A Teachable Moment

There's all this talk lately about unions and tenure and how mediocre teachers are rewarded because of the length of time they have taught, blah, blah, blah. It's all a crock, if you ask me. What's a good teacher, anyway? Students are driven by internal combustion and parental encouragement. The dumb ones learn nothing regardless of how great the teacher is, and the smart ones learn what they want when they're good and ready and not a moment before.

I have been a teacher twice in my life, not counting when I taught sailing at a day camp in my teens, a short-lived assignment because of a freak storm that whipped up out of nowhere and capsized our boat. On dry land I taught a sixth-grade art class in Salt Lake City and a design course at an art college in Washington, D.C. In all three instances I gave it my all, but I doubt that anyone remembers a damn thing I said, except for maybe "hold on to the boat!"

Besides the one or two male teachers I had crushes on, and Mademoiselle Zelda Penzel for French--her name was fun to say--none of my high school teachers made an impact. In college I had an entire semester with a highly esteemed famous guy, Conor Cruise O'Brien. The Irish writer, politician, historian and academic taught something called Humanities; I recall nothing at all about the class or the man, and no I did not smoke pot in college. The only teacher I do remember from my NYU days was a very wild painting professor named Robert Kaupelis, who was given to wearing Hawaiian shirts. He invited me to attend a Greenwich Village "happening" to be held in a small theater, and warned me to sit in the back. I did as he suggested and was glad of it since the proceedings onstage included the slaughter of a live pig, splattering blood on the occupants of the first three rows.

Now that was good advice.