I was back with the class of honors freshmen that I taught during fall semester. There were more of them, though, and they were all in a large, brightly-lit classroom with lots of windows. The view out the windows was the same in the real classroom we had, but everything else had changed. It was like a small lecture hall, with the seats moving progressively downward to the floor, where I stood at the chalkboard. I said we were going to talk about Afghanistan, and I wrote a long question on the chalkboard that they were supposed to answer using evidence from this week's Time magazine. I realized that I couldn't really explain what was going on in Afghanistan, and that the question I'd written on the board was a good example of B.S. I hoped my students knew more about Afghanistan than I did.
Then a woman came in. She reminded me of one of the patients at work, who's an elementary school teacher -- and always acts just like it. This woman had an upswept hairdo, perfect makeup, and a fancy jogging suit. She seemed to be teaching the class along with me, though she quickly took charge.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do today!" she announced loudly. "I just got back from the eye doctor, and he said I'm going to go blind if I don't get eye surgery pretty soon! So, I want everyone to debate the pros and cons of my getting eye surgery!"
I thought this was just about the dumbest debate I had ever heard, though I was secretly relieved for not having to lead a discussion about Afghanistan. Suddenly, I felt like I had no authority. At the end of class, the eye surgery woman insisted that the class pose together for a picture. I ended up in the picture with them, posing as though I was a freshman, too. The woman took the picture, and she was sickeningly cheerful.
