“You are all probably familiar with the love relationship between the male and the female black widow. The female works hard at attracting a male to fertilize her eggs, and once this is done, she kills him. Is not the lesson clear? Men, don’t overlook nature as a primer. Remember Hamlet’s speech to Ophelia,” McShane would say and then look at the most sexually attractive girl in his class and recite: “‘I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp. You nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath made me mad. … ’”
He filled the class with laughter, but just as quickly as he had driven them to hilarity, he would change expression and drive home a serious theme: the behavior of animals in nature give us clues to human behavior. Nothing must be overlooked. The perceptive mind sees some truth in the life processes of the smallest insects. He challenged his students to be aware and to be alive. “For what distinguishes you from inanimate objects? Surely not the mere pulsation of protoplasm.”
Normally, his classes were jammed; his registrations were quickly filled, so it was not without a certain amount of persuasion that the dean of students finally convinced him to participate in the new pilot program with area high-school students. Often resembling a marine recuiter, Bob Stigman hammered home his arguments.
“Our enrollment has been steadily declining. The community college system has been growing everywhere. Our out-of-towners are finding it less expensive to remain in their own areas. Staff cutbacks are inevitable. This is a way to slow the attrition.
“And besides, it’s the first function of a community college to provide educational opportunity for its community. Don’t look down your nose at these high-school students, Kevin. They’re the choice. Right now they’re being selected carefully. You’re going to find them more challenging than what you’ve got now.”
“What I’ve got now are humanoids, not humans. Sometimes I think I’ve slipped into the land of the dead. Do you know in some classes I’m answering my own questions? What I do is ask a question, wait a significant amount of time, and then point to the back or the side of the room and say, That’s right,’ and then give the answer. They turn around to see who spoke. They don’t even know if someone had or hadn’t.”
“Exactly. That’s why I know you’re going to enjoy this more than anyone else. These are the kids that are destined for the Ivy League, scholarship winners, the gifted. You’re going to love it.”
“A high-school kid is a high-school kid is a high-school kid.”
“Just give it a chance.”
“I must be crazy. Put me down,” he said. “Maybe I can use it for a paper on the adolescent’s learning problems.”
And so it was with something less than cautious optimism that Professor Kevin McShane walked toward his classroom to begin his part of what was now known as the college-in-escrow program. He decided to be even more unorthodox than usual in a quick effort to weed out the “babies.”
This class consisted of fourteen students. He noted immediately how they were scattered over the room: groups of three and four, probably unified by their common schools, and one solitary student up front by herself. Without even introducing himself, he threw out a question.
“Why these little clusters all over my classroom?”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Lois Wilson looked up from her book.
“It’s simply a ramification of the herd theory. Man is by nature gregarious. This is a new, and therefore threatening, experience,” she added, turning slightly and gesturing toward the remainder of the class, “so they clump to face it with a greater sense of security.”
Most of the other students grimaced at being referred to as a clump. McShane’s eyes widened as he looked hard at this pedantic-sounding girl. With her wide-rimmed glasses set on the bony bridge of her thin nose, her mouth turned down at the corners, her hair pulled tightly behind her head, she looked like the classical sexually frustrated scholarly type. And yet there was something about the way this girl maintained her posture and held her gaze that led him to believe she was different, more confident, stronger. If only Sherry could see her. He made a mental note to point her out.
“And you don’t have that need, Miss … ?”
“Wilson, Lois Wilson. Of course. What I’ve done is subdue it.”
“Conquered instinct, eh?” He started to smile.
“Put the lid on it. I don’t believe we can conquer instinct in the sense that we can literally destroy it. Of course, we can and do sublimate, but under the right conditions even the most so-called civilized man can regress into purely instinctive behavior.”
“Why do you say ‘so-called civilized’?” This girl was going to offer some challenge, he thought.
“In context, the word is judgmental. We’ve given it a positive connotation, but there are some, if you’ll excuse me,” she said in an obviously condescending tone of voice, “so-called uncivilized people who might very well be living more fruitful lives.”
He stared at her for a moment, trying to imagine the parents who had produced this kid. Probably loaded her room with encyclopedias and forbade her to watch any television but Sesame Street and National Geographic specials. McShane was about to go on when he realized the rest of the class had turned into an audience. He quickly gazed at his registration sheet.
“Well, now, what do you think of all this, Mr. … Arnold?”
A short, black-haired boy in the back smiled slowly, looking at his companions on the right and on the left. He shook his head.
“I don’t even know what the hell she’s talking about,” he said, and the class roared.
McShane noted that Lois Wilson seemed completely undisturbed by the remark. It was as though she had already written them off.
“Well, we’re going to have to do something about that, Mr. Arnold. We’re going to have to get you to the point where you do know what the hell she’s talking about. Do you think that’s possible?” Arnold shrugged, still smiling. “What do you think, Miss Wilson?”
“You’re in a better position to judge that, Professor McShane. Check his IQ scores, his reading level, his academic achievements to date. Academic prognostication has become a more exact science, has it not?”
“What Miss Wilson is suggesting, Mr. Arnold, is that I take your mental temperature,” McShane said. The class laughed again. Lois smirked.
“Long’s she’s not doin’ it,” David Arnold said. There was more laughter.
“OK, then. Let’s begin at the beginning.” McShane took out a small pile of ditto sheets. “I’ll give you your outside readings and your syllabus today,” he continued and started down the aisle. “You’ll notice that I’m requiring one paper,” he said. The groan that followed brought him back to reality. Except for the Wilson girl, things weren’t going to be that much different after all.
To the extent that she would permit herself to be infatuated, Lois Wilson was infatuated with Professor Kevin McShane. She found herself growing excited when he went on to say that Shakespeare was wrong, the world’s not a stage, “it’s a controlled environment. We don’t act; we react. Some of our reactions are automatic; some of them are learned and developed. There is stimulus and response. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.’ ”
Perhaps he was overly dramatic, but he was right. After that initial class, she felt more of a kinship toward him than she did toward any member of her own family. It was as if she had finally found one of her own kind. Here was someone who apparently was as much of a purist as she was in viewing the world as a setting for behavioral patterns. He was able to convert almost anything into its simplest and clearest description, whether it be national historical events or daily activities carried out by every human being. He had the perception, the vision, the freshness; and those students who left his class complaining about his work requirements and his topics were s
imply myopic. She detested them and dreamed of being alone with Professor McShane so they both could be unencumbered by those with a lesser vision. Accordingly, she was quick to make an appointment for a conference about possible topics for her paper.
As for McShane, after only two classes he was intrigued with this girl. In a mere pair of classroom discussions, she had made references to the works of Spengler, Freud, Pavlov, and Skinner. Although he had been a college teacher for six years, he had yet to encounter a college student who was as well read and as verbal. That was all interesting and exciting from an educator’s point of view, but there was something more to this girl. She had an unusual sense of purpose and determination. Her questions and answers so definite, her gaze so intent, she forced him to concentrate and think harder. He began to do more research, plan more, and think of topics he would never dream of discussing with the classes he had had in the past. In fact, he had just sat down to restructure his next class with this special high-school group when Lois Wilson came to his open office door.
The teachers’ offices in the community college were relatively small. Some teachers, mostly the instructors, shared office space and crowded in two desks and file cabinets, leaving minimal space for visitors. McShane’s office was one of the larger ones. His desk was set directly in the back facing the doorway. He had two file cabinets to the right, a wall of shelves to the left. To the immediate left of his desk, he had a small couch. There was an extra hardwood chair in the right corner, and a small window right behind his desk chair. He had a view of the front of the campus and the long, circular driveway that joined with County Highway 201.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but I saw from your schedule that you were free this hour in the afternoon.”
He stared up at her, speechless for a moment because of the way she had simply appeared as he was thinking about her. He was in awe for a few seconds, because he had been developing her in his mind as someone so extraordinary she was almost unreal, and here she had simply appeared.
“Er, come in, come in, Miss Wilson. Or do you prefer Ms.?” He smiled as she entered.
“The only title I’ll be seeking is Ph.D.,” she said. She had no textbooks, but she carried a notebook in her right hand. Dressed in a light blue down coat and dark blue slacks with fur-lined shoe boots, she didn’t look much different from other coeds on the campus. Her individuality came from her eyes: their fixed intensity, their burning determination. Some people look at you, he thought; some people look through you; but this girl looks into you. He felt as though he were being X-rayed.
“Touch6. Lois? Sit down, sit down,” he said, indicating the couch. She did so quickly. “What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to make an appointment to discuss my paper.”
“Uh-huh. And have you centered in on some topics already?”
“I had topics long before I entered your course, Professor.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, I’ve been interested in behavioral science for some time now.”
“I gathered.” He sat back in his chair and took a longer look at Lois Wilson. “What got you so interested in the subject?”
“It wasn’t a teacher,” she said, pulling the corners of her mouth up.
“Oh, it hardly ever is,” McShane said, enjoying an opportunity to be sarcastic with this girl.
“What I mean is, high-school teachers are so superficial when it comes to these things. I don’t fault them for that. They have curricula to follow, and few students want to go into any depth anyway. …”
“Very understanding of you. But you haven’t answered my question: What got you so interested in the subject?”
“A realization at an early age that the behavioral sciences hold the most promise for a real understanding of the world, that is to say, the life forms.”
“Including man?”
“Especially man.”
“How early?”
“Excuse me?”
“How early an age was it when you came to so grand a conclusion?”
“I think around the fourth grade,” she said. He could see she was deadly serious.
“Well, that’s a little earlier than me. So,” he said, sitting forward and leaning on both forearms on the desk, “what are some of your topics?”
“You mean, we can talk about them now?”
“I think so,” he said, nodding. “What I have to do can wait.” She looked at him for a moment and then opened her notebook on her lap.
As McShane listened to Lois’s possible topics, he grew mystified and awed. A mind like this comes once every twenty or so years, he thought. He didn’t come to that conclusion on the basis of her ideas alone, but the ways she presented them. Her insights and organization, her systematic arrangement of facts and concepts, excited him. He hadn’t felt like this about his subject material since he himself was studying and having tutorials with his professors.
Then he experienced a sinking feeling. Was he equal to this girl? Could he provide for her needs, especially in the context of his classroom structure as it now existed in this community college? For a moment he regretted his decision last year not to apply for that position at Columbia. When he rationalized about it, he blamed the decision on his romance with Sherry; but when he was more honest with himself, as he was now, he blamed it on his own sense of inferiority. If there is anything that can underline that sense of inferiority, he thought, it’s a student like this who is light-years ahead in her insights and mental quickness.
“I must say,” McShane began when she had finished her presentation, “you have really done your homework. I don’t think I could have a finer introduction to topics from a graduate student.”
Lois felt herself blush. She liked the feeling, and she could see that McShane’s appreciation of her was sincere. It wasn’t at all like one of her high-school teachers giving her a pat on the head for an “excellent answer,” and then making her feel like some kind of weirdo for knowing it all and being able to anticipate any questions he or she might ask.
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to have a hard time deciding which of those you should center in on. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all worthwhile.”
“I’ll probably do more than one anyway.”
McShane’s eyes widened. To have ability, enthusiasm, and drive, to be self-motivated—she was the dream student. Imagine having a classroom filled with her kind. It would be a pleasure to teach; it would actually be exciting to go to class.
“Let me think about it all and we’ll talk about it again, OK?”
“Of course,” Lois said. She smiled. This man respected her the way she should be respected. It made her feel more secure and more confident.
Later on, on her way back to the high school, she couldn’t help but continue to make comparisons between the two educational experiences. Too bad she couldn’t have gotten into something like this back in the ninth grade, she thought. Her education had been such a waste ever since—the classes moving so slowly, the teachers, unlike McShane, limited and unappreciative. Here in college she could flower, she could grow freely; there were no rigid boundaries, no stupid statements like “That’s not in our curriculum.” Too bad only an hour and a half of her day was assigned to the college. She had to work for more time, somehow get them to expand this experimental program.
“The cast list is up for the play,” Bernie Rosen said, coming up behind Lois in the hall. She didn’t stop walking, but he sped up to be beside her.
“I’m no longer interested.”
“Barbara’s a prompter and first understudy. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can,” she said, stopping and turning to him. Students moving to and fro bumped and pushed into them, but Lois ignored it. “I don’t think Mr. Oates has an inkling of the meaning of that play.”
“I didn’t get a part,” Bernie said, smiling even wider than ever and disregarding Lois’s bitterness. “He asked me to come out and then he doesn’t gi
ve me a part.” Bernie shrugged as they continued on down the hall. “But I thought you were great.”
“Oh, I was fantastic.”
“No, really. That was one of the funniest things I’ve seen.”
“Well, it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Everyone thinks you did it deliberately.”
“Everyone’s an idiot. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t make the play. I wouldn’t have had time for it.”
“What are you working on now?” He touched her shoulder to stop her. “You didn’t go and get new subjects, did you?” His teasing eyes communicated the innuendo.
“You know, I don’t understand why I even started with someone like you or Miss Obesity. You have nowhere near the capacity needed to appreciate my work. You’re a good pair—she has fat wrapped around her body and you’ve got it wrapped around your brain.” She turned quickly and continued down the hall. For a moment he just stood there with his mouth open.
“Excuse me, Madam Einstein,” he called. A few other students stopped to watch. She didn’t look back. “I didn’t know the rest of us mere mortals were so inferior.” There was some laughter. Bernie looked about to suck up the appreciation and compensate for his ego loss.
Lois turned into the guidance office and stood before the secretary’s desk. Mrs. Stanley had her back to her, filing papers away. She waited, but Mrs. Stanley did not turn around. She knows I’m here, Lois thought, and that started her mind in another direction.
What is it about bureaucracy that hardens people against one another, that dehumanizes us? People who are polite and compassionate in their daily lives become monsters of rules and regulations, inflicting pain and hardship on other people, disregarding feelings, submerging themselves in a crust of procedures. Under such circumstances, morality could be pushed aside. It was easier to make “good people” do negative things. From Professor McShane’s syllabus, she could see that the topic was going to be one of his future units.
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