And we are off...

Well, the first week of class is over. Syllabi have been handed out, preliminary assignments made. The students have already begun, knowingly or unknowingly, to test the boundaries of the rules. A few have dropped the class after the first day, others have been added late. Some miss the first day, only to show up on the second and then vanish on the third. One or two have come into the wrong class, only to realize their mistake too late and leave abruptly. Most sit silently staring ahead, like passengers on a long bus ride, unsure of the trip or their destination.

You can always tell the sprinters from the distance runners. The sprinters come out early, asking questions, firing away at rules and material alike. Soon they are sated, as they lean back and sit restfully, content that they have established themselves in the hierarchy of classroom politics. The distance runners are more cautious. Not to be confused with the rest of the rank and file, they too ask questions, probe the steadfastness of yours truly, then retreat, like a bashful hermit crab, to the safety of shell and silence, only to venture out again, later, after the tide has turned.

I think it is going to be an interesting year. After a few false starts with my honors class, which was eventually dissolved into an “ordinary” Art Appreciation class, my schedule has settled into alternating Art Appreciation and Art History classes. The students seem eager, but each class differs widely in personality. As if the body of students makes up a solitary individual, who, like the proverbial Goliath, has to be stared down across the field of battle, sized up and strategy made before a humble David can proceed.

While there are perhaps many ways to teach art, I like to approach it as an opportunity to challenge preconceived notions of seeing the world. To teach students about their own cultural biases, and to offer them tools to, if not shed, then at least peer around these roadblocks to seeing. Like the old adage “Teach a man to fish and you can feed him for life.” I suppose I could beat the dry facts into them for a day or two, only to have the information lost within a half an hour of test taking, or I can show them how to look at art, in which case they may never see the world the same way again... I know. I know. But I can dream, can’t I?