When I was teaching, I tried not to think too hard about how I was making an impact on the students' lives. The pressure would've caved in my already imploding head.
I know there's an influence, because I was for some reason thinking of a situation in which I have always wished I'd had a comeback. You know what I mean - ohh I wish I had said that instead of standing there like a dumbass.
This particular situation happened when I was still waffling between getting a music degree and a graphic design degree. I had written a mediocre song out on staff, and wondered what an "accomplished" music student would do with it. I gave it to one of the grad students that was teaching music at the time. I asked if he had taken a look at it. He had. I asked what he would do with it. He said:
Trash it. Start over. It's crap. And he walked away.
I wish I had said (and I say to him now): I hope you slip on all that dream juice between your toes, jerk.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for the stresses of being a teacher and a student. I do. But in that situation, in which someone's confidence in their own abilities is on the line (and it was: I left the music program shortly after that), nothing justifies being an asshole about it. In some ways I'm glad I left, though, because the sheer snobbery in the program was palpable.
Labels: anecdote, idiots, Impulse Nine, music, school, teaching |
