A cheering professor

I'm going to have to be upfront here, and say that this semester has been one of the most difficult ones since I started working here. With six classes, one of which is in a field I am still reading up on, and all of which are over capacity, the vacancy left by Steve still not filled, more freshmen than we've ever had, and a program review coming up, life hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs in our nook of campus. And that is exactly why yesterday, I found myself learning a cheer from a front-row student in front of a packed 10am class.

I've always wanted to be a cheerleader. The pompoms, the yelling, the stunts, the dancing, it all seemed like magic to me. But a busy schedule, a love for field hockey, track, as well as drama, and a complete and utter ineptness to perform something as simple as a cartwheel without a serious flailing of arms and legs stopped me from ever trying out. But, even though high school days are long gone, I, inspired by shows like Glee and I'm-not-feeling-well movie choices like "Bring it on", still dream about it.

And when I think about the antics it sometimes takes to motivate students, I like to think of myself as an academic cheerleader. I cajole, I preach, I joke, I sing (mainly Motown), I act out, I dance and prance, and generally make a spectacle of myself. But it seems to work. Students laugh, either at me, or with me, and their attitudes improve.

This semester, though, the whole cheerleading gig has been a rough one. For not only am I seriously overburdened, the students haven't had it easy either. They're packed into classrooms that are too small, their dorms are overcrowded, their production director (i.e., Steve) left, advisers are swamped, and the fact that a third of our campus is under construction doesn't help either. They're tired, irritable, and their professor are just plain unfair. And so, sometimes I find myself snapping a little more vehemently than might have been necessary. There seems to have been very little cheerleading, not in my classroom, or the classrooms of any of my coworkers.

Yesterday, though, I got a bee in my bonnet. It was 10 in the morning, my class had to turn in a paper, and subquently, at least six students were seriously late, on account of, they were still finishing their paper. The others were looking as close to death as humanly possible, and I myself wasn't quite feeling it either. So when two students in the front row asked me a question about homecoming, I thought I would, instead of bringing them back on topic, roll with it. For just a minute or so, I promised myself. Enough to get them awake and slightly motivated.

But then someone mentioned our cheerleaders. As it happened, one of the two students is on the football cheerleading squad, and when she told the class about her insane practices, I let slip that I always wanted to be a cheerleader too.
"Oh, well, I can teach you a cheer, you know!" My student looked at me, with that grin that any teacher immediately recognizes. It's the grin your kids give you when they just ate all the Halloween candy. Or your dog, when she got into the meat, again. It's an adorable, innocent, "please let me get away with this" grin. Usually, it's a sign for me it's time to reel the class in, but this time, I was so tired of being the bad cop, and done with not enjoying what I do that I said, "OK, why not."

The class started to giggle and whisper, which quickly turned to a serious roar when the student got up, came up front, and proceeded to teach me the, apparently very popular, "Go, let's go!" cheer.

What can I say? Had the president walked by at that time, I'm sure he would have been less than pleased. I'm also pretty sure it's considered pedagogically very unsound for a professor to do little dance steps while chanting, "Go, go, let's go" in front of her class. But I'm also very sure I had a blast. I messed up, forgot the steps, the words, and made everyone laugh, including myself. Every single class since then has brought it up, and I think I might have earned some serious brownie points, as I heard one of my radio students today call me "the cheering professor". So there you go. I'm mean. I'm tough. But I cheer. And that makes it all better.