If you ask a good question on the first day of class, and act like you mean it, your students may very well give you some clues that they are smart, interesting people, that they'd rather care about a course than game the system the way you have to when a class is no good, that they've been burned before by educators but not always, and that you have a chance to do something worthwhile together if you're careful and skillful there at the front of the room. Respect plays into it, and a light touch at times, but some backbone and commitment to ideas rather than to feel-good chatter as well. Fingers crossed, hopeful, knowing how good a good day can be, how deadly dull failure is for all concerned. Go for it.

It is called "the most comprehensive map of race in America ever created." One dot for each person in the country; 300 million dots, all color-coded. The image I have shared here comes from the part of Saint Louis County where I grew up, in Missouri, where a newish white suburb, Crestwood, arose next door to an older black unincorporated district, Meacham Park. Among the notable episodes in Meacham Park history was neighboring Kirkwood paying tuition for Meacham Park students to attend high school in the city of St. Louis rather than in Kirkwood--it's hard to imagine an excuse for that move except racial segregation. The bit of map I've shown here reveals how enduring is the segregation that was formalized a century ago. Thanks to the map's creator, Dustin Cable, University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.