Doctor Moon

He walked with consummate self-assurance, the master of his chosen field. So self-assured was he that he did not need the approval or recognition of his students. In fact, he completely failed to recognize them. Names? They have names? It did not matter to Doctor Moon, for he knew they knew he was the master of his chosen field.

And what was that field?

Pertaining to me, it was calculus. Doctor Moon was my Calc III professor.

He seemed a likable guy. He made a few attempts at humor that went over like lead zeppelins, but one actually made us laugh (that old calculus standard, ‘rdrr’). But he was incredibly shy. That’s what was hiding behind that set expression of smugness he wore. Or perhaps not shyness but – insecurity?

His English was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. And yet, he was a tenured professor at a major university. Well, nothing out of the ordinary there. But to compound that unfamiliarity with his students’ mother tongue was a delivery so stilted and mumbled that I swore I needed one of those gigantic brass horns in my ear just to hear the man. Yeah, communication was a problem. Since I shared the class with many of my physics brethren, we all complained about the man after hours.

Now, I’m not picking on the man simply because he was born and educated overseas. I knew nothing of his background, history, or even his exact ethnicity, but I do admire the fact that he had the courage to go and teach in a foreign land. There was something worse, much worse than a poor lecturing delivery.

Behind that smug self-assurance, behind those stilted, mumbling lectures, Doctor Moon was one mean s.o.b.

His Calc III classes typically went like this: Fifteen or twenty minutes going over homework problem assigned the last time we all met. Then, fifteen or twenty minutes of the actual lecture where he tried to convey the topic du jour, say, finding the center of gravity of an area through integration. Then another twenty minutes where he’d walk us through three or four examples of said integration. Then, he’d pause for questions. There weren’t any, so he’d benignly smile, assign us a couple of homework problems, and let us leave.

Not bad, right?

Wrong.

The problems he assigned were always easy. Time consuming, yes, but ultimately easy. It set up a sense of false hope for getting a good grade in this class.

The grading system was abhorrent. Two tests and a final. Each test was worth 25% of your grade, with the final exam counting for 50%. Daunting, but not unheard of. Some quizzes or homework would be appreciated as a chance to get a better grade. Some profs even gave you a bump if you attended all their classes without an absence.

Not Doctor Moon.

What a rude awakening that first test was. Self-assured myself, I reviewed my notes the night before, reviewed all the homework problems, and felt good as I seemed to have grasped everything. I got to the class in an easy frame of mind, sat down with my No. 2 pencils, and turned the white test sheet over.

And paled.

There was only three problems on the exam. Three involved, intricate, murderous problems, each seeming to need some intuitive leap to find a solution. Newton or Leibniz would’ve tore their powdered wigs in despair, I think. My jaw dropped and all the saliva left my mouth. But I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. And worked, and worked, and worked (where did I put that confidence?). I handed my test in, second-to-last person to finish.

I’m always the first or second person to hand in a completed test.

Well, was.

I think I got a D in it. I never get D’s. Up to his class, that is. What a horrible, rude awakening. Everyone in the class did terrible. So bad, in fact, that Doctor Moon spent the next day reviewing each of the three problems, twenty minute spent on each one.

Wait! That s.o.b. took 5 points off my test because I expressed the answer to the third problem as a decimal, and not it’s equivalent fraction.

There was a long line of students after the class complaining of similar transgressions. When it got to be my turn, the professor begrudgingly gave me back the five points.

D+.

The second test was exactly like the first: three complex problems more advanced than anything we specifically covered in class.

My fellow students adapted. I, however, did not.

My second D. Oh, dear.

Another month went by, and the final exam loomed. Doctor Moon, as we anticipated, was not forthcoming with any information about it, but we all surmised that it would be a threepeat. A trifecta of tribulation. And so, we started asking questions in class, asking for the old coot to explain and solve the most difficult problems from each section in our calculus texts.

Did I mention I did not adapt?

Something weird happened to me. I’m not sure exactly what, except that it had never happened to me before.

Suddenly, I just didn’t care anymore.

I think it had something to do with going to college full-time and working full-time. In hindsight it was a mistake. I had been working full-time for a couple of years and had an apartment, a car loan, other various miscellaneous expenses. And I was twenty-five, and in a hurry to get a degree under my belt. I was dealing with personal issues, too, and the end result was that fall a coup d’etat overthrew the rational reasoning center of my cerebral cortex and I simply lost all capacity to care.

Doctor Moon stayed true to form, except the final exam was twelve – twelve! – problems. The night before I kept opening and closing my calculus book, chain-smoking, unable to do a single problem. As I expected, I failed the class.

Christmas break followed, and I decided to drop out and re-evaluate what I wanted to do. But after one thing.

I retook Calc III, with a different professor, and aced it. Aced it so well that after the last day of class the teacher took me aside and mentioned that I did not need to take the final, since my GPA up to that point was four-point-oh.

Four-point-oh.

I thought seriously about sliding a copy of my report card under Doctor Moon’s office door. Thought about it for a couple of days. Then I realized that he would have absolutely no idea who I was.

But at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that I could, if properly motivated, master a difficult subject, even one that had previously taken me out to the woodshed for a beating.

And for that, Doctor Moon, I thank you.