Tim Burke at Easily Distracted writes about student evaluations of faculty and about teaching styles. He talks about one particular teacher he had for his senior year AP English class.
Some people can be shambolically Socratic, slyly pushing students to think, with every class completely different from the next, a description that fits the best teacher I’ve ever had, my senior year AP English teacher in high school, Mr. Wilton. The students from the two junior year honors English classes had to write an essay for him, which he used to winnow the class to about 20 students. The first day of class, he announced that everyone in the course would receive an “A” no matter what, and that if a student wanted to twiddle their thumbs in the back of the room or not read what he assigned, it was no skin off his nose. He only had time for the students who were going to love literature, have some passion for what he offered. That was the pedagogical equivalent of the Allied liberation of Paris from Nazi rule as far as I was concerned.
In the spring of 1978, I had an art teacher kind of like that. The class was titled “Documenting the Process of Artistic Creativity,” and the teacher’s name was Gael Bennet. I had missed the first day of class, wherein he told everyone they were going to get an A no matter what they turned in. I busted my butt all semester to produce something brilliant. Everything I did fritzed out. Finally, a few days before my project was due, I came up with a lame idea; I would get a friend to videotape me doing tai chi with another friend. I don’t know much about tai chi anymore, but I do remember the name of the exercise we did was Cloud Hands and it was fun.
When I met with Gael to show my tape, he sat through all 20 minutes of it without a word. At the end, he told me it was nice. I fell apart, apologized for the crappiness of my work, and spilled the whole story about how everything I had tried had turned to poop. He looked puzzled and asked me if I had been in class the first day. I said no. He laughed and told me his grading policy. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better. But I wanted very much to take another class from him. Alas, he was a visiting lecturer that semester and his time was up.
Yah Hah. well a history goes…he has left a trail. Some of it helps, some of it hurts. And his stupid sidekick Ron Snapp, has really ………….dragged all involved along……..Are the things more important than the people?… In his mind they are. so it goes. Jill
Comment by Jill — December 14, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
Jill,
Sounds like you know Gael pretty well. I only had him that one semester, back in spring 1978. He made a strong impression on me, one that I still keep in mind, especially now that I have students of my own (though not art students; I changed my major to creative writing when I went back in 1992). I remember Ron coming into Coogan’s when I was a waitress there in the 70s. He used to play pool with dear, sweetly departed Wally Dryer. I’ve always admired artists, though I admit I don’t understand them. I’m more of a word person, and their mysticism perplexes me. It’s like they know something I don’t know or something I do know but can’t verbalize.
Nancy J
Comment by njolemore — December 15, 2008 @ 2:08 am