Regardless of my good students' power to humble my hubris-soaked soul, my displeasure is stirred by a certain class of re-entry gasbags, returning students whose interest isn’t so much in learning but in controlling the direction of the class, admonishing the other, younger students for their “ignorance,” and monitoring the instructor’s behavior. These re-entry students will find fault in the instructor’s “insensitivity,” tape-record the lectures in order to pour over them later with a fine-toothed comb so that they can find “offenses” that may be turned in as evidence if they should wish to file a grievance. Worse than filing dubious grievances, these re-entry students will do all in their power to make themselves the center of attention. As far as they’re concerned, the entire class should be focused on addressing their personal dramas and obsessions, for self-centeredness is their most salient characteristic. The main reason for this self-centeredness is that a certain type of re-entry student has been hibernating for many years, if not decades, and has re-entered the college environment and society at large without a sense of boundaries and propriety. For twenty years or so these re-entry students have soaked their fatty livers with Jack Daniels inside a dark, reeking tavern, flailed their limbs inside the seething bowels of a dysfunctional marriage, developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome inside the cold dehumanizing cubicle of their soulless office space, or escaped some other indescribable hell. But then miraculously something woke them up from their private hell. It could have been anything. An inspirational film, a television program, a book, a meeting with a spiritual counselor. Or they were overcome by the conviction they would forever live in poverty and squalor unless they furthered their education. Whatever the source of their awakening, they developed the desire to matriculate through college and find a loud voice to counterbalance their many years of suffering in silence. Their silent suffering has at last come to an end, for now inside the college classroom they have found a place where people must listen to them. They are finally free to vent their pent-up grievances, their wrenching aches, and their ceaseless victimization. In short, they have become re-entry gasbags. The re-entry gasbag can be an insufferable classroom presence and the source of a college instructor’s greatest nightmares. There are three major reasons for this gasbag’s chafing presence on the instructor and the students. The first is the gasbag’s determination to hijack the class discussion into an Oprah-style forum of touchy-feely chitchat in which the unfiltered expression of feelings is mistaken for the highest form of learning. This re-entry student is eager to share lurid tales of family abuse, addictions suffered, or graphically described medical ailments that, because of their very grotesquerie, somehow qualify as being “thought provoking.” For example, one "thought-provoking" student, a middle-aged woman wearing a conspicuous greenish-blond wig and a sweat shirt that said, “CHOCOLATE IS MY BEST FRIEND,” interrupted a classroom discussion by standing up and describing her hysterectomy and her depression-induced bulimia. This gasbag glared at us with an expression of both anger and neediness. On one hand, her glare dared us to criticize her for spilling her guts, as it were, in the discussion. On the other hand, she wanted all of us to hug her, to wipe her red, teary cheeks with tissues, and to say how much we loved her. Predictably, none of her classmates nor I had any love to give her. Instead, I nodded politely at her, told her that her story was a compelling one, then tried to steer the discussion back to our reading assignment, but by then it was too late. The students were still wincing and squirming with discomfort from the woman’s confession and I was forced to end the class early. The re-entry gasbag’s penchant for pre-maturely ending a class is matched by his or her delusion of “expertise,” usually the result of earning an “A” grade in the previous semester’s Introduction to Psychology class. Suddenly this gasbag feels free to bloviate on the “super ego,” “transference,” “projection,” “the unconscious,” and “co-dependency” as if he or she had authored these terms. This psychobabble is rarely relevant to the discussion and is bandied about so carelessly that it makes no sense and serves no purpose other than to draw attention to the gasbag’s “expertise.” Not limited to psychology, this “expertise” is also derived from the gasbag’s fanatical observance of programs airing on the Hallmark Hall of Fame and the Oprah Winfrey Show. Predictably, this gasbag will write essays cherry-picked from these lachrymose melodramas. Over time, the gasbag’s essays will all look the same since every composition will be a slight variation on the same motif: A community of close-minded buffoons experiences “emotional growth” that results when an idealistic and courageous outcast, usually the gasbag, pits his or her will against the society’s backward ways and proves, once again, the triumph of the human spirit over the dark forces of learned helplessness and ignorance. Hell-bent on showing just how helpless and ignorant we are, the re-entry gasbag bullies and lectures us with his or her self-proclaimed expertise on all matters known to man. A telltale sign of these re-entry gasbags is their rolling a book cart into the classroom. Resembling a homeless person’s caravan, this book cart has virtually of all their personal possessions—backpack, bottled water, extra sweaters, jackets, sun visor, umbrella, unguents, lip balm, snack items, laptop computer, electronic dictionary, and in extreme cases, an oxygen tank since these students usually suffer an allergy or condition that requires “purified” air. The sheer difficulty of pulling these elephantine book carts slows these students down and they are forever late to class. They saunter twenty minutes late with clanking, sometimes squeaking, wheels on their carts. Then comes the protracted “settling in” process. Out of breath, they loudly unzip their coat and backpack and are usually slurping loudly on coffee or some other steaming beverage. Invariably, they will spill their drink all over the floor. By the time they waddle to the bathroom, return with an entire dispenser of brown industrial-grade paper towels, and soak up the hot liquid, the class period is half-way over. Now that the coffee spill has been somewhat cleaned, the student must get “up to speed” on the lecture so that he or she feels compelled to whisper in a loud hissing manner to another student with several questions. These transactions often involve the loaning of pens, pencils, paper, and other forgotten materials. Then there is the eating. These gasbags, suffering from a dubious medical condition like low blood sugar or some other "affliction," unabashedly open zip-lock baggies of apple slices, cheese wedges, bagels, and peanut butter crackers. Or in some cases they have just returned from a fast-food eatery so that they open Styrofoam packaging from which they gorge on Cesar salads, submarine sandwiches, football-sized burritos, teriyaki chicken, and chow fun noodles so that the classroom is now redolent of a greasy all-you-can-eat buffet. Worse, between the smacking of their lips and the slurping of their drinks, they interrupt the class discussion by steering the conversation to a “co-dependent” relationship they are currently in. Or they will tell us that they have “come to terms with” or have “achieved closure with” some sociopathic relative who stole their identity and charged up all their credit cards. By the time they have finished settling in, eating several thousand calories, and lecturing us on the importance of “letting go” and achieving “closure,” the class is over and they must now go through the painstaking task of repacking all their belongings and rolling their cart to the next class where they again will be late and start their settling in, spilling of hot beverages, feasting, and monopolizing the class discussion all over again. Because these re-entry gasbags have no real interest in learning and are motivated by the possibility of having in every class an audience beholden to their strident confessions, these students never intend to graduate. To postpone their exit from college, they change their major every year or so or work on multiple majors, claiming that a variety of studies makes them more “well rounded.” Attending the college for over a quarter of a century or longer, many of these gasbags outlive their professors and in fact their noxious presence has been attributed as the cause for many of the professors’ premature deaths. Old age, infirmity and decrepitude are not even sufficient to keep these re-entry gasbags away from campus. Well into their eighties, they can still be found hobbling past the campus theater or alehouse. They’re usually unbathed, have rotten teeth, rancid breath, head lice, and are dressed in the tattered attire of a professional vagabond. They’ll often have a bundle of old newspapers secured under their armpit while holding a cup of coffee. But no matter how grave their ailments, there’s something they find in the opportunity to impose their gasbag ways on the instructors and students that empowers and emboldens them. Perpetually confessing their life story to a helpless classroom audience is their magical elixir that keeps them invigorated and enlivened seemingly forever.
For the most part, I am impressed with my re-entry students’ zeal for learning. Whereas many of my younger students are too shy, socially awkward, self-absorbed, or apathetic to contribute to classroom discussions, my re-entry students show a passion for the subject matter, an articulate “voice” rooted in their strong sense of self, and a wisdom that eclipses my own and leaves me humbled.
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Jesus, it sounds like your time at work is about evenly split between teaching and babysitting.
Three observations :
(1) The "CHOCOLATE IS MY BEST FRIEND" slogan on that woman's sweatshirt translates literally into English as "Warning - idiot approaching."
(2) Nice montage of Gladys Kravitz up top there. Didn't realize the character was played by Don Knox till now, but I'm always the last to know.
(3) I'll chalk it up as a sly and deliberate irony that you've made the "gasbag" posts the longest on your entire blog.
Posted by: Mike W | June 16, 2009 at 08:00 PM
Wow. I never knew Don Knox made that character. Another irony: I am a gasbag.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | June 16, 2009 at 08:18 PM
Just kidding on number three, Jeff. Very funny essay. You should crack down on those in-class eaters, though. When they trot out the phony medical justifications (which sound very L.A. to my northeastern ears), just demand to see the burrito prescription.
Posted by: Mike W | June 16, 2009 at 08:32 PM
As a man who eats every two or three hours, munching on fruit, nuts, granola like the insatiable grazer that I am, I find it shocking that many of my students go for six or more hours without food and may sadly nibble on some non-nutritive chips in class at 6 PM, this being their first food product since eating a slice of toast at 7 AM.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | June 16, 2009 at 09:58 PM