On the First Day of Class, Begin with Intrigue

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but when I was just beginning my teaching career, I had one clear goal on the first day of class: scare the living crap out of my students. I’m exaggerating, but only a little. And while I’m tempted to say, “I’m not even sure where this came from!” that’s not entirely true: it came from my sense that as a grad student and a young professor not much older than my students, I needed to establish my authority. It came from a fear that maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was and that I needed to hide this behind a veil of superiority. It came from the intimidation I myself had felt semester after semester, year after year, as I sat in class facing professors I assumed to be infinitely wise and infinitely powerful.