How to be respected without really trying

I've been a bit distracted lately, mostly by the class I've been teaching. I lecture to 84 undergrads, twice a week, about Game Theory. Yes, eighty-four students is a lot. I'm delighted to say that I'll have minimal involvement in grading the homeworks, which is the really painful part---paid those dues already, I guess. The lecture hall itself has a grandiose feel: if the classroom were a movie theatre, it'd be a good one, with a steep slope, and the chalkboard (and me) waay down at the bottom. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to be a movie, well, it's a bit intimidating.

The students don't really want to say much. They sit and stare at me, and despite my best efforts to be fun and animated, they still sit and stare, not wanting to say something dumb in front of 83 of their peers. Occasionally, I'll see vague nods in response to simple yes/no questions.

At first, I think every teacher wants the students to like them and get all animated at the sight of such a wonderful teacher. I wanted to be the cool teacher about whom the students say `I wish every professor were like Professor Coolio!'. But I'm over that desire, having realized that it's simply impossible: I have a pretty narrow sense of humor, which works great with about three of the students in the class---and there's no sense of humor that they'd all like. At this point, I've revised the original goal of `maximize the number of students who love me' down to `minimize the number of students who hate me'.

I'm absolutely certain that at least one of them is reading this right now (hi.), so I won't say anything too nasty. But there are certain types of people whom I never got along with. Erat gregius, holding a conversation with a fraternity boy has always been an abortive effort all around. This is not to say that I or they are evil, just that our conversational ideas, our forms of play, our ideals, our frequency of use of incidental latin, just don't match. So if I were to meet one of these folks at a party (which would not be surprising; I'm probably the oldest guy in the room, but only by a year or three), then they would pretty certainly either give me the cold shoulder entirely, or would attempt a brief conversation, decide I'm a dork, and move on.

So imagine my awkward surprise when such a person calls me `Professor' when nervously approaching me with a question. I guess it's great that the social set-up is such that two people who would never get along elsewhere manage to have a beneficial exchange of content---society at its finest; I'll have to work it into a lesson somewhere---but it still feels somehow incongruous to me. They're not really talking to me as much as the concept of professor they have in their heads.

Then there's the question of content provision. If you estimate about three thousand dollars per student (which is low), then 84 students collectively paid a quarter of a million dollars to hear me speak. What the *uck do I have to say about Game Theory, or anything else, that's worth that?

This is exacerbated by the fact that the content is entirely at my discretion. The class isn't a prerequisite for anything, so there's nothing I have to cover; almost all of the students would be perfectly happy if I told them `You've all got an A. Class dismissed.'; I'd guess if you asked the parents, most of them wouldn't know what Game Theory is outside of a vague idea. If I'd announced on day one, `Game Theory is the study of chess openings and sex', I'm sure the world would continue to spin, none the wiser.

One guideline from the people in charge is that they want me to teach a topics class---start off with the mechanics, but then apply them to different fields like politics, auctions, and prisoner interrogation. This is incredibly fortunate for me, because I've had heaps of practice doing this---right here on this blog. Yup, most of the class consists of recycled blog entries. Yesterday's topic was how to bid optimally on ebay, which you'll recall from this entry. It's a bit more detailed and technical in class, with more frequent use of the term `Nash equilibrium'. The format---a giant lecture hall and a fixed meeting time---makes the content somehow more important and valuable.

[The eternal conflict remains, however, that I need to provide new content twice a week, every week. As noted, I'm waiting to run out of content on this here blog, and it's the same in class but with time pressure. I've already had a few close calls, and even yesterday's class ran a bit short at the end there (not that the students care).]

I don't want to imply that I hate my students, or enjoy the odd power I have over them, or that I'm not taking the task seriously. But I'm just a guy, some loser with a blog and a PhD and an old mattress on the floor in the bedroom. I can play the character of Professor just fine, and deliver exactly the kind of lecture required for a good Game Theory class, but it still all feels like a strange kind of act.

It's like the first time I realized that the math teacher flirts with the language arts teacher, or the first time I went out drinking with somebody who teaches in an elementary school, or the first time I had lunch with a Nobel Prize winner. We've all had those experience where we realize that even people with a title and status are just people---except now it's me that the pretentions and expectations are directed toward.