Wacky College Professors by Jay Dubya I certainly had a cross section of diverse professor personalities during my four-year teacher college preparation. Some were austere and pompous, others were liberal charlatans and many of them were eccentric in his or her unique way. Most of my college professors certainly didn't appear as members of mainstream America. After registering in the college's main building with its "majestic golden dome," I noticed that only the professors' last names were provided on my weekly schedule so unless one knew a particular instructor, the freshman didn't know whether the teacher was a man or a woman. A good former high school friend of mine attending the college had almost the same class schedule as I had. The first day of fall semester I had inadvertently left my schedule home in the rush of excitement to drive my father's blue pickup truck twenty miles southwest to the picturesque college campus. I managed to remember the time and place of my first 8 a.m. class and waved to my friend Tim Amoro sitting on the opposite side of the classroom. After the dismissal bell for "The Fundamentals of School Organization," I met my friend and started up a conversation. "Where's the next class Tim?" I asked. "I left my schedule at home on my bedroom desk." "English," my acquaintance answered. I remembered that English was my second class of the day also. "Your schedule was almost identical to mine," I stated, "so I'll just tag along if you don't mind." After seating ourselves in the crowded second period classroom, the professor took roll from his master list. I felt rather uneasy when I recognized that my name had not been called. I raised my hand after the distinguished mustached professor asked, "Is everyone present and accounted for?" "Are you Professor Sankin?" I inquired. "My name was not called!" The class then broke out in raucous hysteria. The abashed male professor's thick eyebrows slanted down at almost forty-five degree angles expressing his displeasure with my inquiry. "My good fellow," the chagrined sage began, "I certainly am not Professor Sankin. I am Professor Stevens. I happen to be a man the last time I checked. Professor Sankin happens to be a member of the opposite gender. Since you are not supposed to be in this room," Professor Stevens rankled, "I strongly suggest that it would be in everybody's best interest if you proceed immediately to Room 217!" Boisterous laughter could be discerned as Professor Stevens terminated his deriding dissertation. I recall thinking at the time that I wished some faster mode of transportation would be available other than that provided by my two lower appendages. I rushed out of Room 212 red-faced, slightly humiliated and almost sweating bullets. I finally located Professor Sankin's class down the second floor corridor and unfortunately my belated entrance interrupted her lecture. The class remained hush as the austere elderly woman taciturnly surveyed the rude intruder's body from head to toe. The stern matronly gray-haired lady motioned for me to occupy the last remaining desk next to the window overlooking the scenic campus green. Professor Sankin had the distinct habit of carefully enunciating every syllable of every word. Her small oval-shaped mouth exposed her very active tongue continuously lubricating a Lifesaver wedged underneath it. The old dame had a warty face that would make any non-blind frog leap with terror. Her voice was either shrill or squawky depending on her articulation and when Professor Sankin hit a high pitch, a clanging burglar alarm would have seemed more melodious and appealing to the ears. While managing to get mostly B's and C's on Professor Sankin's labyrinth-length objective tests, I was baffled by the professor's harsh criticism of my writing style. She subjectively described my compositions as being too "wordy" and too "flowery" using "too many adjectives and adverbs," and I was assured of a D or an F on every essay and theme that I submitted, no matter how meticulous their organization was. 'I know I have writing and language arts' talent,' I thought. 'Creative writing and journalism are my strong suits. Professor Sankin is trying to stifle my aspiration to become an author. She's deliberately breaking my testicles in this Fundamentals of Communications' class!' I concluded. Professor Sankin's attacks on my themes were comparable to how the U.S. Marine Corps trains' its soldiers. First the recruit is broken down to demoralize his confidence, and then he is built up according to standards practiced by the drill instructor. My creativity had to be sacrificed to allow for the rebuilding of my mastery of basic writing mechanics. Coincidentally, the girls in the freshman English class were all receiving B's and C's on their compositions while all of the frustrated male peons were earning D's and F's. In fact it was the two freshman' year D's I had earned from Professor Sankin first and second semesters that compelled me to switch my college major from Teacher of English to Junior High School Teacher. 'Professor Sankin isn't the first teacher trying to destroy my future with her dumb little dictatorial power game!' I thought. 'Somehow I'm going to graduate from this place and defy both Mr. Andrews and Professor Sankin!' I mentally thanked Miss Sankin for introducing me to the unwritten rules of student survival on the perilous college frontier: 1. Never challenge the professor (even though he or she' insists that he or she likes it). 2. Be courteous (falsely if necessary) and nice to the professor (color your nose brown). 3. Pretend to copy down everything the professor utters (for he or she speaks an English dialect known as gospel). 4. Ask questions that compliment (not complement) the prof's knowledge. Don't make the professor think more than he or she actually wants to. 5. Avoid using the pronouns I, me, and my when asking a question (be humble and subordinate at all times). In addition to the above commandments I soon discovered that other secondary understandings would enable me to "play the game" and get better grades (while I exploited the "subjective factor" in teacher evaluation). 1. Work or study with other students in the class and always be cooperative (learn to kiss-up and flatter the teacher and his or her favorite students). 2. Buy the college outline series to the course (authored by the professor) at the campus bookstore and make sure the professor observes you reading his or her companion book to the course. 3. Cheat whenever necessary or when it is expedient. During my freshman year, in keeping with a Human Behavior and Development course requirement, I was assigned to visit a nearby elementary school and observe a "single unique student" (translation: discipline problem) and copy down every disruptive thing he or she did in the class. Then I had to write a case study term paper on what I had noted and attempt to explain the child's aberrant behavior and propose solutions demonstrating how I would rectify the misbehaviors if I were the child's teacher. "Choose a candidate whose deportment slightly deviates from the norm!" our erudite professor instructed. I believed that such a selection would add color and variety to my report and make it more intriguing to compile. It was really hard choosing a targeted student since half the members of the class demonstrated a definite affinity for naughtiness. Three times a week for an entire semester I watched fiendish students perform their repertoire of juvenile pranks and recorded the teacher's very apparent frustration for lack of an antidote to remedy the erratic idiotic antics. The children were showing off to me by chewing gum, passing notes, being defiant and insolent to adult authority, name-calling, blaming each other for unruliness and squealing on one another instead of listening to the directions of the perplexed teacher. This was my first insight into classroom dynamics as an independent observer assessing the many adversities that seriously blight the modern American education process. 'Instead of we must understand the child,' I thought, 'the philosophy of education should be 'the child must understand'!' Teachers are the prey of merciless adolescent predators that are protected by law, the school system's philosophy and the society. The only defense the teacher has against young anarchists is "educational psychology," which is as effective as trying to down a charging rhinoceros with an empty water pistol. 'Education should be based on what a child needs to know and not on what a child's needs are, which vary from kid to kid and are not specifically identified!' I concluded. 'Serious consequences should await the child that refuses to understand and respect adult authority in a school building.' Gym class was probably my favorite freshman curricular college activity. Coach Holmes seemed to fancy me because my personality stood out like a sore thumb and my general lack of athletic coordination managed to always capture his keen attention. I usually showed up during roll call several minutes tardy from the locker room. In late September I had not yet obtained my brown and yellow college gym suit and instead wore my old Edgewood High green and white outfit to class. When I finally bought a brown and yellow gym uniform and wore it to class Coach Holmes had my gym locker secretly opened, removed my green and white shirt and trunks and directed the class to leave the gym and assemble outside on an athletic field. The imaginative coach ignited my high school uniform with a cigarette lighter and the class began to chant in response to the ritual "Up in smoke! Up in smoke!" The other freshmen sounded as if they were members of a primitive jungle tribe worshiping and extolling arson. Their dissonant medley then transformed into a ceremonial dance and the fellows hopped and skipped around my smoldering forest green Edgewood High gym apparel. Little incidents like the tribal dance, towel fights in the shower room and the overall congenial looseness of Coach Holmes' informal gym class made it my favorite curricular freshman enterprise. Looking back on my college preparation, I envision an asylum of wacky liberal and eccentric professors trying to rearrange my mind. Mr. Rolphs taught sociology and anthropology. He was a restless neurotic speaker who oscillated from one side of the classroom to the other as if he was a person with diarrhea seeking entry into an already occupied lavatory stall. Professor Rolphs' speeches were saturated with vitriolic condemnations of traditional institutions and their' failure to solve the country's many domestic dilemmas. Rolphs made 'Blame America first" a common understanding forty years before the motto became popular on radio talk shows. Most of Professor Rolphs lessons would envelop arguments questioning the existence of God, the limitations of our breast-oriented civilization, and the inadequacies of our evil materialistic keeping-up-with-the-Jonses' culture. Rolphs and his vituperations wouldn't last a marking period in the average American public school, but a liberal dissident endorsing a quasi-Communist ideology could easily thrive on most college campuses as a beneficial and a meritorious professor that promotes freedom of thought and freedom of speech. I witnessed a half-dozen virtuous girls at various times storm out of Rolphs sociology class weeping after engaging in a bitter emotional debate with the professor over the virginity of Mary or the divine nature of Christ. Although Rolphs repetitiously indicated that his sole purpose was to stimulate open- mindedness, it was plainly obvious that his podium provided a convenient soapbox where the professor could perpetuate the doctrines of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Rolphs. I concluded in early 1962 that many frustrated thespians, actors and scriptwriters masqueraded as college professors under the guise of "academic freedom." The liberal lecturers experimented with their uninspiring rhetoric and used it on their captive audiences and as in the case of Professor Rolphs, many professors thoroughly enjoyed playing the role of devil's advocate while probing the minds and eroding away the traditional values of their insulted and/or fascinated listeners. As long as academic freedom is the benchmark of liberal arts college courses professors feel quite comfortable incorporating their own radical liberal views and creeds into each lecture to challenge conventional (traditional) wisdom. And the majority of college students going through a rebellion against adult authority in their own personal lives find the bizarre and the extraordinaire new forum approach fascinating. The learners associate bizarre and extraordinaire with freedom of speech and with individual expression guaranteed under the auspices of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any blitzkrieg of traditional moral or religious values is categorized as "intellectual investigation," and therefore those professorial assaults are tolerated by students, condoned by colleges and universities and perpetuated by professors. So when someone like Professor Rolphs gets his or her jollies by blasting the maternal instincts of motherhood or the infallibility of the Pope, he or she is only doing his or her job description. The exposure to radical left-wing ideas will surely introduce his or her students to a vista of new perspectives that will undoubtedly widen their horizons and make them think and behave like avowed atheists and like loyal Communists and Socialists. Dr. Peaferm was a strange economics professor that appeared to be more interested in his private stock portfolio than in the balance of international trade, the guns versus butter debate, inflation or the rising cost-of-living index. His drowsy monotone (even during his most enthusiastic oral presentation) eventually sent the most avid students on one-way excursions to Slumberland. Dr. Peaferm's boring lecture method could never cut it in a public high school but a fellow of his unremarkable caliber could easily flourish in a college classroom environment. The highlight of Peaferm's economics seminar was a coed that Bob Abrams (a fraternity friend) had labeled and code-named Tokyo Rose. Bob and I would sit in Peaferm's crowded lecture hall and watch Tokyo Rose systematically squeeze the pus out of her facial and neck pimples. This daily ritual would make us revel because it added a new dimension to an otherwise very dull and dismal class. In a way though, Dr. Peaferm's style was different and unique. Peaferm had no axes to grind or dragons to slay as Rolphs and Sankin had. Peaferm was more interested in Standard and Poors than he was in raising the standard of the poor by sharing the limited wealth and resources of the average middle-class American. Despite his nauseating mediocrity Peaferm's course was refreshing in the sense that he wasn't riding a white charger looking for the Holy Grail or crusading for the downfall of selfish capitalism while simultaneously championing the pursuit of sharing the world's wealth. And then there was Dr. Su, a petite Chinese lady who dressed in 1962 as if WWI was still in progress. Dr. Su's class was Teaching Methods I, but it would have been more appropriately titled The Evils of Mao Tse-tung. Dr. Su spoke with a heavy Oriental accent', despised Red Chinese Communism with a passion and she always mispronounced my last name Wiener (as in hot dog) instead of Wiessner. One day before class a friend (during a moment of jocularity) scribbled on the front blackboard, "Do not erase-Dr. Wiener." Before I had a chance to remove the prosaic verse, Professor Su entered the room. She automatically grabbed an eraser and then momentarily hesitated as she somberly studied the message scrawled upon the black slate. She then innocently prattled, "Ah so, class! Dr. Wiener say I should not erase board, so I just lecture today and not write notes with chalk for you to copy." The class slipped into a minor state of pandemonium in response to her shallow perception and reaction to my friend's juvenile prank. On another occasion I had cut Dr. Su's class to engage in an impromptu softball game on the baseball diamond adjacent to her corner second-floor classroom. Dr. Su stepped to the back of the room to open a window and observed me gallivanting on the baseball field below. "Wiener!" she imperatively bellowed. "You come up here this instant to my class!" Although I had distinctly heard her piercing soprano voice I ignored the diminutive lady professor's command pretending not to hear the dictum. Dr. Su re-evaluated her impetuosity and exclaimed to the already hysterical class, "Maybe that isn't Wiener down there after all!" A thunderous burst of laughter blared down to the baseball field from the upstairs corner classroom window. Dr. Attleburg taught the subject of Mental Health and had a gruff looking square face that qualified her to enter and win any ferocious dog show as a female pit bull. Her wrinkled countenance was a portrait of emotional anguish and her tainted breath exuded an odor akin to a dried-up Manhattan. Her anomalous lectures sounded very much' like humdrum epistles from the lips of a peevish tavern patron about to fall off of her barstool. Dayton, a black student in Dr. Attleburg's nondescript seminar, sat in the fifth seat in the row to my right next to the sidewall. Dayton worked nights on the back of a garbage truck, was extremely fatigued during the day and would always lean his body against the wall and fall asleep during the climax of Dr. Attleburg's dissertation. The lady professor was elaborating about the need for love, forgiveness and sympathy in our interpersonal relationships as if she was giving a testament at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I then quite mischievously removed and opened a safety pin from my pocket and next quite methodically pierced Dayton's pants and leg with it. Dayton howled as his reflexive reaction to instant pain sent both him' and his desk crashing onto the polished wooden floor. Dr. Attleburg continued her lazy lecture as if nothing at all had happened. I wondered how such a numb person could be an authority on the manifold operations of the human mind after she had been completely oblivious to reality. But people of her ilk thrive in education, especially at the college level. They draw lush salaries and help pollute the educational canal by supporting the advancement of non-learning. Dr. Attleburg's favorite maxim was "There's a big difference between teaching thirty years and teaching one year thirty times!" The most lamentable aspect of her oratory was that Dr. Attleburg had been uttering the impressive proverb ever since her initial year of professoring. Speech with Dr. Lane was another class I had to attend. On the first meeting of the September session of my junior year, I sedately sat in my desk awaiting the instructor's arrival. An older gentleman I had presumed was pursuing a teaching degree sat next to me. The self-proclaimed Korean War veteran initiated a conversation. I soon discovered that he was very critical of the speech professor who was to teach our course. The elderly man used the terms "lousy" and "hideous" in his depiction of Dr. Lane. I explained that I hardly knew anything about Dr. Lane except that the speech teacher's behavior was rumored being "a bit on the eccentric side." Five minutes elapsed and then the distinguished-looking Korean War veteran sitting next to me arose and announced to the class that he was the inimitable Dr. Lane. On the class's second session Dr. Lane made what he considered to be "a spectacular entrance." The nutcase had scaled the tall oak tree that had grown parallel to the main campus building, crawled out onto a sturdy limb and then clumsily swung his frame inside an opened second floor window. Dr. Lane's interpretation of the meaning of the word creativity was doing something excessively peculiar or something unexpectedly sensational. His mannerisms were predictably unpredictable and one could only expect the unexpected from him. However, even climbing through opened second floor windows, standing and lecturing from atop the teacher's desk and shouting slanderous obscenities for no reason at all soon became tedious and unimpressive after becoming accustomed to their constant enactments. Professor Flank taught History and Issues in United States Government. His lectures were as dull as an eight-inch-thick razor blade. Flank reveled in discussing American social disorganization, world chaos and the general frailness of the culturally retarded human species. Somehow, his "blame America first" quips always seemed devoid of integrity, sincerity, honor and courage. One winter day while delivering a vitriolic critique on American imperialistic military/economic institutions, Dr. Flank's nose began bleeding. Feeling the slight trickle, the critical professor dabbed his nostrils with a handkerchief, but the flow of scarlet became even more profuse. Flank glanced down in horror at the quantity of blood in his handkerchief, and feeling exceedingly frightened and embarrassed, his face turned as white as a lily. The professor swiftly canceled the remainder of the pathetic lesson, dismissed the class and hastily departed the scene looking as if he was a wounded infantryman searching for the nearest Florence Nightingale. Professor O'Connor was a very outspoken man that thought his essential destiny in life was to expose the myriad faults and weaknesses of our corrupt American social structure. The intellectual establishment (college deans) regarded O'Connor's attacks on U.S. institutions as productive and scholarly as long as the axe-to-grind crusader lectured his way through issues like American racial prejudice and evil capitalistic exploitation both at home and abroad. But Professor O'Connor began skating on thin ice when his investigations revealed instances of homosexuality among other notable members of the college faculty. Although he was one of the students' favorite professors O'Connor soon became the object of detestation of his envenomed colleagues on the faculty. In an incredibly short time, Professor O'Connor earned the disfavor of the college administration that suddenly abhorred his inquiries into his fellow instructors' bedfellows' habits rather than focusing his attention upon what was wrong with America. O'Connor's bold muckraking and whistle blowing activities drew newspaper attention to the local college campus, thus casting a dusky pall that immediately eclipsed all of the favorable publicity that the school's deans so sanctimoniously had labored to build. O' Connor's flirtations with attempting to right all wrongs (including social injustices and sexual perversions) became an uncontrollable obsession and the maverick professor did not heed the admonitions of the school's executives about what was deemed immoral on the college campus. Professor O'Connor could best be described as a combination of Upton Sinclair and Don Quixote and he appeared quite oblivious to the hatchet of doom being held over his head. His determination to expose all evil ruined his career. O'Connor was denied tenure, not because of his incompetence but because his mouth had oracled bad publicity about the school. It was perfectly all right for O'Connor to subvert and indict the United States of America, but when he made it too personal by demonizing the college's good reputation then he was abruptly dismissed from service. The image of the school was much more important than the necessary criticisms prolifically directed at America. Professor McIntire was an English prof' and an expert on William Shakespeare's work and life. McIntire relished several of my literary contributions that appeared in the campus newspaper and in the school's literary magazine. The fellow was a jolly sort of man who seemed to be knowledgeable and conversant in almost every subject. McIntire was rumored to be a "gay instructor" and to listen to his unique speech patterns, which featured a distinct feminine twinge, I had good reason to place credence in the hearsay. On one occasion inside the Student Union, Dr. McIntire politely invited me over to his abode for cocktails to discuss romance in British literature, but I took a rain check when he intimated that only the two of us would be "romanticizing." In all fairness to my college education, I had several dozen other dedicated professors that contributed positively to my professional development. To them, I will be eternally grateful. But the professors I have just described somehow seem to stand out in my mind for several very obvious reasons. The most discernible one is that instructors of their kind populate virtually every college and university faculty in America. But Miss Sankin's skeleton is probably spinning around and gyrating in her grave with her "D Average" student evolving into an author of sorts. More articles by Jay Dubya http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/4820/