Weigh With Words

I was reading a book by another of my heroes, the great scientist Carl Sagan. Sagan said that his teachers were not particularly great, except for his parents. My parents were great teachers, too, but what Sagan was really complaining about was a lack of inspiration from his teachers. That's a shame, because I can name a few teachers who greatly inspired me.

Dr. Judith J. Kollmann was my English 102 professor at the University of Michigan-Flint. Like all great teachers, she was demanding. More than that, she had a conversational approach to her teaching that I really appreciated. As kids say these days, she was "keepin' it real." I try my best to do the same in my own classroom.

One of the dreadful things she required of her class was to keep a daily journal. "Ugh!", I thought. I mean, I'm studying to be a high-falootin' mathematician! Why do I need to consume my time with a journal, for crying out loud? She told us we had to turn it in every few weeks, and that she'd grade it.

Whenever I could squeeze in time between my "real studies," I'd write something in my journal. I started very slowly, to say the least. What would I write about (daily!), and who would even care? More to the point, was that crazy Kollmann even gonna read the darned thing? I had my doubts about that, you see. There were a bunch of students, and how could she possibly have time?

Sure enough, she read everything I ever wrote in that journal. She made pithy comments in the margins, too. Better still, and much to my surprise, she actually liked my ramblings. "Excellent journal," she wrote, attaching a score of 9 out 10, in the very first grading. Hmmm. I didn't know what to say. My Chatty-Cathy journal entries were like, ya know, good? Who knew?

She gave me advice too, when I blathered on about personal goings-on. She asked questions about me. She responded to some of my comments with answers of her own, and gave insight into her own viewpoints. A real personal touch. And gosh, she actually...cared!

She was very encouraging, too, to this wacky kid.

One day, in that fall of 1981, she came into class, her arms full with our journals. She had read them all. She pulled one off the top of the pile, and told us all that she liked this one particular journal entry. She liked it so much that she read it to the class, right then and there. Try to stick with it, as I re-tell what she read:

Oct 25, 1981

You're not going to believe this story. It's my alibi for missing the English class on Friday, October 23. Now, I never go anywhere except to work and school. Well, this particular Thursday, I went to the planetarium to see the new Laserdrive show. I was gone about 2 hours. When I was returning home, the only passage to my house was road blocked by the police. So, thinking logically, I went around trying to get in another way. (I didn’t know it was completely blocked off.) This failed. So, I spoke to an officer, hoping to find out how I was going to get home. He told me that it would be a while. So after he explained that a madman was now in an apartment building holding a girl hostage with a shotgun (absolutely true!), I drove around, and checked back to see if I could go home. I did this every few minutes. I didn’t get home until 12:30 am. Well, when I got home, I began working on my English paper as I had planned to do at about 10:00 pm. (Honest to God, I did my paper!) I didn’t get to bed until nearly 4:00 am. Well, what happened was that I overslept Friday morning, and I missed my English class. Sorry! Hard to believe? It’s all true.

Yup, I still have that journal.

When Dr. Kollmann read it, I just kept my head low. I was proud, though, when my classmates laughed in the appropriate places. The manner in which Dr.Kollmann read it sure helped, too. She didn't mention any names, and I didn't tell anyone that it was my journal she read, either, but her actions sure were a big boost of confidence for me. She didn't know it, but her attitude, her methods, and her approach influenced and inspired me more than I can say.

I try to remember that when I'm standing in front of a room full of impressionable kids. Today, I actually require my students to keep a journal of sorts. We call it the "Calculus Manual." Kids tell me every year how helpful it is to them when they move on to college.

I e-mailed Dr. Kollmann a few years ago, and finally thanked her for being such a great teacher. She remembered me, and my journal story. I shouldn't have been surprised -- she really is that good. If Carl Sagan had been as lucky as I to sit in her class, I'm certain he'd have a different opinion of at least one of his teachers.

Dr, Kollmann is retired, now, and she was named Professor Emerita at the university.

Lucky me.