Within Native American culture, before the coming of outsiders, the closest thing to formalized instruction came by way of stories told by the older to the younger.

These stories, which included lessons in many of the topics now regarded as academic subjects, formed a distinctive Native American world view in seemingly effortless fashion: the storytellers were master teachers, riveting their audiences with all the craft of an oral tradition finely honed to the status of an art. I was fortunate to receive this oral teaching tradition along with my public school education.

During my senior year in college I decided I would go to graduate school and pursue a career as a professor. This was a startling pronouncement to my family as they were well aware of a major obstacle—throughout my public school and collegiate years I had assiduously avoided speaking before groups. A crisis came while I was employed as a reader for a professor I much admired as a superb lecturer. He informed me on Friday that he would be absent the following week, and that he expected me to take over. The class, over two hundred students, met in a large lecture hall with tiered seating that surrounded the lecturer.

I confided my three major fears to my wife: Suppose I run out of material before the lecture period is over and am left with nothing to offer the class but my embarrassment? And what if a student asks me a question I can't answer? And, most terrifying of all, what will follow an ignominious pratfall, the result of tangling my feet in the cord attached to the clip-on microphone?

My wife, a practical individual and a four-year veteran of public school teaching, tried to reassure me. Prepare three times as many notes as you'll probably need, she suggested; simply answer "I don't know" to questions for which you have no ready answer; and avoid the microphone problem by not using it and relying on your not-inconsiderable lung capacity to reach the upper rows.

On Monday, armed with twenty pages of notes, I entered and began the lecture on Jacksonian politics. For ten minutes I stared at my notes as I spoke, afraid to meet the students' eyes. Finally, with an effort of will, I wrenched my gaze from the outline and looked up. A revelation. No one was watching me because in my extreme nervousness I was speaking so rapidly that they were all scrawling frantically trying to match my frenetic pace. The sight of those whom I had feared now busily recording the gist of my words exalted my spirit and relaxed my tension—I was teaching. It was with some reluctance that I yielded the lecturer's podium upon my professor's return.

I came to realize that on either side of the podium are humans: a human exchange must take place before effective teaching occurs. I tell stories—with passion, humor, and with an awareness of the importance of human communication. If I can reveal myself as a fellow human to my students, then they will listen, think, and be motivated to build on what I offer.