Wild One

So I'm watching this movie. Never mind which movie. That's not the point.

In this movie.... No, the title doesn't matter. In this movie, there are four artists. Three of them are in college studying their form of art, while the fourth just stumbles upon hers. As is often the case, movies don't make me think about the theme or moral the writer or director intends. It's all about me. It's always about me.

One of the characters is belittled by someone -- see, the movie is so negligible, I don't remember any of their names or who this someone is. Because the character just takes it, I'm reminded of my first art class. You see, I'd been drawing since I was twelve or thirteen. I wasn't particularly good at it, but I could look at something & reproduce it. It was neither a distinct depiction, nor was it impressionistic. It was just a pretty fair rendering of whatever I'd looked at.

As an aside, I'd created a water color & acrylic painting of flowers in a vase with a couple of nick-nacks back in...I think, first grade. This is probably the only piece I've created which I think is actually any good. That's what made me think to take an art class in eighth grade.

Everything was going smoothly. I'm drawing spheres & cubes, I'm learning how to shade things, etc. That's when the instructor decided to tell me I was wasting my time taking an art class. I sat listing to this very long & drawn out critique of my horrible lack of talent which made me feel as if my dear, old father, as he continues to do to this day, belittle & berate me for any of my efforts.

Naturally, I was crushed, completely defeated. I was worthless.

But it wasn't just that I had been lectured in this way by a teacher -- that hurt, but it wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was that a teacher -- a teacher of a subject I felt rather strongly about -- had done to me what my father had always done to me.

Granted, these pieces, these mere exercises in art, were no master pieces. But I remember that they weren't bad. What the teacher was getting at, I now know, was that they weren't like the others. Every student was following directions to the letter -- they couldn't draw outside the lines. I used odd colors, & I didn't draw to the scale I was told to.

A year later, in a guitar class, I began to stretch my rebellious nature. Sadly, my first steps in this took the form of defiance, but I was growing. My instructor, Mr Distacio, who had never touched a guitar, was teaching strictly out of the school district's lesson plan. We could only play these amazingly simple -- & downright boring -- songs from the one book allowed in class. I'd been teaching myself guitar for some five years before this class, & simply wasn't challenged by the likes of Down In the Valley & the wonder of Tom Dooley.

I, too often in that class, could do little more than hang my head.

Then came the day, the very first day of my rebellion. We were told to play a Christmas song. I snapped. I refused to play it. Three or four bars in, the instructor stops everyone & asks me why I wasn't playing. I'd replied, "It's against my religion".

I'm sure you can imagine his surprise.

He decided to ignore me -- after I took my stance & explained myself. At the end of the last class, he told me to stay. Once everyone was gone, he told me that he couldn't pass me to the advanced class because I refused to follow his instructions. I looked him in the eye & asked if that was the most intelligent decision he could make. I guess he didn't like this because he then started raving about my not following rules & that I'll never get anywhere in life if I wouldn't do what I was told.

As he continued to get louder & the vein on his forehead throbbed more fiercely, the door to the classroom opens. Mrs Vitt, head of the music department, storms in & asks Distacio what's going on. He goes into a long story about what a horrible & worthless student I am. Mrs Vitt stops him & says, "Don't you understand? This student should never have been made to take your class. He should have been placed in the advanced class from the beginning. You are incapable of challenging him. You will pass him."

Mrs Vitt turned to me & asked me to go with her. We left Distacio standing in shock behind us. I supoose he experienced a very profound aneurysm at this point.

In the hall, Mrs Vitt apologized -- really, she'd apologized to the likes of me for Mr Distacio's behavior & said she looked forward to seeing me in her class the next year.

Unlike Mr Distacio, I've had a number of other instructors in one form of art or another do what that first art teacher had failed to do. They would see something in my work -- not necessarily a good something, but clearly something different & would take the tack that I was doing it all wrong. The most shallow of these was a writing instructor in college. This was an odd class. One week we might have to write a three paragraph article with specific elements. That's journalism. The next, we'd be assigned a thousand word short story. I enjoyed this class, because each week would be something new.

This instructor had a check/minus system of grading. For many weeks, he was giving me his lowest, passing grade on my work. Here I was, slaving every night trying to come up with some way to raise my grades when one of these pieces was returned to me with big, red letters on top reading: SEE ME.

The rest of that day's class was filled with trepidation. Could I possibly have been wrong? Could the certificate in journalism I'd received a year before have been a scam? I just didn't know what to expect.

At the end of class, he starts off with my not being a bad writer, but that I might do well to question my abilities. He went on to rip everything I'd written in that class to shreds, leaving me not humiliated, but pissed off. Who does this piece of crap think he is to talk to me this way? Oh, sure. He published a book on writing. Note that he never mentions that he'd published it via the famed Carlton Press -- a publisher who publishes any book, so long as the author is willing to pay for it. Note also that he'd not sold a single copy to anyone except the idiots taking his class who believed actually had to buy his book to take the class instead of photocopying it in the library, as I & a few others had done.

But he wasn't kicking me out of his class. I took his assessment of my writing abilities & decided that I'd show him. I spent the next week writing, editing & honing the assignment. I felt very good about the result & turned it in.

Come Monday, I'd received...his lowest grade.

If I was pissed off during his lecture, I was now livid. This time, instead of entering into this next article in the manner he insisted was the only way to write well -- doing a little at a time & polishing it as you go -- I was going to do what I'd done through high school -- wait till the night before it's due, pump myself up with caffeine & GO!

Now, at this point, I was working at night, & I had classes in the early part of the day, as well as the late afternoon & evening. I lived twenty miles away from school, so going home in the middle of the day just wasn't practical. Besides, why pay twice what I was for gas?

So, as did & do so many other college students, I turned to Vivarin. Never mind that it made me jittery. Forget the fact my eyes were seriously blood shot all the time. Ignore how groggy I was, or what horrible things were happening to my liver. The stuff felt good, got me where I had to go, do what I had to do & made it possible for me to get back & forth to school & work.

Last night before this paper is due -- an all-nighter -- was the most fun I'd had since I'd started that class. I was so much more articulate, using those five & ten dollar words my instructor absolutely hated. I was flying.

Wouldn't you know, from that point on that bastard started giving me his highest grades. And, for some odd reason, he never had another word to say to me.

So, as little faith I may have in my own abilities, I can't help but pity any instructor I'll have in future. Either they will see something in my abilities, or they won't. But if they should get in my way, they're only going to succeed in forcing me to defy them & rebel.

I really hope that the instructor I get when I take my TEFL certification course challenges me too.