include academic work. I suggested that he help me with my current research projects that include an online journal and an online collaborative research project on imagination and the public sphere. I even suggested we might co-write a piece on religious education and the public sphere.I appreciate your forbearance as I have told these stories of my students. I am quite proud of them and the others who write me and comment on my blog, and I hope these stories provide the kind of evidence of successful mentoring you were looking for.

So, you see, my friendship with students helped to get me my job at Cool University, but more than that, my friendship with students helped me get through my loss. Most of the readers of this blog and many of the commentators are in fact former students who have become some of my dearest friends. I will never forget St. Mary and Mr. H. driving from downtown Boston on a wintry night to see me and us having dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant. I can still see the tears filling St. Mary’s eyes as I told her what happened, and I can still feel the love that they gave me then that continues to reach across the country like the hand of God. St. Mary of New York and I walked around Manhattan, and when I asked her how I was doing, she said without flinching “You’re raw, Aristaeus. Very raw. But you will be okay.” Sharon, another friend of long standing, became so when we were on the road with six other students traveling the American southwest. It was my first visit to the southwest, and Sharon ended up moving out here shortly thereafter. I was so jealous but also so happy for her. Nick didn’t like me at all at first, but now I feel like he would do almost anything for me as long as I bought him a beer. I could go on and on: Mechelle, Liz, Brian, Valerie, Deborah, Burningsteady, Anna, Aaron, Naomi. Even Stephanie and Heather are kind of my students because I know them through their partners, who were.

Valerie wrote me recently and asked if I would perform her wedding ceremony next year. Amazing. Humbling. Sacred. Actually, I officiated at Tripp and Anne Marie’s wedding several years ago in which I read from “Song of the Open Road,” Kahlil Gibran, and the Tao te Ching. I can’t think of another profession where you get to be in people’s lives in such a profound way. It’s a true, sacred calling and one that should be cultivated and protected, and when that calling is profaned by injurious relationships with students, is it a profound loss and tragedy. It’s also a job that, when done well on the part of everyone involved, doesn’t really respect the artificial lines between living and learning. It’s all living, and it’s all learning, and it’s all sacred. So today I sing the song of my students, who are my traveling companions, my cameradoes, my partners in satire and silliness, and my friends. I sing because you continue to teach me about life and love and humor in ways that I would never have imagined myself. Thank you.

Now, I’m going online to buy my Buffy the Vampire Slayer outfit so I can wear it to Val’s wedding. “We are gathered here together in the absence of vampires to celebrate the union of Val and Mr. ND …” This is going to be fun.