Teaching involves both serving others and pleasing oneself. As a teacher, I recognize an obligation to help my students acquire knowledge and techniques, and to open up to them a wide range of ideas and possibilities for further study; and an obligation, too, to my colleagues in Classics to present as rich and varied a program as our discipline deserves. It has always been satisfying, and often exciting, to help people come to read, appreciate, and criticize for themselves the literature, culture, and languages of the ancient Greeks and Romans; and I see it as one of my prime duties as a scholar-teacher to stretch their abilities, open their eyes, and require of them as much as I think they can produce within each particular context (graduate, undergraduate major, non-classicist). Anything less is shortchanging them and the Classics.

The challenge of Berkeley is great, with its wide range of student backgrounds, aims, and abilities, and I have done my best to adapt my teaching to the needs of particular courses and audiences. I do not believe that there is a single "best way" to teach, even to teach a particular subject or course; nor even, within the same course, will every student benefit from precisely the same approach. Within reason, I have always tried to be flexible, and to respond to the wishes and multiple stimuli of the class members, without relaxing the standards and boundaries that the material demands. Some teachers imprint their own personality and method on all the material they teach. I do not think I am one of them. I prefer to let students find their own ways into the material, providing them with the tools (linguistic, historical, rhetorical) that they will need, but always allowing for, and encouraging, alternative approaches.

Teaching provides an unrivaled arena for personal exploration of one's own field of study, and for learning. I have taught a wide range of courses within the Classics Department, partly because I find this the most effective way of expanding and refining my own understanding of ancient literature. Even teaching the same material at different levels can provide startling revelations and satisfying combinations. Teaching freshman courses has taught me a great deal about Homer and Greek tragedy that I had never realized in years of research and advanced teaching on those subjects. Likewise, I prefer not to teach the same course too often, nor precisely the same material, partly for the selfish reason that I wish to continue learning. If this suggests that there is an element of the improvised about my classes, perhaps I should plead guilty. But I enjoy them more that way; and I think my students do too. And that, after all, is the main thing.