THE TEACHER
By Charles Deemer
From The Colorado Quarterly, Summer 1969
If I were a menial clerk, to whose gloom a Dostoevski or a Melville could give cosmic importance, then readily would I win your understanding. We are in an age the sensibilities of which are riveted to the absurd and what, after all, is more absurd than filling a ledger book with numerals, sorting out dead letters, filing away last year's purchase orders or pulling a lever in a factory? If I made my livelihood in so dreary a fashion, you would accept my gloom as being inevitable, deem it significant, and find in it an occasional metaphor for your own misgivings, whatever your employment; you would offer me understanding, empathy, sympathy, at least something more meaningful than what you now offer me, which is flattering but undue praise, or what usually is called "a good press." Were my life filled with physical danger and pain, were mine the life of a hunter, a mountain climber or a boxer, I then would be judged to be a kind of existential hero, for my temperament is naturally introspective. Would that I were a revolutionary, for Christ's sake! But in fact I am a high school teacher, a teacher of the physical sciences, and though compliments, even admiration, periodically come my way, they are presented not with understanding nor with respect but out of social necessity, in precisely the way one might admire the wife of an alcoholic: what she puts up with -- it's heroic!
ENGLISH COMPOSITION AS A HAPPENING
By Charles Deemer
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary)
Our entire school system, like our over-organized economy, politics, and standard of living, is largely a trap; it is not designed for the maximum growth and future practical utility of the children into a changing world, that they too will hopefully improve, but is a kind of inept social engineering to mold, and weed out, for short-range extrinsic needs. An even when it is more benevolent, it is in the bureaucratic death-grip, from the universities and the boards of education down, of a uniformity of conception and method that cannot possibly suit the multitude of dispositions and conditions. (Paul Goodman, "From John Dewey to A. S. Neill")
*
For better or worse, our educational system is undeniably rigid. Not even the university is free from its demands. The English Composition course, as we should expect, is the rigid child of a rigid parent. It is, after all, taught in a classroom, a medium (in its present form) Marshall McLuhan would call "hot" and of "low participation."
Consider the fragmentation of the composition course in its daily inaction. The "teacher" speaks from his place in the front of the classroom, sheltered more than likely by the wall of his podium, while the class in the rear listens or pretends to. Even when discussion occurs, the fragmentation of the inaction into two segments (the "teacher"-as-wise-authority and the class-as-recipient-of-knowledge) is retained. The division is as clear as stimulus and response. Lecture and note-taking. Assignment and essay. Bell and saliva. Watch the class yawn for its food.
***
Last term's class evaluations arrived today. Strange things, always. First, evaluating the class is voluntary and takes the effort to go online, so 70-90% of the class don't bother. The extreme opinions, positive and negative, probably make the effort. The positive has always won but this term was closer than usual. I admit I didn't go out with my best term of teaching.
So what are the results? Some folks like my teaching:
He truly cares about our success, and his enthusiasm for the subject is contagious.
A good, challenging, and eye-opening class. I would not change anything
Clear and focused, he is what all art teachers should strive to be.
It's been a wonderfully no-nonsense class, and if he weren't retiring, I'd
reccomend (sic) Deemer to everyone.
Charles Deemer is fantastic and I will miss him, as he's retiring this year. He's a legend at PSU. :)
And some folks don't:
He clearly didn't give a shit about anything except the countdown until the end of term.
Please acquire a viable teacher for future offerings of this course
It's a good thing Charles Deemer is retiring. I learned nothing in this class
I got the distinct impression that he puts others down to feel better
about himself. Good riddance to him.
I would not suffer through another class of his even if I had to.
... talk about a zero sum universe, ha ha! Unfortunately, I seem to fret about the negative more than I smile about the positive.
BUT I AM DONE!
BUT I AM DONE!
