I do not normally have to wear protective gear or hold my fists in the ready position when I face students. Most of the time, the students are seated or—if I’m having an off day—slumped in their chairs while I go on about the syllabus material or some equally important topic like my own favorite places to sit in the library and cafeteria and how they are sometimes taken. “Is that going to be on the test?” worried students will ask after I’ve managed to inject a lengthy personal note into what otherwise might be a rather dry discussion of a poem or play. But so far there has been no rioting in the aisles.
Now here I was trying to figure out how to distract this large, helmeted guy in his mid-20s long enough to land a punch within shaving distance of his upper lip and thereby win a point in our “no-contact” karate sparring match. Most likely, he was having similar thoughts about me. It didn’t help that, although his face was familiar, I couldn’t remember his name, or the class in which we’d spent so many joyous hours together. This had all the signs of turning into the kind of “non-productive encounter” I had in theory learned to avoid the time I attended an all-day workshop to help teachers improve their classroom communication skills.
Meeting one of your exes in the dojo is the top safety issue for every college professor who takes up a martial art, even if on weekdays that dojo doubles as the gym of Maplewood Middle School and the martial arts program is under the safe auspices of the South Mountain YMCA. Your mind races to recall the grade that you gave the student, and if it is in the “B-” neighborhood or lower, it adds some urgency to your blocks. If you ever made a sarcastic comment about an excuse the student spent days crafting, ducking, though technically not a part of karate, may be in order.
As it happened, though, along with his name, I was drawing a blank about his grade too. C+? A-?
“Professor Baker, right?” the student had reintroduced himself as we waited for the signal to commence hostilities. “Nate Howard. I was in your class on Greek tragedy.”
“Oh yes,” I said, trying to keep things positive, “that was a good class.”
I thought I detected a frown behind the helmet. Perhaps tragedy hadn’t turned out to be all that he’d hoped.
“I wrote this 12-page paper on ‘purgatorial motifs in Hamlet and—"
“Begin!” shouted the teacher. Before I had a chance to find out what the rest of the motifs were or point out that Greece had yet to claim Shakespeare as its own, the fight was on. His first kick, which was aimed right at my groin, made me realize that his paper was not likely to have been in the “B-” range. It had probably been closer to a “D.” His second move, an elbow feint followed by a finger-swipe that nearly took out my left eye, confirmed my suspicions.
“Hey, it’s no contact!” I reminded him. Face moist from exertion, he just glared at me and threw a punch. This time I blocked his arm as hard as I could, trying to send a clear message that, as both a scholar and a professional, I would not give in to threats or intimidation. Still, he did not back off but remained equally determined to prove that I had underestimated his thoughts on “Hamlet” and perhaps literature in general. When the teacher called “Finish!”, we were both sweaty and breathing hard.
“Good match, Professor,” he said as we executed our mutual bow.
“It was, wasn’t it?”
Later I reflected that this exchange, albeit brief, was probably one of our most communicative ever, capping as it did the venting of a host of raw, honest emotions. I also came to a realization about “achieving an even more remarkable dialogue with our students,” as the leader of the workshop I attended frequently encouraged us to do. Achieving this may not be necessary after all—at least not until we have tried arm wrestling or head butting.
I am not suggesting putting on boxing gloves before class and then challenging all comers, though this would definitely wake up the back row. I am merely using what Shakespeare in one of his lesser known Greek tragedies calls an “over-saying” (“Zounds! He talketh much and doth over-say his case!”) to argue that we teachers should recognize what it is we already do. We belong to a profession that all too often forces men and women in their 40s and 50s to spar for grade points against students half their age. That is the real reason we need the summers off.
Maybe it is time to formalize this state of affairs with a ranking system and to start warning off prospective opponents by wearing our hard-earned belts to class. By now, I calculate that I hold about a third-degree black belt in AIM, or Applied Instructional Methods, a fine blend of old-fashioned jujitsu and the kind of crowd-control psychology that has formed the basis of many a successful modern dictatorship. If I were to don my belt to negotiate, say, due dates for an upcoming paper, I would be saving both myself and the students a lot of trouble. “No need to try to locate my pressure points,” the belt would be telling them. “You won’t find any. I, on the other hand, could locate yours in less time than it takes to speed-read a sonnet. Any questions?” No, Sensei.
When I began teaching 15 years ago, I was not so tough, and in fact I am still waiting to receive some of the papers I assigned back then. I was also not much older than my students, and so if someone promised “to mail the paper in from Spain,” my response was likely to be “cool.” Even now the mention of Barcelona or Madrid sparks a faint hope that I will someday receive a thick envelope postmarked from one of these cities full of deep thoughts about dramatic irony.
But I am no longer that same starry-eyed white belt. With increased proficiency has come a willingness to look hard even at claims to be “visiting friends in Metuchen this weekend” or “taking my aunt to her chiropractor’s appointment.”
"Is this the aunt you had to help last month? The one who suffers from agoraphobia and never leaves her apartment?” If the answer to this question is “yes” or even “maybe,” then the paper had better be in my mailbox by Friday.
Some people, as the expression goes, wear many hats. I have no qualms about wearing more than a single belt. One is a sign of my ability to deliver kicks and punches in a timely manner while the other represents all my classroom experience.
Which offers the best self-defense? Depends upon the situation. I wish I had known karate that time two individuals approached me on the New York subway about an interest-free loan with no clear repayment schedule. But more often than not, in the world outside the dojo it’s a different story, not physical intimidation but some kind of line that one is being handed. Survival means being able to tell apart those who do and those who do not really own a bridge that they are in a position to sell for a modest sum of money.
Unless one of the people walking across the bridge happens to be angrily clutching a literature paper with a “C-” on it, I would take my teaching belt most days of the week.
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