Revere, Not Fear

This Thursday, ten am, I teach my first tutorial. This is a moment that, as many of you will no doubt know, I have been looking forward to for quite some time. So, understandably, my chief concern is:


WHAT TO WEAR????

A part of me….heck, no, actually all of me, loves wardrobe firsts. Scientists say that scent is the most evocative sense of all – and, as a fragrance devotee, I certainly don’t underestimate the significance of the olfactory. Perhaps I’m a few steps up the evolutionary ladder, however, because for me, the sartorial is the sense that is most evocative of a particular time, place and moment. Whether it’s first dates, first days of school or uni, or the first time I saw the Sex and the City movie, the outfit I wore is encoded with more sensory memories than anything else associated with the event. Indeed, no matter how hard I try, my navy silk Saba frock will always and forevermore be known in my head and in my heart as The Lifeguard Dress – but perhaps that’s a story for another time. Likewise, yellow and green ribbons always evoke my first day of kindergarten, just as black cardigans bring to mind my first day at uni and the lovely German exchange student who chivalrously returned it to me after I’d abandoned it in my haste to leave the lecture theatre and have a cry in the ladies from COMPLETE NERVOUS EXHAUSTION – again, story for another time. I think perhaps you are getting the idea though – for me, clothes are the defining sense-memory of important events in my life.

For this reason, I’m understandably a little bit hung up about what to wear this Thurs, as my first ever teaching gig will no doubt rank as a keynote day in my life. Professionally, it’s the first actual step down the actual path of what I actually want to do with my actual life in the actual world of actual work. Personally, it’s an important marker of growing up – that the university trusts me, perhaps erroneously, with the little kiddies because they think the munchkins might be able to do some good learning with me. Little old me! Shucks.

Also, as was pointed out to me during a training session last week, we’re in the front line, the trenches (I’m direct quoting, not elaborating), with the students, in the battlefield that is the Australian National University (the bit about the battlefield was an elaboration on my part but it’s nonetheless fitting to extend the metaphor, don’t you think?). According to our instructor, our role as intellectual capitalists, extracting the most brain labour out of the student masses (switching to Marxist metaphors now) means that tutors need to inspire FEAR in their students – not a lot, but enough to keep them one step ahead of a boot up the backside.

Pedagalogicaly, this whole fear thing doesn’t sit too well with me. Yes, I want my students to take me seriously and do as I ask, to get their essays in on time (HA) and to be interested and engaged in the course materials (HA. HAHA. HA). But I’m not necessarily comfortable with deliberately making them afraid of me. After all, as we are continually told, we are their first point of contact with the university – an institution that is scary and alienating enough as it is, never mind my pathetic attempts to instil fear in my students.

It was over a slightly burnt but nonetheless elegant supper (caramelized onion tart and salad) with MiMi Goss that we hit upon the strategy I will employ in my tutorials. Rather than getting the kids to FEAR me, I will instead be aiming to have them REVERE me. Aside from being a nice little rhyme, replacing the fear with revere fits much more nicely with my attitude to teaching. Instead of making the students scared of what I might do if they don’t comply with my direction, I shall instead compel them down the path of good behaviour, critical engagement with the literature, and punctual submission of essays with my own fabulousness as the primary motivator.

When I look back over my little life, it’s the teachers who I’ve wanted to be like, who I’ve admired, worshiped – whom I have revered - that I’ve learnt the most from. All I can remember about the teachers I was afraid of was that I was that I was afraid of them – not the knowledge that they imparted.

So, having worked out my preferred pedagological position from a veritable Karma Sutra of positional options, all that remains is to find the perfect outfit - the outfit that inspires reverence, rathe than fear, indifference, or, worst of all, giggles.

Trouble is, every person has a different take on what this outfit should be. MiMi suggests curve hugging glamour, with clever accessoriation: Sookie Compton and Tara Samson, my new housemates, suggests kooky colour and layers respectively, for reasons of approachability and practicality. Zsuzannah Verona thinks that black and neutrals are a bad idea, and give off an impression of being a part of the staid academy rather than someone forging a new path: Kitty Gilfeather, on the other hand, thinks that black and white with lots of interesting texture and great jewellery sends the message that I’m to be respected as well as liked.

So much good advice, from so many trusted sources, makes for one confused prospective tutor.

Thus, it is in the spirit of collaborative sharing of knowledge and insight that I open the question to you, dear reader. On this most important day in my life – what should I, and should I not, wear?