Relates the experiences of a white academic teaching in a black rural state college--a plunge into the world of black experience which shocked the academic. States that everything was different--students' names, their manner of dress, their reaction to the O.J. Simpson verdict. Finds that leaving the ivory tower was not easy, but the job exceeded…

Outlines some of the issues and problems inherent in the group dynamics in the English classroom. Considers how English teachers are part of the group in a classroom and, therefore, are subject to the same predictable anxieties and are reliant on similar coping behaviors. (HB)