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The new term at the university where I teach begins today. My own formal duties do not begin until  ten o'clock this morning, when I am required to sit for office hours, but I will likely be at the office ahead of time. I usually am; I have made no secret of being a morning person, and there is always more than needs to be done than there is time in which to do it. And I will likely be increasingly nervous as I move towards my first class meetings today. I believe I have noted before that there is always some apprehension in facing new classes and new sets of students. I feel the truth of it this morning, to be sure.

I know that I have nothing about which to worry. I need not prove anything to the students in my classes; I am supposed to have already done so in earning a doctorate, and I have continued to do so in conference presentations and the various publications I have gotten done and into the world. (I know I need to do more of them. I am working on it.) I know that I have nothing to fear from the students. I know also that all I need to do is offer them opportunities for learning and guidance; I cannot make them accept the offerings, and I ought not to try to do so. It will frustrate me and likely make no impact upon those I would try to force.

The thought occurs that it is very much like the aikido from whose practice I have been too long away. (I unfortunately cannot resume it in the near future, given scheduling conflicts. I cannot "make the time" when doing so would leave without care those who depend upon me.) Uke can only be led along if uke engages; if uke does not engage, then there is no situation in which the technique need be applied or, ethically, can be applied. In either event, the end result is harmony--or ought to be; I have never done what I needed to do to be as good an aikidoist as I ought to have been. And that is not the fault of my teachers, but of their poor student.

I and the many of my colleagues who will be returning to the work of the classroom today and in the next few weeks have to keep that last in mind. Ultimately, no teacher can reach students who are unwilling to be reached--and there are students who are, for whatever reason, unwilling to be reached. Some have very good reasons, actually, and I do not seek to heap aspersion upon them. Others do not, but heaping aspersion upon them does not good. Better to focus instead on those students who want to learn (while not shutting out any--but there is a difference between opening the door and chasing people to beg them to enter it). It is from those students that the things hoped for will most likely come.