Sounds Like Titanic

by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Still, you sometimes feel that you are not a real professor, that you are merely someone who imitates professor-like behavior. Even though you have gone through all of the steps to become a professor, even though you do all the things that professors are supposed to do, the first time a student calls you “Professor Hindman” you feel the same way you did the day Becca hired you as a violinist for The Ensemble. The university has made a mistake in hiring you. There is no way you are good enough to do this job. But after a few semesters go by, something dawns on you: Faking is pedagogy. Faking is teaching and faking is learning and faking is the way that all human beings grow, from babies faking speech to teenagers faking coolness to professors faking wisdom. You assign readings in your classes so that your students can imitate other writers, for it is in the faking of other people’s writing that one learns to write.