wisdom, teeth

A lot of my students get their wisdom teeth cut out.  You’ve seen the videos where they talk crazy, right?  I’m Gen X and I went to an old-school dentist in the tiny town of Inman, SC.  I had the same dentist from birth through my 30s.  He was hilarious and he loved to joke with me when I came in – which was pretty often.  My teeth are kinda terrible.  I didn’t grow up with fluoride in my water since we had a well.  Pair that with my intense love of candy and a steady flow of soft drinks and you end up with a mouth full of fillings.  In the 1980s and 1990s, those fillings were all some sort of toxic metal and I had enough metal in there that when I stuck a spoon in my mouth, I could get radio signals from Russia in my head.  Then science discovered all that metal was actually toxic and I had to get all those fillings removed and replaced by whatever the newest, less toxic thing was.  So much drilling, so much Novocain and so many trips to visit my dentist.

I also had 4 wisdom teeth and two of those had erupted from the gumline in a way that was crowding my other teeth.  No big deal to Dr. Beachamp.  He said we’d just pull those suckers out.  He shot me full of Novocain, grabbed some dental pliers, put his foot on my shoulder and yanked those puppies out.  I may be exaggerating the foot on my shoulder, but I’m not joking when I tell you he was asking me to pull against him as he used all his body weight to pull those teeth out.  

I was in my early 20s when he did this and I never once thought he didn’t know what he was doing.  It never occurred to me to stop him and ask him to explain why he was pulling my teeth the way he was.  I grew up working in my dad’s welding shop and I had used pliers a lot in my 20 years.  I never considered telling my dentist that he wasn’t holding the pliers correctly or telling him I had a better idea for getting my teeth out.  I mean, that would have been silly, right?  Like, actually ridiculous.  

I was thinking about this recently when a student questioned me about my teaching.  A couple of students, actually, have done that this academic year and it’s not uncommon.  I would say that at least once a year, I have one or two students who will ask me to stop what I’m doing and explain to them the exact nature of my pedagogy.  They don’t understand why I’m making certain choices in my teaching, they think they know a better way and they demand an explanation.

At my age, I’m not very patient.  Now that I’m 54 I figure I can play my age card and just not tell people I was never patient at all.  After 24 years teaching college level studio art classes, I feel safe saying I know what I’m doing.  Sure, students have changed and so has the educational climate, but I have kept up.  I pay attention and I’m a very driven teacher, so I have adapted my teaching to continue to be successful in these very different academic times.  Because of that, when a student asks me to slow down and explain my every decision, I just don’t have the patience to oblige.  Most recently, I will respond with something along the lines of “I’m asking you to trust me”.  I figure if the student doesn’t trust the professor, we’re pretty much done being productive anyway.  

See, I know that Dr. Beachamp went to school for some extra years to become a dentist.  I understand that school involves some book learning, but that he also had to spend a lot of time practicing his craft before he earned his degree.  I also knew that as a middle aged man when I met him, he had extensive hands-on experience at being a dentist.  Dude had seen some teeth and worked on them, you know?  As a child and even as a 20 year old, I had not been to dental school, nor had I worked on teeth for a decade or so.  He was the expert in the room when it came to teeth.  

At this point in my teaching career, I’ve been teaching studio art classes longer than most of my students have been alive.  They are either fresh out of high school or in their undergraduate years and most don’t even have fully developed frontal lobes.  Absolutely none have teaching experience at the college level.  Not even a semester.  The idea of having to stop my class and explain to them why I’m making the choices I’m making is just as ridiculous as questioning any other professional.  I just don’t understand it.  

I didn’t like getting my gums shot full of Novocain.  I didn’t like getting my teeth drilled.  I didn’t like the Doc jerking my teeth out with all of his body weight.  Still, I didn’t blame him for what needed to be done.  I didn’t question it because I had zero understanding of dentistry.  He said something needed to be done and I said, “Ok”.  No discussion, no questions.

What is it about the current climate of education that causes teachers to be treated so differently from all other professionals?  University professors have annual reviews, intense 3 and 6 year reviews and our course evaluations from students are treated like sacred religious texts, often quoted or otherwise referenced in our annual reviews.  At any moment, we are expected to explain exactly what we are doing, why we are doing it and then we are expected to politely explain why the students’ “better ideas” aren’t actually better ideas without insulting them or hurting their feelings.  It makes no sense.  

A K-12 teacher must have a degree, pass the Praxis and be certified by the state.  It seems like those achievements would merit some sort of trust and respect.  A university teacher must earn the terminal degree in their field of study.  Not only are they expected to be experts in the area of study, but also in the practice of teaching.  Again, they are reviewed annually and observed in the classroom on various occasions to ensure competency.  Why can’t we trust them?

When the decisions affecting education are being made outside of the teaching institution and being made by people who have never taught in the educational system, you should expect those decisions to be pretty terrible for education.  

If you’ve ever wondered why public education is in the state it’s currently in, maybe you should be asking why we don’t trust teachers to do their jobs and why we don’t elect former teachers to make educational policies.

I learned it from my kids

I can hear it now.  “McAbee’s gone soft!”

At least once a year I hear a student complain that I’m being too easy on the younger class of students in the Sculpture Studio.  Early in my teaching career I would dismiss these groundless claims but after a few years of repeated complaints, I decided I needed to take a moment and see if I had really changed.  It turned out that the reason they were saying that had more to do with their biased memories of how mean I was to them.  The pressure always seems worse when you’re in the class.  I’ve taken the time to explain this to a few students over the years and most have reluctantly agreed.  

After 24 years of teaching college classes, I do understand that I’ve changed how I teach.  I was probably a lot more strict with my students early on.  I know I held them to a very high standard and I could give you a list of names of currently successful arts professionals who benefited from those high expectations.  When I changed schools, I kept my high standards as much as possible but did have to make some exceptions because I was in a different environment teaching a different demographic.  

Since then, our degrees have changed and I’ve added a lot of classes.  We’ve also been through a pandemic and adjusted to a generation of students who relied on Individual Education Plans in high school and had a COVID adjusted educational experience.  So yeah, I’ve definitely had to adjust my tactics over the years.  My expectations remain high, though and the quality of education I deliver is also high.

I remember (and I think I’ve mentioned it in a post in the past) coming back from quarantine and having a conversation with a friend about how much students needed hugs.  I genuinely believed that their lack of physical contact and any real sign of affection had negatively impacted their mental and emotional health.  I decided that I was going to fix that by offering hugs to all my students when they returned.  I chickened out.  But there’s this other thing I didn’t chicken out on and I wanted to tell you about it.

My “teaching face” is that I’m an emotionless art machine.  I tell my students that they need to work all the time and that we can separate ourselves from our emotions and from things that might be going on in our lives.  I have often said that we can check our worries and anxieties at the studio door.  As a teacher, I know that I must practice this daily.  When you have a job to do, no one cares what’s going on in your life.  You still need to show up and be excellent.  Always trying to practice what I preach, after I held my dad’s hand for the last time ever, I drove home, got a couple of hours of sleep and was back at school early the next morning for class.  That’s exactly what he would have told me to do.  

It really doesn’t matter what kind of morning I’ve had or how I’m feeling when it comes to being an effective teacher.  I need to be able to give my all to my students if I’m expecting my students to do the same.  Two Augusts ago my art persona was in jeopardy.  My son started attending the school where I teach and every now and then he would come by my office or the studio.  I loved it and always wanted him to feel welcome.  I figure it was a bit of a comfort for him as he got used to life away from home.  The thing is, Blue has always been really great at this one thing:  telling you he loves you when he leaves.  I’ve always respected and admired him for this.  On that very first visit there were students around who only knew me as an emotionless machine.  When it was obvious Blue was about to leave, I had a moment of tension when I realized that in every other situation he would say “Bye, I love you” as he left.  I wondered if he would still say it with people around.  He did.  So much respect.  

My graduate mentor was very similar.  He was all business, all work, all the time.  He had no interest in your little feelings, he only wanted you to make great work.  The first time I saw him interact with his adorable toddler daughter, my world stopped spinning.  Who was this human man who was baby-talking with this adorable child?  Surely this couldn’t be the same professor who had just shouted in a wonderful British accent at an entire class of slacker students…possibly even cursing at us.

As Blue walked away, I rightly responded, “Bye, I love you too”.  I could feel the confusion in the air as students tried to process how my body had been snatched and had been replaced by some alien who clearly didn’t know who I was.  

Slowly and quietly, Blue and Violet (because she had learned the same habits from Blue) were teaching me that it was important to tell people you love them.  

This academic year I started to wonder if my students knew I loved them.  (You can find a recent post about this topic.)  When it became clear to me that some students did not know that, I decided to take a cue from Blue and tell them.  When I would finally gather my belongings at the end of a long day and walk through the studio, there would be a number of students working.  I announced I was leaving and said “Bye, I love y’all!”.

The response was interesting.  That first time, only a couple of close students were brave enough to say “Love you too!”.  Quickly, though, others followed suit.  After a few months of this happening regularly, I’m sure there are still some who just listen and don’t respond as I leave, but I smile knowing they still have to hear that they are loved.  

Soft you say?  Dude.  Anything but.  Pick a student and ask them if my classes or projects are easy.  They’ll tell you I yelled at them and demanded that they put in double digit hours in the studio outside of class time.  They'll tell you I told them to quit their job and break up with their person.  They’ll tell you this is their hardest class.  They’ll tell you I’m mean.  And I’m ok with all of that as long as they also tell you that they are certain that I love them.

Looking back on the former years of teaching, I wonder if those students knew I loved them.  I was really tough on people like Scherini, Sarah Gregory, Logan, and Molly at Winthrop and Ali, Emily, Armir in the early Lander days.  I was tough on them precisely because I love them.  It’s easy to not care.  Loving is hard. Surely they knew.  Right?  Surely.  

academic friendship

A few weeks ago, an education major asked me how I balance being friends my students and being a teacher to my students.  The question came about sort of naturally during a “podcast assignment” where the questions and my answers were being recorded.  My response was clumsy, in part, because it’s not something I think about consciously very often and , in part, because I knew my answer could easily become an essay.  Looks like we might be here today for the essay answer.

First of all, let’s address the semantics.  Am I “friends” with my students?  When I learned how to be an educator for K-12 certification 30 years ago, the idea of being friends with your students was pretty far-fetched.  That’s typically not a concern for K-12 teachers anyway, and with the much weirder headlines in the last 30 years, I’d say it’s not a good idea.  During college I had experiences with my professors in line with that way of thinking.

In the 1990s, we treated our professors like lower deities.  We addressed them by their titles, we always felt like we were intruding on their time if we went to their office/studio and we hung on every word they spoke.  We treated them with respect.  These were experts who had very important things they could be doing.  Students understood that they were blessed to be in the presence of such wisdom, experience and greatness.

The current academic environment is a consumer driven environment and one that is very different from my experience 30 years ago.  Schools now are providing a product, students are customers and professors are basically waitstaff.  Respect for professors is pretty much non-existent and all of this is further exacerbated by how this generation of students has been made to believe that anything worth learning should be entertaining and should be presented in segments no longer than 3 minutes at a time.  I’ve seriously had a student tell me he could learn sculpture from YouTube as he dismissed me completely.

The old idea of standing in front of a room of students and “professing” knowledge is outdated and ineffective.  Students expect a stunning presentation and teachers who fail to connect with them will most definitely lose them, or at least lose their attention.  

Over my years of teaching, I have learned the importance of personal connection as an educational tool.  I spend time asking questions and carefully observing my students so that I can figure out how to connect with them.  If I know what makes them feel challenged, what their interests are and where their point of frustration exists, I can put myself in a better position to help them grasp the course information.  This is a part of effective teaching most people outside of education do not understand and one that takes a great deal of extra effort.  If you look at the basic structure of that strategy; getting to know someone, learning about their interests, showing interest in them, working to help them…that basic structure also looks a lot like friendship.  

Friendship comes with care.  It feels a little lame to hedge on the use of the more accurate word here.  Let’s be bold and honest.  Friendship comes with LOVE.  Do I love my students?  Most definitely I do.  I don’t think about my salary very often, but I recently saw my annual salary on a tax return and I promise you that I would not be doing this job if I didn’t love my students very much.  So yeah, I love my students and I’m friends with them.  

I’m friends with most of them, at least.  I’ve had to learn to accept the fact that I’m not for everyone and I’m still trying to be ok with that.  Some students will not like my personality, teaching style or the fact that I’m a middle aged white guy and those students will gravitate towards a different personality on our teaching staff.  Does this hurt me deep down?  Heck yes.  Can I do anything about it?  Nope.  But the ones who do respond well, I do my best to be a friend to them.  And I do my best to love the ones who don’t, just the same.

Sometimes that means my students give me music and movie suggestions in the studio.  Sometimes that means we will have a conversation about current events or ask thought provoking questions to one another.  Sometimes it means we’ll have coffee together outside of class.  Sometimes it means we’ll gather in a group and get food after a gallery reception.  Sometimes it means they’ll come in my office and sit silently on their phone or computer for an hour.  Sometimes it just means we high five and speak when we see each other on campus.  Whatever the specifics may be from person to person, it’s still people who are choosing to spend their time together and to actively seek connection.  You know, friendship.

Here's a whole group of former students who I still call good friends.  Those friendships began in the studio, on the racquetball court, running 5Ks around campus and getting shakes at Cookout.  I know they wont see this because they only read really racy books, but I love them dearly.

It takes time and energy to love.  All of the duties listed and evaluated on my annual faculty review have to do with teaching, research and service.  I’m never asked about love or friendship and the amount of time and energy I put into that, even if it does factor into my teaching.  I never tell my Dean that I stayed three hours after class to go to a field hockey game because one of my sculptors is on the team.  I suppose that’s difficult to quantify and in the world of consumer academics, it may not be valued.  In my studio, however, it is essential.  (I also understand that it’s simply a part of how I teach effectively and it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s quantifiable to administrators.)

Now that we’ve established that I do have academic friendships and that I see those friendships as key factors in the success of my teaching, let’s get to the question I was asked.  How do I balance those with teaching?

Ugh.  The most accurate answer is “carefully”.  The “ugh” is necessary because friendship isn’t easy.  The answer is “carefully” because every single student is different and that means every single situation must be handled differently.  Some students are what I call volcanoes.  They are pleasant and wonderful right up until the eruption.  No warning, no change in facial expression or attitude, just total destruction in every direction.  Some students are like summer in the South.  You know exactly what to expect every day with almost no variation.  Some are a little more like a Southern Spring.  Ice cold at 8:00 am, thunderstorm at noon, 80 degrees and sunny at 3:00 pm.  The conditions change a lot, but it's all pretty manageable and predictable.  Some students rarely speak a word in the studio, some won’t shut up.  Some students work nonstop, some almost need to be physically forced to work at all.  Every personality type, every attitude, every demeanor is what I have to be prepared to engage with in the studio.  

Showing love to one student may involve a tactic that would be offensive to another student.  I can walk in and shout “Get to work slacker!” to one student and they’ll jump to action.  Saying that to another student would send them to the bathroom in tears.  I can joke and kid with one and I can absolutely never joke around with another one.  Some students need a challenge to become motivated.  Some students frustrate easily and a challenge will kill their motivation.  Some respond well to my high energy antics and some will cower in a corner until I calm down.  Teaching the way I do is not the path of least resistance.  It is probably the most difficult way to go about it.

In a practical sense, “carefully” means that I have to continually be switched on as a teacher.  My antenna always needs to be up and receiving cues related to facial expression, body language, energy shifts and verbal stimuli.  Some students come preloaded with family and friend histories that profoundly impact how they will interact with me.  Some are happy to be friends and they possess a maturity that will allow them to engage in a healthy way.  Others are skeptical and may only open up after you establish trust.  

I can hear you wondering how grades impact these friendships.  Here’s the thing that might be most surprising about it:  I would say not at all.  My job is to professionally assess the work my students do.  This assessment is not personal at all.  There are established criteria for each project and I have always found the process of grading to be void of emotion.  It either is or it isn’t.  It either does or it doesn’t.  I am not grading the human, nor am I grading the friendship.  I’m grading a project.  I explain this process on syllabus day and I rarely need to revisit it.  I have students who will come to my office after seeing their C or D in Blackboard and they’ll say, “Yeah, I stunk that one up.  I promise I’m going to do better next time.”  Sometimes they do better and sometimes they do not.  I still give them a high five when I see them and I welcome them to sit and chat.  I’ve had students I’m academic friends with fail my class.  It happens.  I check in, see what I can do to help them, listen to their problems and then I’ll see them again the following semester in the same class.  

Here's my friend Armir.  He actually failed/withdrew from my class because, while I loved him, I wouldn't budge on attendance.  He respected that and took the class again later, passing it and many other upper level classes with me.  Armir is the founder of "Coffee With McAbee" and I love him so much.  

Many of my students over the years have learned that being my pal doesn’t mean they get any grace or good grades.  Many of those students, though, have allowed that academic friendship to propel them forward in their work.  My very high expectations and words of scolding may be taken more seriously because we’ve established that I actually care about the student.  I’m not just a teacher telling them I expect more, I’m a trusted friend telling them I expect more.  More often than not, students rise to my expectations and I have no doubt that my level of care and love for them is a factor.  

Remember when MoLo got so mad at me in the studio, she walked out and slammed the door?  Remember when I followed and yelled something down the hall at her as she left?  Good times.  We apologized to each other and not only are we friends, she texted out of the blue last week.  MoLo is the reason there's always a working Dremel in the studio.  I love her.

The thing that makes balance interesting is when it doesn’t work.  Right?  I mean, we watch a balancing act because there’s a chance we’ll see someone fall.  Sometimes students get mad at me.  Sometimes I get mad at students.  Sometimes we have to have a sit down conversation to get past it.  In a small department like ours, it’s not uncommon for me to hear that someone was talking crap about me to other students.  In those moments, I try to remember that I chose this strategy.  I remind myself that we all make mistakes and I try not to take it personally.  Besides, the other option is to protect my feelings and be a less effective teacher.  I'm not willing to do that.

Sometimes it does work and it works beautifully.  There are former students who keep in touch many years after graduation and those academic friendships have transitioned into just plain friendships.  I’ve gone to dinner parties, helped deliver artwork, helped move furniture, given career advice, approved significant others for dating and officiated a wedding for various students in the past.  Sometimes they’ll get nostalgic and remind me of something they learned in my class.  That’s when I remember how important it is to do the difficult thing.  There are easier ways to teach, but I guess I don’t always do the easy thing.  

Just remember:  I teach college students, mostly age 18 and up.  I do not recommend my teaching antics to K-12 teachers, however, I do recommend loving your students.  Also, if you decide to attempt academic friendships at the college level, know that you're signing up for a lot of extra effort.  Love is an action, not just a word.

look what you made me do...part 3 of 3

Part 3:

So, Jencyn, the nursing major visited the Sculpture Studio and was invited to make something.  That positive experience snowballed into a second, more involved, sculptural experience.  At the end of the second day, Jencyn wrote:  “While I am fully knowledgeable on the stress shared in that studio as deadlines approach and art show submissions loom, it was an escape for me, and I was, and am, really grateful I got the chance to be a sculpture student for a day or two with my best friend and her friends and her teacher who was more than willing to teach me, a random girl who is not supposed to be there, how to weld."

I have known for several years that students have a different experience in my classes than they may have in other classes.  I have largely shrugged this off in the past or just chalked it up to the Sculpture Studio just being a fun place.  I honestly thought that it was just easier for students to have a positive experience in Sculpture because the nature of the processes are so much fun.  It wasn’t until I spoke with some other professors and teachers that I realized not every Sculpture Studio is like ours.  It made me a little more curious about what those differences were.  "The unexamined life..." and all, right?  Jencyn's experience was a perfect opportunity for me to engage with those thoughts.  If you're not a teacher, I won't judge you if you skip the multitude of words to follow.

Obviously we were engaging with experiential learning.  That’s almost always a given in my Sculpture classes that are heavily based on action and doing.  Art students at this level often learn best when they get their hands on the materials and get to actively participate in the processes.  However, each professor handles this differently.  My approach is to introduce the tools and processes in a way that is not overwhelming or information overload.  For each new material/project, I’ll introduce and demonstrate the tools and equipment students will need for that material/project.  A little bit of general information to keep people safe, followed by more specific information distributed as they have more experiences.

I also learned that my approach to those introductions is different from other approaches.  Talking about it is boring and ineffective for tactile learners.  At the end of the day, no one cares about WHY the MIG welder works or what kind of compressed gas it uses.  They need to know what it feels like to hold a welding gun in their hands while sparks fly all over them as they try to move very slowly the distance of one quarter of an inch.  That is very much a “learn by doing” experience.  

With Jencyn, I did very little explaining, zero lecturing and just let her feel her way through both of these experiences.  She may have, at times, felt like she was a lone explorer, but everything she did was closely monitored, highly considered and completely safe.  She was able to feel like she was walking a tightrope alone, but she had a very secure safety net if she needed it.  I love the perceived sense of adventure and danger that comes with sculpture, but so much of it is really just perception.  In reality, my sculpture worker and I are very closely monitoring each student for safety and progress.  

This idea of academic adventure is important.  My current generation of students mostly came from K-12 environments where they were told exactly what to do.  Meeting expectations was treated as excellence by many.  Current college students love to be told exactly what is required of them so that they can check boxes.  My projects, by design, force students to think for themselves.  I intentionally provide limited amounts of information so that students can’t just follow a script.  In order to solve the problems of each project, they must think analytically and critically.  This makes many students very uncomfortable because they do not know the outcome before they start.  That is what makes each project a worthwhile creative endeavor.  This is when students start using a larger percentage of their brains.

Jencyn had no idea what to expect with either of these experiences.  Because I was moving around so much between students on the first day, she must have felt like a solo adventurer, and in a way, she was.  I’m sure it was a relief to have Elena and Cathryn nearby to help in my absence, but she was basically making the foam heart on her own.  While that may have been scary at times, it also increased the feeling of accomplishment  when the project was complete.  To know you created something great and you did it all by yourself is a great feeling.  

Students in my classes are almost never shown previous examples of student work.  Inevitably, they’ll see work on display on campus and my projects have grown a bit of a lore about them over the years.  I learned many years ago, that if I show an example of a past student’s project, every new student will see that project as the goal and I’ll get a whole class of projects that solve the problems exactly the same way.  There’s nothing creative about that.  When I don't show examples, suddenly there are a multitude of correct ways to go about solving problems and the results get far more creative and interesting.

There’s a downside to not showing examples.  I have to do a lot more explaining and often, I have to take students by the figurative hand and lead them through the more difficult parts of a project.  This extra work on my part is worth it if it helps to produce students who are always looking for the most creative solution.  I have a long drive home where I can ride in silence if I need a break from hearing my name a thousand times.  I'm kinda not kidding.

Jencyn was in uncharted territory.  She had almost no visual touchstones to rely on.  She had the freedom to make whatever she wanted in both instances and while that freedom may have created an amount of discomfort, it also gave her permission to make and draw anything that made her happy.  She had no idea that the steel heart shaped glasses would be a level of difficulty that was far beyond her current capabilities because she hadn't seen anyone try it and fail.  She simply had the freedom to say that’s what she wanted to create.

Academic scaffolding was in place to help her and to protect her, but she likely had no idea.  Students don’t need to be aware of all that a teacher is doing to create a safe and effective learning environment.  I often seem as if I’m operating without a plan.  While this is far from true, it does create a fun, fly by the seat of your pants feeling for students.  This creates an air of excitement, as if anything could happen.  Sure, there are times when I have no idea if something will work out, but most often, I have a lot of experience and knowledge to guide me.  Students don’t need to know that.  Everyone loves an adventure.  Let them have some fun!

Which brings us to the idea of impossibility.  Over the years, I’ve had many students bring sketches of ideas to me that I have a pretty high level of confidence knowing they are not currently capable of creating.  I know things about the materials and processes that they do not know.  I can look two or three weeks into the future and anticipate the problems they’ll encounter.  I’ll take what I know about each student and do some calculations and sometimes I’ll know there’s no way they’ll succeed.  Very often, I’ll greenlight the idea anyway.  

Why?  I had this one student who could do anything she wanted.  She was that type of person, smart, creative and driven.  One day I told her that I wanted her to come up with an idea of a form she thought it would be impossible to create in her preferred method of making.  She presented the idea and she was right, it looked impossible.  I told her to try to make it.  It took her several months, a few tears and a lot of cursing, but she did it and it remains one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen a student create.  By my calculations, it was impossible, yet she did it.

Was it academically irresponsible to greenlight that impossible idea?  Not in the least.  I understand exactly how much a student can learn from doing something impossible.  Most often, it isn’t possible and the student will either figure that out and pivot to a better idea or solution, or they’ll learn the limitations of the process and they’ll develop an even better plan.  They only way they fail is if they quit.  Sometimes they do quit, but it’s rare.  Sometimes, they don’t fail.  If you don’t tell someone it’s impossible, they might just make it possible.  

I have learned to praise the attempt and to encourage students through the tough parts.  Most creative students love a good challenge.  Some of my people absolutely thrive when they know I don’t think they can do something.  I tend to create comedically oppositional relationships with students and they love to show me I was wrong.  Don’t tell them that I love it too.

My hope is that all of these things help to create a feeling of “fun” in the studio.  Fun is not an academic word, but I’ve recently learned that “play” is gaining respect in the academic world.  The ability to approach a problem with a healthy sense of play is so important, especially in the Sculpture Studio.  When you are free to play, there’s no risk.  You’re not worried about grades and you know you have support nearby, so there’s more freedom to try things.  Especially when you have a loud bald guy urging you to just do it and see what happens.  

The freedom to play in the studio is crucial to my personal approach to teaching.  I have intentionally created a controlled environment where students can feel welcomed and safe.  When you feel welcome and safe, you can play.  An environment where you’re encouraged to try a variety of possible approaches creates a situation where students can engage with their most creative thoughts.  It creates an environment where students can have a very frustrating experience and they’ll still be excited to come tell me exactly what went wrong and what they’re going to do differently the next time.  

Jencyn also saw firsthand just how supportive the Sculpture studio can be.  The encouragement of a teacher can be powerful, but you know what’s even more powerful?  The encouragement of your peers.  From the moment Jencyn stepped into the studio, students welcomed her, saw that she was attempting to make things and they praised the attempt.  Elena, Cathryn and Jenna all spent significant time with Jencyn and they encouraged like it was their job.  Other students passing through smiled, said encouraging things and offered support.  Gabe was working in the welding area with us and his constant smile and positive presence was a tangible comfort.

All of these teaching tactics, paired with my particular personality and teaching style, work together to create a learning environment where the tone has been set, the challenges have been laid out, the safety net is in place and the freedom to play has been encouraged.  Of course, this doesn’t work all the time.  Some students simply don’t jive with my personality or my academic approach.  This bothers me far more than I’ll ever tell you, but I am learning that there’s not much I can do about it.  My hope is that those students will find their way to another mentor and/or another creative discipline and find success.  I’m not advocating for all studio professors and art teachers to adopt my methods.  I am offering an explanation of them so that they can steal whatever works for them and their students and personalities.  

So what did this accomplish?  I’m not out here trying to convert the masses to be Art majors or even 3D BFAs.  Students sometimes think that, but you have to consider this from my perspective.  Teaching is hard when you have great students.  Why would I want students who weren’t passionate about being there?  My job is to teach, not to convert.  The good news will spread itself.  (I feel like there’s a religious application there, but no one has time for that, right?)  Jencyn isn’t going to drop her Nursing major and become a sculptor.  So what was the goal?  

The goal was to point out the innate creativity she already had.  I wanted to help her to see the abilities she has and to build confidence.  I wanted her to see what was involved in the physical process of creating a three-dimensional form and to grow in her appreciation for art and art-making.  If she never comes back to the studio, she will forever see 3D artwork differently.  She will have a greater appreciation for what it takes to produce a form that simply did not exist an hour before.  She will know how to break a large project down into smaller parts.  She will understand the importance of developing a plan and the importance of hard work to make that plan a reality.  

And maybe, if I’m lucky, she will always hold a place in her life for creativity.  Maybe she will know that she can do things all by herself and that she never has to rely on a significant other to do things for her.  Maybe she’ll wake up every day and remember that she’s a badass, because she is.

One final teacher thought:  Jencyn’s studio success was not only because of the learning environment.  Jencyn came into the studio as a smart, creative and disciplined student.  More often than not, students like that will find success no matter how bad my teaching is.  

I would still argue that a great student plus great teaching is an equation for even greater success.

Jencyn signed off on her sculpture experience with this:  “I would offer for you guys to come and learn to manually take blood pressures or cry in a study room with me the night before a pharm exam but I don’t think that would be as fun.”

Well, I would bet there are days when my people would gladly trade places, but when they returned to their senses, hopefully they'd see that a creative and playful experience is worth tolerating me!

look what you made me do...part 2 of 3

Part 2:

Class time came on Thursday and Jencyn was back in the studio.  I was stoked.  I should say that during this 3 hour class time, I have stacked classes.  This means I have students working in the studio from Sculpture 1, Sculpture 2, Sculpture 3, Advanced Sculpture 1, Advanced Sculpture 2 and I have an MFA student as well.  This translates into managed chaos for me.  I’m constantly being pulled in 7 directions and I’m hearing students shout my last name hundreds of times.  Sculptural processes often require me to be present and very observant to keep my students safe.  I stay busy and I’m constantly moving during this time.  I knew this would be a challenge for working individually with Jencyn but I also felt this was an important moment as a teacher.

Jencyn suited up, total badass...

...but make it fashion!

Elena, Cathryn and Jenna helped get Jencyn properly dressed in some overalls, a welding jacket, gloves and a welding helmet.  She looked like a badass sculpture student before we even got started.  When I teach welding to a class, I do so in small groups and I can sense the apprehension in the students.  They have heard the welder and seen the sparks and they tend to be very nervous.  I spend a lot of time making them feel comfortable and safe.  Jencyn showed no fear so I decided to just go for it.  I quickly explained what was going to happen, welded a small spot for her to watch and handed her the welding gun.  She hesitated only briefly and then pressed the trigger and sparks went flying.  It was great.  

Jencyn (left) making her first sparks

Sometimes students weld for the first time and it’s honestly not that amazing.  I will admit to being a little generous with the praise and compliments on occasion, but when I tell you this lady is a natural, you need to believe me.  Her welds were immediately strong and looked great.  She had the rhythm and pace.  In another couple of minutes, she had welded two curved rods into a heart.  Yes, I precut and bent the two pieces to make a heart.  Judge if you wish, but she's a fellow Swiftie and it made her smile.  

Jencyn’s recollection of this part was:  “The next day I didn’t have class, and got an invitation to come back and do something fun. I was excited and also very nervous. I walked into the studio following Elena kinda like a scared puppy haha. I watched Elena and Cathryn do an impromptu haircut on Jenna, and felt like I was getting to experience a “go to work with your roommate” day. They got me suited up to weld, where I got to weld a heart together and learned how to put metal together from McAbee. I don’t curse, but I got the status of “BadA$$”, which made me feel cool. 

Everyone in there was also very supportive of my side quest, which made me feel really special considering I had no idea what I was doing and was lowkey afraid I’d somehow be the one to accidentally, like, light the studio on fire or something.” 

Back to my perspective…With this major accomplishment under her belt, Jencyn could have retired and had a fun story to tell.  A lot of people would have been overwhelmed and wanted to quit while they were ahead.  Anticipating this and not knowing how many days I could get her in the studio, I explained how impressed I was and that with this new knowledge she had about a process, she could now extrapolate that into making just about anything she wanted to make.  

She didn’t seem eager to leave, so I suggested that she come up with some ideas of things she’d like to make and I would help her.  She sat down and drew sketches in a sketchbook.  Just so you’re visualizing this with me, we had a nursing major all decked out in sculpture studio clothing sitting in the studio drawing in a sketchbook.  I think I may have felt an emotion.

A few minutes later we looked at her sketches and talked about which ones she was most interested in making.  She chose a pair of heart sunglasses and within minutes she was drawing the shapes on a flat piece of steel.  Another couple of minutes later, I was demonstrating the plasma torch for her.  As the downpour of sparks danced across the floor towards her feet, she didn’t flinch.  Instead, she took the torch in her hand and carefully cut out the shapes, being very careful to cut on the lines.  It was great!

Jencyn took to the plasma torch like a pro

Cleaning up the edges of the steel is a longer and less fun process.  It was here that I was able to step in and grind the steel because I knew the tedious process would be a deterrent.  No sense in frustrating people for no good reason.  Once those pieces were cut and cleaned, they were ready to weld together.  This weld would be a slightly more complex weld, but Jencyn was up for the challenge.  I described how I wanted her to move her hands and she followed my instructions to the letter.  Welding on thin sheet is very tricky and it’s so easy to burn through.  She had the right touch and got it on the first try.  

Jencyn made this out of steel!

There was a lot of praise and celebration.  She had essentially completed two welding projects in one class period and had solidified her status as a certified badass.  I was thrilled for her.  I was also thrilled for me because my brain was already trying to assess the teaching systems at work during those two studio events.  Why did this work?  How did I convince a nursing major to learn to weld?  Remember, this isn’t a clean, comfortable paint and pour situation.  She got dirty and manipulated molten metal at 2000 degrees.  This was hard.

Jencyn wrote:  “After McAbee had to do some major work to get all the excess metal parts off, he let me weld everything together and I was very very very happy with the result. Like, I for real just sketched that out and made that???? I felt really special for being given the invitation to hang out in there and make things, and I hope to go back and do more if I’m able. (side note, I left the glasses in the studio with the intention of going back and throwing some color on them, because I am me and making them pink is speaking to my soul), and while I have been busy with the chaos of catching back up on labs and nursing work, I have full intention and plans to go back.”

Y’all.  Not only did Jencyn volunteer to show up for a 3 hour sculpture session that involved the real possibility of getting burned, she loved it and has plans to come back.  What???

Of course, this says something about the curiosity, character and positive attitude of Jencyn.  But I think it also says something about the instructional tactics and the learning environment cultivated in the Sculpture Studio.

Maybe it’s time to step back and think a little about what was happening.  Teachery stuff coming soon in Part 3.

look what you made me do...part 1 of 3

Part 1:

I met Jencyn about a year ago and I knew about her several months prior to that meeting.  She is a nursing major, currently excelling in that program and on her way to becoming a successful graduate.  During her freshman year, she was randomly paired with a roommate, Elena, who happened to be an art major.  Elena enrolled in a sculpture class and not too long after that experience, changed her major to 3D BFA, which meant taking a lot more sculpture classes.  That sentence could be extrapolated into a whole story of its own, but today we’re just focusing on Jencyn.  

Jencyn started hearing about the sculpture class and the sculpture professor, and I’m sure she heard a lot more than I even know at this point.  I can be a bit much in the studio.  I actively try to harness my high energy and enthusiasm for sculpture and use that to inspire students to do great things.  This is a highly considered aspect of my teaching practice.  I understand that it can come off as annoying and probably overwhelming at times.  I’m sure Jencyn heard it all.  

About a year ago, Elena told me that Jencyn would like to come to a coffee talk so Cathryn, Elena and I met her at Starbucks for an hour-long conversation.  We left, having learned that Jencyn was cool, and we went on about our lives in the sculpture studio while Jencyn went back to studying.  

coffee with jencyn 2025

A few little adventures have happened in the time since but when this spring semester began, Jencyn found herself with a little extra time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, conveniently when my upper level sculpture classes meet.  One recent Tuesday, I walked through the studio on a rampage trying to get students motivated to work and when I walked past Elena’s studio table, I saw Jencyn sitting there with a laptop.  She seemed to be doing some work and I didn’t want to pry, so I said hello and moved along with my rampage.  

A little while later I walked by again and saw Jencyn still there.  I made a little comment about how if she stuck around too long, I’d put her to work.  She joked back and over the next few minutes my teacher brain started buzzing.  I wondered what she would do if I gave her some sculpture materials.  You know, just some simple things, maybe that air dry clay that’s been on the shelf for a couple of years.  I wondered, “Could I get her to make a sculpture?” and I think I kept that question silent in my head.  My teacher interest was piqued.

I whirled around and started looking for materials.  The air dry clay turned out to be just a recycled container, so I quickly located some alternative materials.  I found a couple of Styrofoam spheres and some wire.  I went to Jencyn and deposited the materials and said, “Here, if you’re gonna be in the sculpture studio, you have to make something!”.  This was an important moment from my perspective.  Once the challenge is issued, the seconds that follow often determine the outcome.  Without hesitation, she closed her laptop, smiled and said, “Alright.”  The best possible response.  It was on.

Jencyn getting started

Jencyn told me later that as she worked on her “project”, she was creating a blog post in her head about her experience.  She was kind enough to write it down and give me permission to share excerpts with you.  About this part of the story, she wrote:

“Last week, I got the honor to play pretend sculpture student not once, but twice. It started as an invitation from Elena to work on my assignments in an environment that wasn’t our apartment or a stuffy study room in the library. I accepted, of course.  I feel special to be allowed in the sculpture studio and to get the chance to pretend I belong there. I sat in and started working on an assignment that wasn’t due for another week. I was kind of having a hard week. The anxiety of nursing classes, labs, never ending ATI assignments along with the studying I should’ve been doing was catching up to me and I had had multiple days of feeling like I wasn’t allowed to relax or give myself time to think about anything else because I had to focus on passing and passing well. About 45 minutes into this, McAbee randomly asked if I wanted to make something. I said “sure!” , considering I was in a studio I technically wasn’t supposed to be in, and already had multiple days of work ahead done, why not. He handed me some random objects, Cathryn and Elena handed me tools, and I got to work.”

Back to my narrative…I paid close attention for the next hour or so.  I couldn’t really give her an assignment because I didn’t want to scare her off, but not giving any direction at all could lead to frustration.  So I kept a close eye on progress.  She started out bending the wire and trying to connect it to the spheres.  That didn’t seem to be doing much, so I told her she could do anything she wanted, even carving the foam.  This was a magic button.  She immediately lit up, took a sharp tool and began carving the sphere.  Just a few minutes later, she had carved a heart from the sphere with a knack for form that I don’t always see in art students, even some 3D BFA students.  Elena was also helping and encouraging her.  She may have suggested the addition of some paper maché and we quickly located some pre-mixed glue and water and Jencyn got to work as if she knew exactly what she was doing.  She later wrote:

“I sat and carved a makeshift heart out of Styrofoam, and was mid paper-mâché when I received a small red sticker of encouragement. I smiled and said thank you, feeling a little silly because I hadn’t really done much compared to the other people in the studio grinding (both literally with tools and figuratively in working). I ended up making a heart with paper mâché and writing/doodling on it and stuck some wire spiraled through it. I had fun. It was the first time in a few days I hadn’t felt so anxious, even if all I did was make a mess with some Styrofoam.”

Elena getting the paper maché ready

By the end of that studio class, Jencyn had created a small paper maché heart covered in sheet music.  She further decorated the surface with marker and did a great job.  I praised and encouraged and invited her to come back any time.

The finished heart, Jencyn's first sculpture!

Before the Thursday studio class, Elena let me know that Jencyn was coming back.  A major teaching victory for me!  I told Elena to make sure Jencyn was dressed for studio work, a hint that welding was an option if the clothing was right.  Could I get her to do one of the scariest processes in the studio?  Would she burst into flames and run out of the studio on fire?  Tune in next time for Part 2 of the story.

we love a good challenge, don’t we?

This story starts at the beginning of the fall semester.  My Sculpture 3 class is set up to allow students to begin working much more independently.  I do not give them specific assignments unless they ask.  At this level, I’m interested in students pursuing their own interests in terms of materials, processes and conceptual development.  In August, I told my students to share their ideas and to get started.  Typically, a student in that class will do some experimentation and take a good chunk of the semester to complete their first project.  Then they’ll smell the end of the semester coming and they’ll rush to complete one or two more projects.  

When these students shared their ideas, they were all at different places with different interests.  I love taking an individual approach in the studio, so this was fine with me.  One student in this class, we’ll call her “Elena”*, showed me a rough sketch of a full body self-portrait and told me she wanted to learn how to make it out of steel.  This was a good challenge for her and it was going to push the skills she had previously developed.  However, the idea she explained was probably too difficult for her to pull off with the complex form she drew.  

In my teaching brain, I’m always trying to think a few weeks ahead.  I could easily imagine her starting this project, realizing it was not really possible to complete and then shifting it into something else that could also be a good experience and produce a good product.  I saw a few options in my head and quickly decided to greenlight the project idea.  She smiled, went away and got started.  

Weeks went by and the sculpture developed slowly.  I’m impatient.  I am sort of notorious for checking in on students by yelling at them to work more and spend more time in the studio.  I can usually hear the eye rolls as I shout over the studio noise.  This particular student is pretty sassy and independent.  She would just look at me, smile and say, “I know, I know.”  After another couple of weeks and a lot of hours on her part, the outline of the form was complete and she had started filling in the surface of the form with lots of steel lines.  

Essentially, she was creating mid-lines on all of her body parts and using lots of closely spaced steel lines to imply the surface of skin.  Not only was it extremely difficult to get the mid-lines accurate, but it was almost mind-numbing to think about filling in all those tiny lines.  Each tiny line had to be bent into a complex curve and fit her body exactly.  Each line took a long time but she was rising to the challenge.

The actual Elena bending steel with Sharpie lines drawn on her skin

More weeks ticked by.  Though she didn’t have a lot completed, what she had was looking so good that I didn’t want to steer her in a different direction.  In addition to being pretty sassy, she’s also pretty stubborn so she probably wouldn’t have quit if I told her to.  Looking ahead, I started to wonder if she would be able to finish the project by the end of the semester.  When I hinted at this, she bucked.  “It will be finished!”  I backed off.  If she did finish it, the project would likely be so good that it would easily account for a semester of studio and class hours.

Each December we get a cool opportunity through a regional art museum in North Carolina that allows faculty members to choose a student’s work to pair with their own work and enter into a juried exhibit.  The exhibit highlights the power of mentorship and focuses on the student-teacher relationship.  In the past, I’ve selected students who made great work and could benefit from the mental boost of being chosen.  It’s a pretty competitive exhibit that features some of the biggest art department names in the country.  This year I started thinking ahead to this exhibit and considering who I might ask.  When Elena popped up in my final considerations, I saw another opportunity wrapped in this one.  

If I could get Elena to agree to enter the exhibit, she would have to be finished by Dec 6 to meet the deadline.  It wasn’t super possible in my head, but there was a chance.  This would get her project finished by the end of the semester.  The risk was that she could also get frustrated by the almost impossible challenge and give up.  

Still, there was another issue to conquer.  I would need to make something new to enter with her project.  I usually enter a steel sculpture of mine and choose a sculpture from a student.  So much of this semester had involved Elena and I looking closely at a handful of reference photos she was using to create her sculpture.  So closely that we knew how far her ears were from the mid-point of her skull and how thick each toe was.  Looking at these details was less like looking at a human form and more like analyzing an image like a blueprint.  

One morning, I was running in the dark at 6:00 am and the idea came to me.  I could draw Elena using one of her reference photos.  For months, I had been wanting to use a person I knew for the subject of one of my drawings.  I wanted to use a particular pose and use them as the shape of the wood I draw on.  Then I would keep parts of their portrait and add other imagery to create the narrative.  Asking someone I knew if I could draw them seemed like a huge thing to me, but here was an opportunity.  I just had no idea if she would agree to any of it.  

Several hours later, Elena was sitting in my office with a few other students.  This happens a few mornings each week.  My office is a bit of a gathering place where I want students to feel comfortable.  The project came up and I told Elena about the opportunity and my crazy idea.  She smiled, but that didn’t tell me anything.  Sometimes she smiles when she’s about to tell you to go jump off a cliff.  Sometimes she smiles when she’s uncomfortable and doesn’t know how to tell you to jump off a cliff in a nice way.  Sometimes she probably also smiles because she’s happy.  I just never know.  

She thought about it for a bit before saying something that knocked me back on my heels a little.  She had recently listened to an artist talk I gave where I happened to mention that I was hoping to get up the courage to ask people I knew if I could draw them in the near future.  I barely remember saying it as I talked about my latest drawings of random internet strangers, but she smiled and said, “Well, yeah, we should do it.  You were just talking about how you wanted to draw people you know and how that would be a new challenge.”

So we agreed to the challenge.  She would have about a week and a half to finish about 70% of her sculpture.  I would have the same time to start and finish a new drawing that scared the heck out of me. 

It was best for me to not think about it and just get started.  I spent that afternoon cutting out the wood and preparing it for drawing.  As I traced and cut the wood in the studio, Elena was on the other side of the room bending steel.  

Thanksgiving Break gave me a lot of hours to dedicate to the drawing.  Since family dinners and events do not happen in the Sculpture Studio, Elena did not make as much progress over the break.  When she returned, she was focused and basically lived in the studio.  As the days went by, I finished the drawing and she worked even more furiously on her sculpture.  

The deadline for her to finish her sculpture was Saturday, Dec 6.  When I left campus on the night of Thursday, Dec 4, she had clear instructions and a plan for her weekend.  She would finish the sculpture, clean it, document it with photos and email those photos to me by midnight Dec 6.  When I looked in my teacher crystal ball, I wasn’t sure she would finish it all on time.  I could see many scenarios where she became too exhausted and had to stop working.  I could also see many scenarios where she would run into problems she didn’t know how to solve and forward motion would come to a halt.  When I left on Thursday night, I told her to let me know if she needed me to come back to help her on Friday.  I meant it, but I knew as I said it what the smile on her face meant that time.  She said “OK” but her smile said, “I don’t ask for help, I can do it on my own, thanks.”

Most of Friday, Dec 5, I was in Columbia, about 1.5 hours away from the Sculpture Studio.  I got a couple of updates and questions from Elena.  Another student we’ll call “Jenna” was working to finish a sculpture in the studio and she was also acting as Elena’s helper and hype-man.  Jenna provided her own updates.  When I was leaving Columbia in the mid-afternoon, Elena texted that she was getting frustrated.  I asked if she wanted me to come to the studio and she replied “Yes”.  When a stubborn, independent student asks for help, you don’t question it, you just drive to campus.  

The funny thing is, Elena knew what was wrong with the sculpture and also knew what she needed to do to fix it.  I was able to get some supplies for Jenna and spend a few hours giving moral support to Elena before leaving them both working in the studio.  I told Elena I would come back on Saturday if needed.  She smiled.  

Saturday afternoon, I decided not to ask if they wanted me to come to the studio.  I just told them.  They let me pick up a pizza and when I arrived, I saw that Elena had solved some big problems and made significant progress.  I looked at all the spots she had left to fill in and started doing the math.  It was going to be pushing it to finish, but it was possible.  Elena kept smiling but it was obvious that the multiple 12+ hour studio days in a row were catching up with her.  She was exhausted and her knees were killing her from getting on the floor and standing back up so many times.  Still, she had a challenge to meet.  She wouldn’t stop.

Elena working in the final hours

During the afternoon, I cut out a new piece of wood for an upcoming drawing and got it prepped.  I annoyed Jenna and took care of a few other things left undone from the previous week.  I peppered in some encouragement to Elena and tried to stay out of her way.  Time raced by and the sun set so fast that we missed the cool view from the studio loading dock.  Before we knew it, Elena was putting on the last few steel lines and Jenna and I were prepping the documentation area to take some photos.  

As Elena tuned off the welder, we celebrated with some cheers and quickly grabbed the sculpture and carried it off to the documentation wall.  A few minutes later, I was dropping the photos in the juried exhibit entry and tapping “send”.  One of Elena’s favorite things to say is, “Oh my lanta!” as an exclamation of surprise, disgust, disbelief or frustration.  I think I heard her say it a hundred times this weekend.  When I asked what she wanted the title to be, the answer seemed obvious.  

At 7:00 pm on Saturday, Dec 6, the project was finished and we had entered the exhibit.  Both of us had found an artistic challenge and both of us rose to meet that challenge.

The finished sculpture.  A self portrait in steel.

Should I have waved Elena off of the project months ago and provided different material and process experiences for her this semester?  A lot of teachers would have.  Should I have been honest with her in August and told her it probably wasn’t possible for her to complete her idea in the time we had?  Many teachers would.

I’m learning that if you don’t tell students things are impossible, they’ll actually do them.  I’m learning that sometimes Elena’s smile means you should go jump off a cliff and sometimes it means “thank you”.  I’m also learning that sometimes a student can challenge you as much as you challenge them.  

Two Elenas.  Both works of art together.

Now to get Jenna to finish her sculpture!

*Elena approved this post.  Jenna did not.

i know you are but what am i?

This has been on my mind recently and  it’s something teachers don’t talk about but perhaps should.  At the end of each semester, students in our universities are given the chance to evaluate their college courses and their professors.  These students are perhaps 18-23 years old and have zero experience teaching university level courses.  Further, their only experience with education is their time spent as students in our current K-12 system.  

Years ago this seemed to be a formality and a way of allowing students to think that they had a voice in their education.  At my previous university, the data was collected, offered to professors and then filed away never to be regarded again.  

These days, the data collected seems to have made its way into having some sort of actual weight as a means of reviewing and assessing professors.  Though student evaluations and comments are completely subjective and 100% determined by how the student feels about the class they were required to take, I’ve had student comments quoted in my own annual reviews as evidence to support that I’m a good teacher.  I also know the opposite has happened to my peers.  

Students who have bad experiences with professors may have these experiences for many reasons.  Some students are forced to miss classes due to a variety of reasons, both valid and invalid and those students may then see the professor’s attendance policy as cruel and heartless, even when it is a department policy completely out of the hands of the professor.  Some students are just there to check a box on a degree program and they have terrible attitudes that negatively impact the entire class.  These students interpret the positive passion of the professor as irritating.  Some students enjoy comfort and have no desire to be uncomfortable, which is required in any effective educational situation.  

I’ll offer myself as an example for consideration.  I’ve been teaching studio art classes for 23 years at the university level.  Unlike many professors, I have a background in education and was trained as a teacher in college.  My classes are challenging by design.  My projects are problem-based, meaning they seem nearly impossible when introduced, causing the students to systematically problem-solve many different solutions in order to complete the assignment.  The curriculum I’ve designed for the sculpture area is a spiral curriculum, designed to give students experiences with various types of sculptural approaches again and again at varying levels of difficulty.  This system rewards students who are determined and disciplined and silently provides them with an entire program of best practices in studio behavior.  

A student in my class will have no idea any of this is happening and why should they?  Their focus needs to be on each assignment in order to succeed.  When I introduce a project and refuse to show past examples of student work, students always think I’m being mean.  The truth is, I’m forcing them to think creatively by not showing them how another student solved the problem.  You show examples in math, not in studio art.  And yes, there’s valid educational research to support my approach.  

Similarly, when I confess that some of my projects are designed to bring experiences with “failure”, students lose their minds.  This is so clearly bad teaching in their inexperienced eyes.  They do not have the experience or mental space to understand that by guiding students carefully into a made up “failure” situation, I am providing them the opportunity to experience the inevitable flop of an idea with total support.  This then allows the student to build independence and confidence as they work their way out of the “failure” and create a successful project.  

Are there easier ways to teach art?  Absolutely.  But my way is very effective at producing exceptional artists and I’m happy to provide a long list of names to anyone interested.  I am not choosing to throw a bunch of information at students and just watch as they sink or swim.  I am personally and individually involved in their educational journey in my classes.  Each student is different and each one has different needs.  

Students can’t be expected to understand my teaching methods fully while they are my students.  If they could, they probably wouldn’t need me.  I’ve been very lucky in my 23 years and while I’ve endured the occasional grade protest, negative comment and even a couple of grade appeals that have moved all the way up the chain of command, my overall student evaluations have been above average.  That doesn’t protect me from the occasional student with an axe to grind or one who feels they can offer me advice on my teaching methods.  

Many of my peers have not been so lucky.  Some have had negative student comments and ratings used as evidence in their annual reviews.  I’ve been on hiring committees when these student evaluations have come up in the decision making process.  I’ve sat with very upset MFA students after reading their student comments after their first semester of teaching and had them question whether or not this career was worth the pain.  I’m not using sensational language and parables here, I can give you names and real examples.  

Students don’t know they don’t know everything.  I don’t have a problem understanding this after many years of engaging with their brains.  I’ve had many 18 year olds tell me how the world works.  The problem here is that educational professionals such as chairs, deans and university administrators also know that students don’t know everything, yet they still provide those students the tool to offer feedback on a topic they actually know very little about.  Then, they choose to attempt to use the tool as some sort of valid teacher evaluation system.  

Students also forget that their professors are real humans with real lives and real emotions.  If they had to read those comments in real time to the professor’s face and watch their reaction, my guess is that student evaluations would go away fast.  These professors have the same self-doubt, insecurities and bad days that everyone else has.  They read these rude, offensive and often completely untrue comments and cry real tears.  

So why am I writing this?  Again, this isn’t about me at all and please do not send me notes of encouragement.  I’m not down or even feeling beat up about my evaluations for this semester or any prior.  My concern is for my fellow professors who can suffer real career damage from these anonymous evaluations provided by unqualified reviewers.  If you’re a professor reading this, maybe let your chair and dean know how ridiculous this practice has become.  If you’re a student reading this, maybe take the time to really consider the human you’re reviewing at the end of each semester.  If you’ve taken my class, you’ve been taught how to provide true statements without being mean.  

If you’re the type of student who revels in the slander of your professors at the end of each semester, I hope two things for you:

1. I hope you live long enough to have the life experience you need to understand that you were absolutely unqualified to provide educational feedback and advice to your very experienced and very trained professors.

2. I hope you end up being a teacher so you, too, can experience the true sadness of giving yourself passionately to a low paying, low reward job only to have a child with zero experience in life or teaching tell you that they do not approve of your teaching methods – methods you’ve perfected by teaching longer than the student has been alive.  (Actually I don’t hope this for you, but rather, I hope you do live to regret and feel true sorrow for your negative review and I hope that regret leads you to offer your most sincere apologies to the professor(s) you kicked while they were at their most vulnerable.)