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Authors: Theo Pauline Nestor
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eradicate all memory of her
from the minds of my fellow faculty. But stil , I feared her com-
ing departure; once she was gone, my isolation would know no
bounds.
We had lunch together at a café in Pioneer Square a few
days before she left. She spoke with wild excitement about Jean
Piaget, schema theory, and Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences as if all this were the stuff I lived and breathed. Apparently, all these things held the secret underpinnings to my
nemesis: the Success Skil s course.
“Hold on, let me get this down,” I said, digging through my
purse for paper.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, her mouth half full of salad,
waving away my search for paper with her free hand. “It’s all on
the notecards.”
“Notecards?” I asked, hope rising in me for the first time in
days.
“Notecards,” she said with a wink. “It’s all in the cards, my
friend. No worries.”
The day after B. left for Stanford, I tracked down the file with
6 1
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T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
the note cards. For each of the Success Skil s lectures there was
a stack of about ten note cards paper-clipped together. I started
with the one for Class Three: How We Learn. “In Piaget’s schema
theory,” the card read, “he asserted that our brains are like filing cabinets.” Okay, I thought, fair enough. The next card read, “For
each topic, we own a folder, which may be very thin or quite
full.”
The cards lacked the promise of revealing the mystery of
Success Skil s I’d hope they’d deliver. But I was also tired of
being afraid, of thinking about the dreaded class, of preparing
for something I didn’t truly know how to prepare for. I’d read the
corresponding chapters in Pauk and Owens’s book How to Study
in Col ege ; bring the cards and it would work out, right? B. had done it, hadn’t she?
I overlooked the fact that B. had created these notes based
on her own knowledge, which was immense. Each of the mi-
nuscule notations on each individual card pointed to a large file
in her brain that she would download when prompted by each
tiny note. I had no such files in my brain. I had only the tiny note pointing to my vast ignorance of how we learn and many other
subjects.
Enrollment in the Success Skil s class was mandatory for
students participating in a certain scholarship-generating grant
program. No typical college student would take such a course
otherwise. My first quarter of Success Skil s was taught in an au-
ditorium of seventy-seven freshmen in which I couldn’t make out
the faces in the darkness of the top rows. I’d never taught a class in my life, let alone a group of seventy-seven freshman. When
the fated day arrived, I stumbled into the first class, blinded by
6 2
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6/7/13 8:19 AM
W r i t i n g i s M y D r i n k
the bright stage lights. I focused on the people in the first three rows. I began my rambling Welcome to the Class! speech, never
letting my eyes stray above the third row. I’d never taught a class in my life, but to let that on would guarantee a bloodbath. All
power would instantly be transferred to the sharks; I’d be de-
stroyed.
The class met twice a week for ten weeks, and I got through
each class, but just barely. I clung to the note cards and made up
all sorts of stuff, to the point where I thought I might be arrested and run out of town. I made a lot of jokes and, frankly, the class
was easy, so most of the students liked me well enough. But I
knew the class wasn’t good . Then it came: course evaluation day.
Let me pause for a moment and say this: Yes, in most jobs,
one is evaluated, but there is only one job in which one is evalu-
ated anonymously by a group in which the median age is 18.75
years.
The evaluations came back to me a few weeks later, and it
was quickly clear that this wasn’t the most discerning
from the minds of my fellow faculty. But stil , I feared her com-
ing departure; once she was gone, my isolation would know no
bounds.
We had lunch together at a café in Pioneer Square a few
days before she left. She spoke with wild excitement about Jean
Piaget, schema theory, and Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences as if all this were the stuff I lived and breathed. Apparently, all these things held the secret underpinnings to my
nemesis: the Success Skil s course.
“Hold on, let me get this down,” I said, digging through my
purse for paper.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, her mouth half full of salad,
waving away my search for paper with her free hand. “It’s all on
the notecards.”
“Notecards?” I asked, hope rising in me for the first time in
days.
“Notecards,” she said with a wink. “It’s all in the cards, my
friend. No worries.”
The day after B. left for Stanford, I tracked down the file with
6 1
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 61
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
the note cards. For each of the Success Skil s lectures there was
a stack of about ten note cards paper-clipped together. I started
with the one for Class Three: How We Learn. “In Piaget’s schema
theory,” the card read, “he asserted that our brains are like filing cabinets.” Okay, I thought, fair enough. The next card read, “For
each topic, we own a folder, which may be very thin or quite
full.”
The cards lacked the promise of revealing the mystery of
Success Skil s I’d hope they’d deliver. But I was also tired of
being afraid, of thinking about the dreaded class, of preparing
for something I didn’t truly know how to prepare for. I’d read the
corresponding chapters in Pauk and Owens’s book How to Study
in Col ege ; bring the cards and it would work out, right? B. had done it, hadn’t she?
I overlooked the fact that B. had created these notes based
on her own knowledge, which was immense. Each of the mi-
nuscule notations on each individual card pointed to a large file
in her brain that she would download when prompted by each
tiny note. I had no such files in my brain. I had only the tiny note pointing to my vast ignorance of how we learn and many other
subjects.
Enrollment in the Success Skil s class was mandatory for
students participating in a certain scholarship-generating grant
program. No typical college student would take such a course
otherwise. My first quarter of Success Skil s was taught in an au-
ditorium of seventy-seven freshmen in which I couldn’t make out
the faces in the darkness of the top rows. I’d never taught a class in my life, let alone a group of seventy-seven freshman. When
the fated day arrived, I stumbled into the first class, blinded by
6 2
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 62
6/7/13 8:19 AM
W r i t i n g i s M y D r i n k
the bright stage lights. I focused on the people in the first three rows. I began my rambling Welcome to the Class! speech, never
letting my eyes stray above the third row. I’d never taught a class in my life, but to let that on would guarantee a bloodbath. All
power would instantly be transferred to the sharks; I’d be de-
stroyed.
The class met twice a week for ten weeks, and I got through
each class, but just barely. I clung to the note cards and made up
all sorts of stuff, to the point where I thought I might be arrested and run out of town. I made a lot of jokes and, frankly, the class
was easy, so most of the students liked me well enough. But I
knew the class wasn’t good . Then it came: course evaluation day.
Let me pause for a moment and say this: Yes, in most jobs,
one is evaluated, but there is only one job in which one is evalu-
ated anonymously by a group in which the median age is 18.75
years.
The evaluations came back to me a few weeks later, and it
was quickly clear that this wasn’t the most discerning
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