Squeezed by an annual obligation to the government, I write reminded of the constraints on every action. Tension and release, action and reaction, utterance and understanding or misunderstanding. Teaching--like everything else--is a dance with possibility, bounded by an unfolding reality. We teach and then students say they didn't learn. What's up? Kathleen McKinney's pop quiz on student ratings provides entré to the research on the meaning of student ratings. Laura Border's DEVELOPER'S DIARY explores the same terrain, showing how processing styles can become dangerously exclusive teaching styles.

Do we really know our students? David Cooper says that official interpretations of UCLA's famous freshman survey show some myopia. Could we have things in common with "Generation X?"

Speaking of dangers: Steve Golin wonders about dangers hidden in the faculty developer's role. Does faculty resistance to "development" have a positive meaning?

Where does real hope lie? Where does the strength from all this flexion and release reside? James Lang and Kenneth Bain have an idea. They call for "reflective teaching essays" which convey the wisdom that emerges from honest reflection on years of teaching experience. Three examples of the kind of reflective teaching essay Lang and Bain have in mind supplement this edition of the Forum. Find them on the Forum's Web site (http://www.ntlf.com).

Traditionally, hope lies in the future, and the future of the professoriate lies in today's graduate teaching assistants. Karron Lewis reviews the history and evolution of TA training in a comprehensive paper glimpsed briefly here and posted in full on the Forum's Web site.