Yet here I was, being asked to teach college writing courses… and I said yes. Although I could small talk with the best of them, I avoided it if possible. I liked to work alone (I chose writing, after all). I chose staying home over going out most of the time. I had a close group of friends and preferred spending time with them over going to large parties. But even when I was relatively comfortable in social situations, I walked away worn out - the “introvert hangover” is real. Most social situations made me nervous and self-conscious, especially when they were with people outside of my tight-knit circle of friends or coworkers who “get me” for me. Carl Jung first made the distinction between us and them - introverts and extroverts - characterizing the ways each of us respond to the outside world. It’s unclear exactly how many of us introverts are out there, but it’s anywhere from 16 to 50 percent.
I had the triple threat: I was shy, had anxiety because of my shyness, and was an introvert. As an introvert, my default setting in a classroom environment - in any social environment, really - was to sit in the back and contribute only when I was sure I had something to say, and even that took courage. I sat in her office dumbfounded: I had an undergraduate degree in history, after all, and didn’t think I was worthy enough to teach. It was the end of the spring semester when the program director asked if I was interested in teaching I’d begin in the fall. When asked, I was 22 years old and a part-time student in an English MA program.
#Front of the class full
One of the greatest things that ever happened to me was teaching - and it all started when I was a Teaching Fellow during my first full year of graduate school. And the second class that immediately followed was a little easier. I went over the syllabus and let them go early. I walked into that classroom and had each of the students introduce themselves before I introduced myself. Outside the building, I took some deep breaths and contained myself. I had done the same an hour before, standing over my bathroom toilet before leaving my apartment. Before walking into the classroom on the morning of my first day teaching a college writing course, I stood against a railing behind the building and dry-heaved.
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