How to teach

Abstract

Even the most junior departmental secretaries scared me when I first arrived in Chicago—they represented officialdom. If I asked one to do a five-minute duplicating job, and she said she’d have it for me the day after tomorrow, I said yes, sure, all right. I didn’t really know how long the job should take, and I was brought up never to argue with the government. By the time I left Chicago I had learned that secretaries were human and that they were not always right ex officio.