February 09, 2007

• Three teachers – first was David Haskins, the creative writing teacher at my last high school. He had an incredible lending library of his own, could often be found strumming away some Neil Young before class. At one point, after he won the ceeb’s writing prize for poetry, he gave up teaching to become a full-time poet. In Canada. Needless to say, he came back, and I’m very glad he did. He has a couple of volumes out there, long since out of print. But his joy and ease of life taught me a lot, particular coming out of a stiffling Catholic school environment. Also convinced me that I was a genius, which lasted until he directed me to... Michael Hornyansky, founder of Brock’s English Department. Rhodes Scholar. Won the 1951 Newdigate Prize, beating out one Donald Hall in the process. Student of Tolkien (whom he didn’t think too much of). A prickly sort, but just this incredible source of knowledge, and a brutal editor – precisely what I needed. Gave me the most accurate character assessment I’ve ever had. Stopped a seminar dead after some smartass comment I made, and said, “Nicolas, dealing with you is like peeling away the layers of an onion -- but I have to wonder if it would be worth the effort..." I’ve never respected anyone more. Age has not been kind to him – he’s a walking wounded now. The last would be John Mayer, founder of Brock’s Philosophy Department. An all-too-rare blend of Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. He wasn’t particularly mobile, so he’d host class at his house, and in exchange for making the trip, would feed us stuff like shark steak. Amazing mind – he’d pull down his 16th century edition of Aquinas, and just start comparing the Latin and Greek translations off the top of his head, or rattling off whole families of butterflies by genus and species. House was packed with incredible pieces of art – like King Ferdinand’s bed (which, alas, was broken due to Dr. Mayer’s not-inconsiderable heft). And the sweetest man you will ever meet. Too brilliant to function in the real world, he needs to be kept like a hothouse flower. There are others, of course – like Philosophy profs. Malone, Joos, and Pav... More than made up for the crap teachers I had to go through to get to them. A good teacher really does change one’s life, absolutely.
• My 6th grade teacher, Peter Hildebrand. Problem students were put into his class to learn discipline. The first thing you saw upon entering the classroom was a portrait of Adolph Hitler, shouting. (There were other prints on the wall, popular works of art, for balance.) That set the tone for Mr. Hildebrand's class. All students were addressed by their last name. We learned the proper routine for raising, lowering and storing the American flag, and our class was responsible for the school flag. There were handwriting drills. Geography drills (we would line up in the back of the class, Mr. H would call the name of a city, and we'd have to run to the front and point to it before he finished counting to 10, which he did loudly while clapping his hands with each count). He was an imposing figure, to say the least; tall, broad, with a strident New England accent that could cut through cement, yet mincing. Gay as the day is long, but his dramatic personality kept us riveted. That and his threats to "hang" us, or "lay (us) up lavender", whatever that meant. His paperweight was a giant cockroach trapped in lucite, which he told us he'd killed himself. He taught us about poetry and other fine arts (he was particular to Tchaikovsky, Carl Sandberg and Robert Frost). If we acted up (which was rare), our punishment was to write an essay about our behavior. The one time I had to do this, I used my "free pass" to get out of it, and he was genuinely disappointed. At the end of the year he said he thought I'd make a good writer someday. When I went into his class, I was a horrible student; I never paid attention, always daydreamed and was disruptive. When I came out, I had an appreciation for the arts and a fondness for writing. I was able to focus, and I got better grades. I was no longer afraid of the ghey. Every school needs a Mr. Hildebrand.
• Mrs Colls my fifth grade teacher, the first to show me that school if done right could be fun and cool. Took three of us lucky students to a Harlem Globetrotters game on her own time. I was ten years old and because my parents were poor, that was the first time I had ever been out at anything that required paid admission. I had a blast. Mr Pritchard, grade eleven physics teacher. The teacher who encouraged me to be a skeptical debunker: All these things they tell you, they ain't necessarily so. Get the facts. Plus you get to make plenty of people upset which is good fun. Prof W. Rossman, math professor: there's amazing beauty in the numbers. Ms. Pinck, adult piano teacher. She taught me there's more to piano playing than aspiring to be an accomplished pianist.
• Mr B. High school econ and history teacher. The only real stickler for the dress code (which, due to it being the 90s and grunge being easy, I was in violation of about 1/3 of the time.) Told us history wasn't a bunch of dates, but a series of events that makes other things happen. Same with econ. Same with everything. It was all cause and effect. In his spare time, he made abstract sculptures and put them on his desk. One day, I wrote a craptactular essay. It was the first one I had really just BSed out of the way, ever. He sat me down and told me about when he did this in college - during Vietnam. He lucked out and ended up doing office work in Virginia instead of out there. It was his weird version of a pep talk - the whole consequences of real life thing. I saw him this summer at an art show. He made a lot more of those sculptures since then. He made me feel okay to be a jack of all trades, as long as you do everything deliberately.
• 1. Mr. Johns (filled in temporarily for a high school history class); the first teacher that I was able to identify with. I was quite the akward loner-type punk. As I walked into class one day wearing a Cramps t-shirt, he called me out, "Hey Phil, what's your favorite Cramps tune? I saw them live many times..." Before that, I thought all teachers were just old grumpy farts that looked down on me. He even came out to catch my band perform. He inspired me to look at my teachers with a new respect. 2. The teacher at the night school who introduced me to Vonnegut 3. Owen Fursueth I have a world of respect for him. That is all.
• Damn, I hit post when I meant to hit preview. Owen Furuseth. Typing toooo fast again...
• Mr. V. O., a geography teacher. From the very first day, his witty, aggressive but not demeaning manner slapped the whole class from the slumber induced by other teachers. We ended up talking about everything from history to folk tales to politics to UFOs in his classes, which seemed to last just minutes. Mrs. A. V., civics/history teacher that put us to work like never before and made us look forward to research and discussion after class. And she gave me the most sensible advice on my then incipient love life: basically, down, boy! Mr. A. O., the proverbial slacker, free-loading, post-hippie art & design teacher. A painter and sculptor, more than the quality of his work, it was his energy, child-like curiosity and insight for everyhting around that left a big impression on me, and how to find & appreciate the beauty all around us. Think House M.D. without the beard and a notch down on the cynicism dial.
• Mrs. Williamson, our legendary seventh-grade history teacher. She was a rite of passage; just about EVERYONE in my class still has their cardboard Viking ship stashed away somewhere-- and we all remember that you don't call him the DOGIE of Venice.
• This is WAY too long..but, you asked.. Mr. Owens
• Dr John Daley, Boise State linguistics professor rulez. The man is a freakin' genius and is far beyond this podunk college, but he loves the area and the lifestyle. Students hated him, mostly because he has no patience with lazy asses and idiots who don't try**, and the Rate my Professor site slams him (2.5 out of 4) The comments agrees he's brilliant, just not a "people person" Oddly enough, he was enough of a "people person" to be the first contact of a South American tribe and come out of the jungle after becoming fluent with their language. He created their first dictionary, gave them a written language, and produced a book of translation. He told me he learned the language by sitting in the center of the village drinking beer with the natives. **As opposed to idiots that do try, such as moi. I lubs me some linguistics, but am absolutely hopeless at it.
• Personally, I owe it all to Peewee Herman.
• I'd have to think hard and long. I had three high school English teachers who I thought were great, and a great college art instructor, Mrs N.D., who made everything fall together. Indifferent instructors were more the norm for me in college. & I've never felt particularly inspired by a writing instructor, even though that's my current professional ambition: I tend to feel more inspired by books. There's a well-known writer who's been very nice to me (& lots of other people), but I always feel uncomfortable doing a namedrop. I had a great choir director in high school - this was important, because I planned to major in vocal performance - who was probably the most talented musician I've ever personally known. But he left the school after my junior year, had some legal problems, and committed suicide a few weeks before I graduated from high school. He was only in his late 20s. All of his former "most promising students" dropped out of the music major within a year after his death, me included. Also, I loved a private voice instructor, Evelyn Klepinger. I worked with her for a year or so just before her husband, who was about 15 years her senior, passed away. He had been a well-known conductor in the Detroit area in the mid-20th-century, and she had initially been a singer and his student. She had become a voice coach after losing her singing voice in an accident (she was intubated to save her life, but it destroyed her vocal chords). She had a reputation for being the best solo instructor in the area I used to live in, which made her sound sort of formidable, but in reality she was a very sweet person. She was devastated after her husband died. Her memory had already been really spotty for a while, but it became apparent that it wasn't just forgetfulness, and she died of Alzheimer's a few years later. At any rate, even though she sometimes couldn't remember my name and was surprised when I turned up for a lesson, I still made more progress in a year of work with her than I'd made in probably two or three years of work with my previous teacher, K. K. was actually one of her students, and only sent me to Evelyn because K. had to move very suddenly & E. had agreed to take on her students. It caused me a lot of angst, because K. left with almost no notice when I was just about to start rehearsing for a round of conservatory auditions. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise - K. was a good coach, E. was great. I still missed all my scholarship deadlines because of the situation, but my singing and musicianship improved dramatically. I don't know how long E. held onto her professional knowledge as her condition deteriorated, but it was still there in full force when I worked with her, and I still think she was the absolute top. There are at least a few famous singers today whose primary coaches were her students. (I mentioned her in another thread a while ago, but in a completely different respect, I think with regard to coloratura singing.) On another note, A.D. Nuttall sounds like he was absolutely wonderful, & like it would have been a real privilege to have been his student. A wit in both senses.
• verbminx, he was. All his students hero-worshipped him. I remember him saying in the early 90s that Beavis and Butt-Head were his new linguistic icons, because they'd reduced the English language to its simplest yet most effective terms. I miss him.
• All my teachers were sociopathic bastards who tried their damnest to kill me. I'm still recovering from their abuse and neglect. Cunts! My experiences with those people made me swear I'd never go into teaching.
• You never know, Skrik-- maybe you're changing someone's life right now.
• Denis Donahue deepened my understanding of modernism and postmodernism; I had only scattershot knowledge of those topics before taking his class. He was also the most well read person I've ever met. Ronald Green introduced me to trying to think rigorously about ethical issues. James Cox was my first model of an adult male just flat-out in love with literature.
• MonkeyFilter: I'm still recovering from their abuse and neglect.
• My experiences with those people made me swear I'd never go into teaching. What do monkeys think of teaching as a second career? Would you do it? Reason I ask is i was back at my university and they're looking for students in the Education program...
• Eh, I am a teacher, goddammit! And I love my job.
• Well, StoryBored, I'm not a teacher, but I dated one for years. I know that teaching requires long hours outside the classroom, lesson planning, grading and doing other bits of paperwork. On the other hand, you get nice long vacations built into the year. The big question is: do you feel like you would enjoy doing it? In the rest of the thread, it's wonderful to hear about these people who inspired the various Monkeys here today. HuronBob, I giggled reading your link-- I can picture the laughing rabbit. It's funny how so many English teachers were kindred spirits to young me. Stateside there were Jim Tibbetts and Nina Marks, then in the UK there was, for a memorable year, Harvey Hallsmith-- an former actor with an impressive Hammer Horror résumé who for some reason decided on a career pounding Chaucer into teenage brains. He was brilliant on Chaucer, Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath; also a hell of a good director for school plays. It was only if you hadn't done your essay that he'd adopt a forbidding countenance and you'd suddenly remember that he'd been very good in a lot of horror films.
• What do monkeys think of teaching as a second career? Would you do it? It's a genuinely noble profession, and if the pay was better, I'd be very interested. With our current mortgage and a single household income for the next few years, it's not really an option.
• Harvey Hallsmith-- an former actor with an impressive Hammer Horror résumé Is this him? /loves them old Hammer films
• Thanks for that PA, and roryk. I don't know enough to know whether i would enjoy it or not. I'll have to figure that one out.
• MonkeyFilter: I don't know enough to know whether I would enjoy it or not