When I look back on my education, perhaps the most memorable teacher I’ve ever had–the most brilliant, the toughest, the funniest, the most knowledgeable, and the one who pushed me the hardest–might seem an unlikely choice for a white boy from the north suburbs of Chicago.
But in college, my interest in race, especially in Black Studies, blossomed partly out of a desire to learn more critically about the music I love–and to challenge my own racism. The teacher who might have made the biggest impact on me intellectually is a professor who appeared to know everything about her field, held her students to exceptionally high standards, and never got her Ph.D.–apparently a war broke out in the country where she was conducting research.
Yet despite my inevitable frustrations in her classes–her disorganization manifested itself in many, many ways–my appreciation for her has only increased over time, especially in my graduate education and career in tutoring and teaching.
Her name is Phyllis, and I’ve learned more from her than maybe any teacher I’ve ever had. Though I have two degrees in English and I got B-level grades in her classes, her belief in me and my work in Black Studies has transformed my life and work.
When I first expressed interest in taking such classes at the Quaker liberal arts school in Indiana where we called our professors by their first names, a counselor told me that that would mean inevitably taking Phyllis–who, this counselor said, was tougher than the very tough English professor who, as I see it, taught me how to write because of her high standards. A school alum said that Phyllis was like my tough professor, “but a bulldog. She’ll make you better and work harder and tougher and smarter.”
I scheduled an office meeting with Phyllis in the spring of 2007 to find out more about the Black Studies program that she directed at the college, and she probably thought I was the strangest eighteen-year-old she’d ever met. I knew some things about jazz and was ranting about how I didn’t like the conservative arguments of the critic Stanley Crouch, asking her about the work of his adversary, Amiri Baraka . . . as a hyper-caffeinated white nerd from the North Shore suburbs of Chicago who at that point smelled like garbage.
She later told me that despite my inconsistently strong work in her classes, she always saw potential in me–and that I would do well in a graduate program for Black Studies. Although that hasn’t materialized, when I took my first Phyllis class, I was, of course, unprepared. The second day of class, we had a quiz on reading, and I, like many, failed it. I got so discouraged that I failed the next few quizzes much worse, not completing the reading.
But eventually, I got what she was doing and worked hard to improve. In her classes, it wasn’t enough to read the material; we had to read exceptionally carefully and critically, synthesizing for quizzes and tests who or what something was and why it mattered.
On her quizzes, there were typically nine terms–names, concepts, laws, movements–and we were asked to “identify and give the significance of” six. I could not bullshit my way through any of it. As much as I was used to coasting through classes and thus initially resented having to work that hard, those quizzes and tests made me a better student.
Even now, fifteen years after taking a class with this term, I still remember–hopefully correctly–what I wrote for the quiz item Wormley House Agreement: it was an 1876 agreement between Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats that handed over the presidential election results from Democrat Samuel Tilden to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes; it was significant because it ended Reconstruction.
Part of why I love Phyllis so much is her gigantic knowledge of history–never my best subject. Phyllis is a true historian whom I have more respect for, despite some disagreements we share, than any history teacher I’ve had. But even more than that, her approach to the study of history was striking.
Here are ten things I learned from Phyllis that have impacted my education (in no particular order):
1. Simply reading a text is not enough; critical thinking on the reading matters. In the age of ChatGPT, this concept is critical for my understanding of how to approach education.
2. Synthesis matters more for historical narratives than dates. I could always memorize names and dates, but for quizzes and tests with Phyllis, memorization felt more challenging, yet also more rewarding.
3. High standards and expectations for work are necessary for student success. I admittedly wasn’t always clear on her expectations for papers, but when I got clarity, I would not stop working on those research assignments (though the results usually ended up a mess).
4. Textbooks should never be the only source of reading and learning. Phyllis’s classes mixed textbooks with primary sources and critical scholarship, which ended up giving a more in depth look at specific history topics than I expected.
5. Challenging master narratives of history matters. In this age where diversity, equity, and inclusion are dirty words, what Phyllis taught me about the facts of history and different narratives has stayed with me.
6. Arguments matter more than facts for history. The critical scholarship we read added much more depth than simply chronicling facts ever could have.
7. Office hours are better than class discussions. Earlham College is very discussion-heavy for History and other disciplines, but in her classes especially, tangents were the norm. As Phyllis grew up with the civil rights movement, her invaluable knowledge and experience were much more obvious when we were able to talk without getting sidetracked.
8. Courses and grades should reward improvement. This is self-explanatory, but it meant a lot when I finally got strong grades on her tests.
9. Staying up-to-date on critical scholarship is always a good idea. Phyllis taught many of the same courses for decades, but I was always impressed with her knowledge of contemporary work on whatever she was teaching.
10. The mode of research and interpretation is sometimes more worth commentary than the facts. I remember an article on Black domestic workers in the New South in the late nineteenth century–while the class focused on the details of the article, Phyllis discussed the tools of research and the approach to the study of history.
Today I want to pay tribute to a professor who pushed me harder to do better work than I thought I was capable of doing. Phyllis, this one’s for you.
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