Nathaniel Isaacson taught mathematics and reading to street children in Cuernavaca, Mexico; English to Chinese students in Shijiazhuang, China; and—for the last five years—first- and second-year Mandarin, Chinese Civilization, and Introduction to South East Asian Studies to undergraduates at UCLA.

Nathaniel is most certainly a scholar; he expects to complete his dissertation on colonial modernities and Chinese science fiction this spring. But while some doctoral students may go by the motto, "big scholars write big books," he has adopted a different agenda, focused on teaching. Indeed, he came to UCLA because it was a state institution where he could pay for his own education by means of the profession he loves: teaching 17 quarters including summers.

A favorite course was a seminar of his own design, "Sex and the City," which focused on issues of love and romance in 20th-century Chinese literature and cinema. He also designed course content for the Hypercities project. Layering historical maps over contemporary Google maps, this website allows students to add their own material, linking specific locations to events that have occurred there.

Over the course of his work, Nathaniel has established six guidelines for teaching, one growing out of the pseudo-Daoist aphorism that the best way to teach is not to teach at all. Thus, he puts his energies into class preparation, one-on-one critiques, and coaching, helping the students themselves to take the lead in classroom discussion. Another guideline is that the ends of education go beyond the content of the course: "What I teach may be less significant than the skills acquired in learning it," he says: research strategies, sound writing, fluent communications. While student evaluations suggest that he is accomplishing this task, his teaching also evokes personal change.

With Nathaniel’s encouragement, Daren Endy spent hours in the law and business libraries to gather background for an essay on the Chinese reconstruction period, and he found his teacher’s writing tactics useful in staying on topic. In addition, Nathaniel’s dedication to Chinese language and culture inspired Daren to explore his own Chinese heritage more fully and to make its music, its drama, its language, and even its architecture an integral part of his life. Nicholas R. Zabaly followed Nathaniel’s guidance in preparing a group presentation and found that he might want to apply for a teaching position in Asia after graduation.

Besides his teaching assignments and his own research, Nathaniel has been involved in both the Humanities Council and the Graduate Student Association Forum.

Published in Spring 2011, Graduate Quarterly