Written by Professor Anonymous
Ryan was in my ENG 103 class the fall of his freshman year. For the first assignment, students read a section of the James Dickey novel, Deliverance, the story of four men on a canoe trip into the backwoods of Georgia. It’s very much a story about male dominance, and that topic was one option for the first essay, an option Ryan chose. When he came to my office for a conference on drafting his argument for the essay, I asked him to consider a scene early in the book.
Me: “What about how Ed interacts with his wife right before he leaves on the trip?”
Ryan: “You mean when they’re in bed?”
Me: “Yes, the sex scene.”
Ryan: “Is THAT what they were doing?!!”
Me: “Well, yes.”
Ryan: “But it was MORNING!!”
I just loved Ryan’s sweetly innocent and sincere shock—he apparently had no idea that people might have sex outside of bedtime. Ryan was an excellent student, a very good critical thinker, and this minor exchange giving me some insight into how sheltered a life he had led only made me think even more highly of his work in the course, which addressed some pretty sophisticated theory and social issues. My point is that you don’t need to put on a front or worry about sounding intelligent. Part of the pleasure of teaching freshman courses in particular is sharing the total learning process—the course material, certainly, but life material as well.
Ryan is now a graduate student here and still visits me regularly. Last time he brought some cornbread he had baked for me. I value the really stellar intellectuals who have been students in my classes, the ones who have a good working knowledge of history, have read much of the literary canon, and can offer interesting political analyses. But I’ll always have a special fondness for Ryan, not just because he did good work, but because he put up no screens and played no parts; he was just his sweet and open self.