Teaching as Learning (Again)

Too often I forget that teaching is the best way to learn.

I'm trying to be particularly transparent with a small crew of filmmakers who will be accompanying me on a three-week shoot near New York in January. To that end, I've set up a private blog wherein I'm deconstructing the process of film making. Recently, I wrote about a long shower during which I considered the composition of interview footage and the purpose of a "B" camera. It shouldn't surprise me by now (but it always does) that the act of explaining my ideas gives me even better ideas. As I blogged about the emotional intensity that a "B" camera's extreme close-ups might convey, it occurred to me I might mount the "B" on the jib we're hauling to NYC. I know I'm not the first person to think of putting a "B"camera on a jib. Even so, it might add a rare and distinctive lilt to the footage.

The lonely shower is a fine and reliable an incubator of good ideas. But perhaps it's not the greenhouse. Perhaps the necessary transparency of a master explaining (even justifying) himself to apprentices improves the creative product and process of both.

Mars and Venus #47

My grandfather died a quarter century ago, but the things I learned at his Ideal Barber Shop still seem important:

1. Be more frugal than vain. A $10 haircut should last three months, not merely until the next "bad hair day."
2. "Barbers" are not "stylists." If you want style, go to a beauty parlor.
   
3. If your time is so valuable that you must call ahead for an appointment, your life is over-scheduled. Sit down, leaf through a three-month-old copy of Field and Stream, and wait your turn.
4. Listen to the old guys. They know more than you do and tell it more colorfully. Warning: do not play checkers with the old guys for money.
   
5. Never fall asleep in the chair. You might intend it as a sign of trust in your barber, but it's rude to stonewall a conversation.
6. Never pass up the chance for a hot-lather, straight-razor shave.
   
7. Measure twice; cut once.
   

Obsolete Again

I saw James Cameron's Avatar last night. The film is attracting so much attention, I cannot hope to write anything new about it. Fans and critics have already said what needs to be said about both the content (a derivative plot with liberal politics on its sleeve) and the form (jaw-dropping, groundbreaking). Deeper -- or at least, more pretentious -- analyses will, no doubt, appear in doctoral theses for the next two years. The movie will probably be remembered as a milestone of motion capture technology, "one giant step" for film makers. Robert Zemekis' retelling of A Christmas Carol, released only weeks ago, seems quaint by comparison.

I am bracing for the next round of high school seniors, prospective college students shopping for an alma mater. Immersed in all its 3-D, IMAX glory, Avatar will infect them with new dreams, dreams which likely seem light years from introductory classes in lighting and camera operation. As a measuring stick, Avatar will remind students how little their teachers know. A movie which showcases so many of cinema's possibilities, renders the basics even more boring to would-be Camerons. Avatar will make them more impatient, but it will not make them better.

La Posadas

December 16 marks the start of the Mexican "La Posadas," a string of nightly neighborhood processions recreating Mary and Joseph's search for shelter. Funny how we worship a Homeless Man each Sunday and ignore homeless thousands each Monday.

Buying Christmas

I read this in an e-mail yesterday:

"A friend of mine reports that she went home and sang [a carol] to herself after Christmas shopping to 'purge' herself of all the Santa and holiday gift giving songs she'd been hearing."

It seems to me we can hardly complain about the commercialization of Christmas after a day of shopping.

Credit Crisis

I've sent e-mails, Tweets, texts, IMs, and Facebook updates. I've made personal appeals with handshakes in the hall. Finally, I ended the exam period with a reminder to students to fill out their on-line course evaluations. One student said "I hear other teachers are giving points for a certain class response percentage. What do we get if we evaluate you? " A friendly class opinion leader with whom I have a good relationship, he had the mischievous gleam in his eye of a boy who's just discovered the closet in which his parents hide unwrapped presents.

Trying not to sound as trapped as I felt, I replied, "Um... the satisfaction of knowing you've improved the level of instruction at your alma mater?"

An "A" means somebody has figured out how to impress a professor, employer, or client -- beyond stated expectation. It means a student deepens her own education by doing something I didn't specify in a syllabus or learning objective. It means somebody with passion takes a risk they don't have to. It means an above-average student goes another hour without sleep because "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" A's (or any grades) are not for students who bake us cookies or babysit our children. They are not the currency with which we pay those who further our research. They are not our bribes for favors.

Thus a bias against "extra credit" isn't simply a crotchety prof murmuring "humbug" while the rest of the world roasts chestnuts. It seems pedagogically important to me -- especially in filmmaking -- since no one can give you the formula which distinguishes a good movie from a runaway blockbuster or enduring classic.

Some professors say "A point here or there is insignificant. It almost never impacts a student's grade." If that's so, the carrot we brandish offers no nutrition. Worse, we presume our students' mathematical stupidity will keep them from discovering the worthlessness of our gift. And if the scale is tipped for even one student per term, doesn't that hollow our rhetoric against grade inflation over time?

Yes, I understand my student's wish for reward. He and his classmates have been surveyed to numbness. Rate the student life experience. How's my driving? Evaluate a course. Tell us how we're doing. Evaluate a major. What can we do to improve your shopping experience? You've been chosen at random to review this restaurant. Take an exit survey.

My colleagues and I are desperate to distinguish our surveys from all others. Because we need them. We're told we need assessment, that we need data as we have never before needed it. To justify budget dollars, promotion, tenure, additional hires, tuition increases, administrative leaves. The numbers are apparently essential, for we lack objective standards of our success.

On the machine shop floor, the quality of work is determined by micrometer, by deadline. On a construction job site, the quality of work is determined by plumb line. But in the classroom -- indeed across much of the "knowledge economy" -- the standards of success are less evident. Increasingly, they are quantified feelings and impressions. And, evidently, they are for sale.

Dang it, I'm not buying.