Pressure

I woke up this morning with the intention of going for a swim before heading down to breakfast. I also woke up to thunder and lightning, so that finished that idea for me. So instead, I decided to tie up one of the computers in the lounge and people watch right by the elevators. Not necessarily in that order.

I got the phone call to come down to Miami on a Friday afternoon. They wanted me in Florida by Monday. Possibly that gives some impression of the urgency of their need, but I don't think I completely understood it until I arrived and started talking with my students about the previous two weeks. For the sake of the unfortunate former bio teachers I won't say much, except that one of my students told me yesterday that he considered the bio class to have officially started two weeks in, when I finally showed up. It was both flattering and painful.

I teach three classes throughout the week. Two are regular Princeton courses, held independent of any school or college, and open to all applicants. I have about a dozen students in each class, give or take. My third class is an "institutional course." I had never heard of such a thing until I first spoke with the supervisor, and my mind went two places:

1) Psych ward (no, it's not PC)

2) Fancy private university with elite stuck-up students (it is Miami, after all)

It turned out to be neither of the above, fortunately. This class is run through the Diversity Department of the University of Miami's School of Medicine. It is a program for minorities and underprivileged students, helping them through the medical school application process by (among other things) setting up their shadowing opportunities and MCAT prep classes. I walk into a classroom each week ringing with Spanish and Creole and French and wonder that I ever even vaguely considered myself bi-lingual.

I was briefed on this course, and the state of their biology class on my ride to the hotel when I first arrived last week.

"Because it's an institutional course, they expect a very high standard of us, and the state of the biology class is a little less than that right now."

I nodded, imagining first-class me dropping pens and stammering over words. Those poor instructors.

"To say the directors are displeased is a bit of an understatement." My supervisor began to rattle off a litany of "displeased" including teaching to the board, mumbling, being unprepared, and having the students correct the instructors.

"Yikes." I looked at the folder that contained all my notes, and wondered how long it would take to commit all 10 lectures to memory perfectly.

"Yeah, it's been pretty bad. Far below Princeton's standards. While you're teaching you'll have a teaching assistant in the classroom at all times."

I'd never had a teaching assistant. Princeton Review doesn't use them. I imagined having someone to unwrap my cough drops, fill my water bottle, and erase the board while I perched on a desk next to some inquisitive student and filled their mind with the mysteries of biology and physiolo...

"She's not a doctor, and I don't think she's a professor, but she definitely knows her stuff, and will be checking to make sure you know yours."

My heart plummeted to my kidneys.

"I was told she spent the first few classes constantly taking notes in the back of the class because of all the wrong material the teacher was giving her students. We kept getting phone calls after class because of it. They're not very impressed right now."

What little I remembered of the Great Litany started running through my mind:

From the hypercritical, and all those who wish to see us crash and burn,
Good Lord deliver us.*

"What are you humming"?

"Oh, nothing. So she'll be in there all class?"

I imagined a scowling menace in the back of the auditorium grilling me on biochemistry while my students looked on and smirked.

"Probably. Unless she thinks you're doing well."

By now, my supervisor must have seen my face.

"Oh, I'm not trying to scare you! You had great student reviews and score improvements! I'm sure you'll do just fine! But I wanted to let you know what you're getting in to."

Too late. "Fair enough."

I have never been so scared walking into a class. I don't think that even my first class was as intimidating as this one. The teaching assistant greeted me at the door with a friendly smile and a handshake.

I bet she can smell fear. You don't scare me, woman, I work with eagles.

The class was microbiology: viruses, bacteria, and a list on fungi that I didn't have time to get to, forgot last class, and will have to scribble on the board sometime during break on Thursday. Whoops. It went well, too. After the one class where I forgot my micro notes and had to lecture off of what I remembered and what I could scribble down in 30 minutes I like to think I have it down solid. My supervisor picked me up after that class to drop me off at my next one. Right before she let me out she remarked that the office hadn't received any angry phone calls from UM.

"That means you did well. If you hadn't performed to her standards, we'd have heard by now. Did she stay in the classroom the whole time?"

"No. I think she was in and out."

"Well that's a good sign. It means she thought you were doing well enough that she didn't have to keep track of everything you said."

I bounced off to my next class ecstatic.

*I'm pretty sure this part was when our deacon hit one of the chairs with the thurible, so if you don't remember it, that may be why.