The Japanese character, or “kanji,” to the left represents the word “sensei,” which means teacher. In 2009, I attended a Japan Studies summer institute in Hawaii. Our Japanese language teacher, Linda Fujikawa, traced the etymology of the word “sensei” to mean “been there, done that.” If true, the root of the word delightfully uproots the assumption that a professor is an expert or superior. A sensei is simply someone with experience, somebody who understands what it feels like to be a student: to be curious and excited about learning, to be astonished by complexities, to stumble awkwardly as you grope for new skills and understanding. Trying to learn Japanese reminded me what it feels like to be a student: it was exciting, overwhelming, and awkward. I’ve been there and done that. I’m a teacher.
I’m also still learning, or as Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in one of my favorite poems, “Whát I do is me: for that I came.” Hopkins turns the self into a verb, a dynamic action—each of us selves, enacting ourselves through our words, actions, and interactions with the world:
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.1Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” public domain.
For Hopkins, the self is not a fixed, bound, or self-contained entity but a being in action. His poetry reminds me to celebrate the fact that I am always changing. I am learning, or as anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson (the daughter of Margaret Mead) puts it, “learning is us”:
Right through the life cycle, human beings remain playful — and play is a very important part of learning — and experimental. Most other species, they figure out how to be a rabbit or a chicken or an owl or a fish, and that’s what they do for the rest of their life; so learning is us.2Bateson, “Living as an Improvisational Art,” On Being, interview with Krista Tippett, October 1, 2015.
Here’s my professional bio, the one you’ll find on my Davidson College faculty page. I’m a professor of English at Davidson, where I’ve been teaching since 1996. I can remember how many years because I landed the job at the same time I found out I was pregnant with twins. Luke and Thomas, along with their brother Zac (who arrived 5 years later) are now adults and have flown from the nest. My husband, Matt, is a a partner in a Charlotte law firm that has a lot of English majors and opera singers-turned-lawyers, which makes for a creative, sometimes quirky corporate culture. We live in an old house near the center of town, known to long-time residents as “Dr. Wood’s Office.” College students used to be able to get a physical for $6, and Dr. Wood’s kindness and cough medicine were legendary. I like to think he’s the reason why our house has good karma. But I know it also has to do with our neighborhood, which has a strict policy of well-used front porches, open doors, and free-range kids. Our kids used to roam from house to house, while the adults hung out together on the front porches and ignored them. Now, when the kids come home, we all hang out together.