CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: LIFE'S LESSONS ARE ALWAYS REVEALED ON THE FINAL EXAM

Pop quiz! What are the seven criteria for newsworthiness? I can't remember right now, but I'd better know in time to grade these tests.

I am wrapping up my first semester of teaching, and I've learned a very important lesson: Time flies when you're not quite sure what you're doing.

The experience has taught me other things, too, including:

-- First and foremost, read the chapters before the students do; even at 8 a.m., which is when my class met, they're going to notice if you don't know what you're talking about.

-- Universities don't have fire drills. Prepare a lecture.

-- If you don't have a lecture, give them an in-class assignment. They need to learn to write on deadline.

-- Make sure you always have an in-class assignment ready. Just in case.

-- Ask lots of questions. And listen to the answers. You will learn something.

-- Never lose the gradebook. Never, never, never; and

-- No, all freshmen do not look alike, at least not after the first three weeks. More importantly, they're the only ones who are still calling you "ma'am" by the end of the semester.

Oh, and if you start the class lecturing from the big chair and you're too short to climb back up into it gracefully, stay in the big chair. If you do have to climb back up in the big chair, make sure you're not wearing a skirt.

I had to learn these lessons the hard way.

What a surprise.

On Tuesday, we take our final exam. While I was sweating out what questions to ask -- the most important decision a journalist makes, by the way -- I learned an important answer.

Teaching is not easy. Trying to explain to a group of youngsters (I'm allowed to say that; I took the course 15 years ago) what news is and how it gets translated into a readable written form is not for sissies.

Before I could teach journalism, I had to sit down and think about how the process works. A journalist gathers information and writes it up.

Fine. Where does she get the information? How does she get the information? And how does she know what's important and what isn't?

That questioning process led me to another important answer: Journalism isn't easy, either, mainly because you learn most of what you need to know by getting out there and doing it.

How do I know what the most important information coming out of a city council meeting is?

I look back at all the other city council meetings and school board meetings and assorted other events I've covered and compare notes, metaphorically at least.

Can I recite the seven criteria that journalists apply to determine newsworthiness? Proximity, currency, prominence, impact.....something, something and something else.

Obviously not. But I recognize news when I see it.

I should probably learn that list by the time I have to grade the exams.

As a journalist, I've been shot at, sworn at, spat at, publicly vilified and privately praised. As a teacher, I've been alternately tickled pink when someone actually understood what I was trying to explain and suspicious that they already knew what I'd spent the last 20 minutes pontificating on.

A few questions have also arisen in the process. What if I can't explain the difference between the inverted pyramid and the Wall Street Journal format? What if they don't understand the significance of the nut graph (that's the paragraph containing the point of the story)? When did they come up with names for all of this stuff?

And something I've wanted to ask all semester: Is this going to be on the exam?

Peggy O'Farrell is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.