On Doggedness
I've been reading Frank McCourt's Teacher Man over the break and it's a really enjoyable book. I highly recommend it to anyone who teaches at any level, but it's a fun read for anyone who was ever a student as well. McCourt is reflecting on 30 years of teaching in New York city public high schools, which is an incredible feat in my opinion. After one year of teaching high school in Poland, where teenagers are much more respectful of adults than they are in the U.S., I seriously admire anyone who can face that crowd day after day, year after year, and not go utterly insane. As McCourt described it:
In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.
He envies the college professors who only have to stroll into a class and lecture without having to deal with the personal and emotional lives of their students. I definitely prefer teaching college students over high school students any day, but college professors sometimes perform at least some of the various roles McCourt described above, and I would argue that female professors are expected to do so more than their male counterparts.
But my favorite quote from the book so far is this one:
Doggedness is not as glamourous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights.
This resonates with how I feel about my career right now. In trying to gauge whether I'll be successful, I'm starting to think that doggedness is the key. Most folks in this business are smart and ambitious, but that's simply not enough. Perseverance, relentlessness, doggedness, and toughness are much more important, at least in the pre-tenure years. We'll see if it pays off. I've been feeling like I've been pounding my head against the wall lately, working on a particular paper that was not coming together they way I had expected. Yesterday, I may have had a breakthrough. Still too early to tell for sure, but doggedness may be my friend this year.
In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.
He envies the college professors who only have to stroll into a class and lecture without having to deal with the personal and emotional lives of their students. I definitely prefer teaching college students over high school students any day, but college professors sometimes perform at least some of the various roles McCourt described above, and I would argue that female professors are expected to do so more than their male counterparts.
But my favorite quote from the book so far is this one:
Doggedness is not as glamourous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights.
This resonates with how I feel about my career right now. In trying to gauge whether I'll be successful, I'm starting to think that doggedness is the key. Most folks in this business are smart and ambitious, but that's simply not enough. Perseverance, relentlessness, doggedness, and toughness are much more important, at least in the pre-tenure years. We'll see if it pays off. I've been feeling like I've been pounding my head against the wall lately, working on a particular paper that was not coming together they way I had expected. Yesterday, I may have had a breakthrough. Still too early to tell for sure, but doggedness may be my friend this year.
posted by Janet | 1:22 PM
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