It’s a gift of tranquility when your adult desires mesh with your childhood background. I don’t quite know why mine didn’t, although I think books, again, are partly to blame.

One of the many drawbacks of this “I teach what I am” approach is that it stifles classroom discussion. Any disagreement with the professor’s expertise comes off as an ad hominem attack.

Terry Eagleson says his family’s aim was to have the words “We Were No Trouble” engraved on their gravestones.

Most martyr stories – sacred and profane – contain an element of superiority. This self-denying hero or heroine is “rewarded,” at the very least, by capturing the admiring focus of the narrative, while everyone else recedes into the background.

I was assigned to the office of a recently deceased faculty member; the office hadn’t been cleaned out yet, and a few days before the fall term began, I unlocked the door to find a dirty room whose bookshelves were crammed with empty bourbon bottles and crucifixes, mute testimony to the limits of literature as a sustaining comfort in life.

Readers, professional or casual, are alert to passages in a book that illuminate what was previously shadowy and formless.

My students should be afraid: choosing what kind of work you’ll do to a great extent means choosing who you’ll be.

Social class. Class remains our national awkward topic, usually mumbled over in academic diversity workshops; indeed, most people don’t know how to talk about class without automatically coupling it with race. That’s because we Americans are loath to recognize that the sky’s-the-limit potential we take as our birthright comes at a price far beyond what many Americans – of any race – can afford to pay.

Like a lot of other bashful introverts, I discovered that I like teaching a lot because it’s like acting. When I stepped into the classroom, I stepped into a role, one that allowed me to forget myself.

Reality TV, blogging and self-publishing are all evidence of a society’s or culture’s desire to be more public. And that’s a sign of a healthy or energetic culture.