TEACHER INTERVIEW

Crestwood Country Day School
August 2, 1992
 
 
Q.   Influenced worklife by the head of the school?
 
A.   Head of the School?  I can't think of any.  I can't find any
     evidence of any school that has really influenced me in any
     way.
 
Q.   They know what they're getting when they hire you?
 
A.   Hopefully, yeah.
 
Q.   Can you tell me about influence of school board?
 
A.   No.  I've only worked with basically two school boards in my
     21 years of teaching and in those 21 years, we're only
     talking about five years where I've really been in the
     employment of a school that had a school board.  I have
     never in those five years had any direct contact at a
     professinal level with any school board member.
 
Q.   What about the decisions they make -- have you felt that
     your work life has been effected by policies that the school
     board sets?
 
A.   In those five years, no.
 
Q,.  Five years here?
 
A.   No.  This was five years early on in my career as a teacher
     in the midwest.
 
Q.   How long have you been here?
 
A.   I've been at this school 15 years.  Now, I guess for a
     school board you could consider the Board of Directors that
     we have at this school, or the Board of Trustees.  I guess
     the only thing that I can think of in regards to this school
     is the Board's mandate about Southwest studies, about
     incorporating Southwest studies into our curriculum, which
     has made me change my curriculum a bit.  Other than that, I
     can't think of anything.
 
Q.   How did that come about, the Board mandate?
 
A.   Well, I think it was probably suggested by the head master
     who felt that Southwest studies should be an integral part
     of our curriculum, and I have to agree.  I think living in
     the Southwest, a lot of students don't know a lot about the
     various cultures that come from the Southwest and it should
     be an integral part of our curriculum.  While I'm from the
     Midwest, there was a mandate by the state that dealt with
     the history of the region, and I would assume that this is
     similar to that, in a sense.
 
Q.   So it perhaps came from the head of the school, to the
     school board --
 
A.   Who agreed and said "O.K.  Let's mandate this."
 
Q.   Influence by department chair?
 
A.   Yeah, I guess in a way.  I guess I have a pretty unique
     experience because when I graduated from college and entered
     the teaching profession, I acepted a position where a
     certain individual was my department chairman, who I felt
     very strongly about, both as an artist and as an educator,
     and I really felt that his intent, his purpose of direction
     in terms of the department was what it should have been.  It
     was easy for me because I totally agreed with it, but I
     think there was a mutual influence.  He influenced me and I
     influenced him to the point that, let's see it must have
     been about 16 years later, I became his department chairman
     out here, and in terms of rapport with a teacher, whether
     you're the chairman working under someone, or vice versa, it
     was the best of both worlds.
 
Q.   Was that in the public or private?
 
A.   Both.  Public 21 years ago, and private here.
 
Q.   Influence by state and federal programs.
 
A.   No
 
Q.   By legal or judicial judgments?
 
A.   Nope.
 
Q.   Influenced by parents?
 
A.   Nope.
 
Q.   Parents leave you alone?
 
A.   Well, parents for the most part leave me alone.  I have had
     some concerned parents but they haven't influenced me or
     reshaped my way of thinking or the way I teach.  The only
     influences I've had is from teachers.  Whether they be
     teachers of mine or colleagues.
 
Q.   Do you think that's a function of the fields that you're in,
     do you think that other techers on the school campus are
     free of influence of parents in the same way you are?
 
A.   No.  I think the reason is, not only parents but by school
     board is, you know, state organization or whatever, I think
     it's just the nature of what I teach.  I think for the most
     part, schools in general and particularly public schools,
     some private schools, parents as well, don't have a great
     concern about our education, so therefore we're left alone.
     I mean, you have to really do something that boundaries upon
     something obscene, or that really crosses the grain with
     some social or political issues in terms of imagery that you
     have kids work on before you come in contact with any of
     these people.
 
Q.   And you've found that experience to be the same in public
     and private?
 
A.   Umhum.  I think more so in public than private.
 
Q.   You were more careful in private?
 
A.   No, I was more careful in public.
 
Q.   That may be because your boundaries work?
 
A.   Yeah, it was probably a little tighter and a more scrutinized
     in one sense because you are part of a public domain, where
     in the private institution you're not as visible, I guess to
     as many people.  I guess what I'm saying is that the reason
     that this has not been an influence on me is because
     historically schools, whether they are public or private,
     hasn't found Art to be an important discipline in the
     schools, so they don't concentrate so much on us as they do
     on teachers in other disicplines, which is a crime.
 
Q.   It must be negative _______.  I mean the positive is that
     you have more freedom in what you do.
 
A.   Yeah, I have more freedom in what I do, but you know, there
     is an aura out there that says "this isn't as important as
     the science class over here or this English class over here,
     this language class over here, this math class over here.
     And I think that becomes a very contagious attitude and then
     some students sense that.  Fortunately, not all students,
     but some do, so therefore they don't take the course
     seriously, whatever that course might be.
 
Q.   What do you teach?
 
A.   Well, I teach everything.  I teach ceramics, I teach art
     history, I teach drawing, I teach photography, sculpture,
     painting.  In a small school, I'm sort of a Renaissance man.
 
Q.   You probably see all the kids all four years.
 
A.   Well, I don't see all the kids all four years.  There's a,
     the nice thing about this school is that when I became
     chairman, when I was hired and became chairman of the
     department I initiated a Fine Arts requirement for
     graduation, which the school agreed with.  So, the one year
     requirement should be more but it's not, so because of that
     you have most kids, I would say the majority of the students
     in the upper school take an art course but they can also
     satisfy that Fine Art requirement with music, so I might get
     70% of the students in one course, and out of that 70% maybe
     another 50 or 60% would then continue on with additional
     courses.
 
Q.   Influenced by professional organization?
 
A.   That happens all the time.  Being an active member of a
     national art education association, receiving information
     from them all the time, being a member of NCECA which is the
     National Council for the Education of Ceramic Arts, both of
     those organizations have been a huge influence on me.
     Whether it is just through an annual news letter, or a
     publication, or whether it's from going to a conference, I
     guess I continue to be members of those organizations
     because they obviously help me in my quest of being the best
     teacher I can be.
 
Q.   You are not influenced by teacher's associations?
 
A.   No.
 
Q.   Influenced by in-service training?
 
A.   I am one who believes, and I guess was trained to believe to
     become a sympathizer to the cause, and that is we can't
     teach art effectively unless you make art, so you know, I
     find that by being a practicing artist has really helped me
     become a better teacher.  In terms of in-service, I have yet
     in my career of teaching which has now been 21 years, have
     gone to an in-service that I felt was totally worthwhile.
 
Q.   Are they offered here?
 
A.   Very seldom.  Now, I guess I could look at a conference like
     the Art Educational Association conferences, and ANTECAN ?
     in-service, and yes, those because they apply specifically
     to me and what I do, so in that sense, yes.
 
Q.   Influenced by students?
 
A.   All the time.  If I don't learn from my students, then I'm
     not teaching students and I really believe that, and I guess
     I have to really feel good about what I teach and I think
     I'm privileged, more privileged than any other teacher
     because the discipline I teach allows me to have so much
     more rapport and to develop relationship with a student
     because the subject matter that I teach is such a personal
     thing.  It deals with emotions, it deals with feeling, it
     deals with personal statements, it deals with ideas, of
     course.  So yeah, we share that and I probably learn as much
     from them as they do from me.
 
Q.   Influenced by colleagues?
 
A.   All the time.  Now, how I would define a colleagues would be
     a teacher whom I teach with or a teacher that I had who had
     become then a colleague, which has happened to me, or a
     teacher who I had, well for example; one man I'll never
     forget was an instructor I had when I was in undergraduate
     school who was a tremendous, well he is the reason I'm a
     teacher today, as well as an artist.  After undergraduate
     school, I took graduate courses, not with him but at the
     same university and I think my rapport then changed from
     student teacher to more colleague oriented things because I
     was also teaching at the time, and he was a tremendous
     influence on me.  I've been influenced by teachers at this
     school, in various ways.  Mostly in how they relate to
     students or how they may approach a particular teaching
     style.  I've got colleagues across the country that I've
     met, other people teach this same discipline but have been
     an influence on me.
 
Q.   In what you wanted to teach or how you wanted to teach?
 
A.   Not so much what, cause you know, if you don't know what to
     teach then you shouldn't be a teacher to begin with.  You
     know, maybe how to approach it in a different way.  That's
     another interesting thing about what I teach, I mean there
     is more than one way to teach it.  And I think those are the
     kinds of influences I'm talking about, is how one relates to
     a particular subject, which might be different than me but,
     you know, may be in a sense has been more successful than
     what my approach was.
 
Q.   Creative attempt made to improve the classroom teaching
     method?
 
A.   Yes, why it was thwarted, I don't know.  The two examples I
     can give you is one, a friend of mine who took it upon
     himself to change an entire curriculum, K-12 in a public
     school district because it was very antiquated and very
     uncreative, you know, and the existing curriculum he was
     opposed, he was opposed to because it totally did not serve
     the purpose by which in our program should serve.  It was
     anti-created, anti-individual, you know how do I say it?  It
     didn't allow for any sort of individualized creative
     thinking, it didn't allow for any criticism, it was more or
     less just a hands-on kind of program which really stifled
     any set kind of creativity or freedom of thought, and he
     took it upon himself to convince the school board that this
     had to be changed, and it was.  And this happens to be the
     same person who was the department chairman who influenced
     me.  And then, I guess I did the same thing when I came here
     because the curriculum really had no purpose, no goals.  It
     wasn't so much that it was anti-creative thinking or any of
     that, but it was a pretty antiquated curriculum and that
     curriculum was revised when I came here.
 
Q.   So you felt support?
 
A.   Yeah, I felt support.
 
Q.   Failed attempt to influence you?
 
A.   I don't understand the question.
 
Q.   Were there rules or regulations or policies with which you
     disagreed?
 
A.   Well, yeah I guess there is, there was one and I worked
     around it the best, you know, that I could.  But I can't
     tell if, or I don't know actually, if there is a legal
     issue, but it happened here.  There was a particular thing
     that I wanted to do and I went through channels to request
     to do this and it was denied.  How I wanted to do it was
     denied not that I wanted to do it, so I had to sort of
     improvise another approach to doing it.  Well, I guess what
     I'm talking about is, we had a we'll call an intersession
     which is between semesters, and is sort of a break between
     semesters and we offer different kinds of courses.  Well,
     you know, as department chairman I think of one of the most
     important things that you can do in our program is draw.
     And anatomy drawing was something we hadn't done a lot of,
     and this was an opportunity for those interested students to
     come in for a week, all day, and focus on one things,
     anatomy drawing.  When you go to an art school, or to a
     university, whatever, anatomy drawing is taught with nude
     models.  Many of the private, independent schools in this
     country teach it that way, and that is the way I wanted to
     approach teaching it here, so I went through the proper
     channels of contacting first of all the head master,
     explaining what I wanted to do, why I wanted to do it, why I
     felt it was important, that you know, it would have to be
     under parental permission, that no one else would be allowed
     in the studio, you know, the whole bit, and explained to her
     that this is done in several schools and I even stated
     schools that this is actually a part of their ordinary
     curriculum, and this was denied.  My doubt is, why it was
     denied.  I think it might have been that personally she
     didn't want it done and it wasn't, and the reason I got was
     I think a superficial reason.  I don't think it ever went to
     the board, I don't think the legality of this was ever
     looked into, I think this was a choice, a decision that she
     wanted to make and instead of saying, (this is confidential
     I hope), "I don't really feel this is a good idea", she said
     she went through channels to find out and said know.  Well,
     I really don't believe that.  So, I had to work around that,
     you know teaching anatomy drawing with live models, but with
     bathing suits, and you know, I think preassumptions are
     always made about, you know, if you have a nude body, you
     know, people are faced with a nude body, that one or two
     things happend.  Kids are going to get aroused, or they are
     going to get embarrassed and in my 20 some years of
     teaching, and its not only been in secondary schools, I've
     taught in universities as well, that's not the casse.  You
     know, minutes after you're first confronted with a nude
     model, you get down to the business of drawing, it might as
     well be a chair sitting like that.  Well, anyway, I had to
     work around that.  I guess that's the closest thing that ---
Q.   Bureaucratic constraints?
 
A.   What's it mean?  It means that teacher's aren't being
     allowed to do what they should be doing.
 
Q.   In what ways?
 
A.   I guess my response to that question could be more profound
     if I was teaching in the public sector because I think they
     come under more scrutiny than we do here.
 
Q.   Who's scrutiny?
 
A.   Well, I'm thinking of tax payers, school boards, parental
     concerns, more so than what happens here, or maybe I'm on
     the wrong track with this question.
 
Q.   What do you think the sources of bureaucracy of public
     schools are?
 
A.   Too many administrators.  I think education, both private
     and public, I think would do a better job for the majority
     of people if we had less administrative interference.  I
     think administrators administrate to other administrators
     who administrate and I think there is just too much
     bureaucracy in education and I think that really boggs down
     the whole reason why we have schools.  My wifes a teacher.
     She teachs gifted kids in the public school system.  What I
     mean by gifted is the bright kids, I know gifted can be used
     in various ways.  A teacher left and the whole concept of
     why the program is so successful is that the kids who come
     there come in contact with more than one teacher,  I think
     they had two teachers.  The one has left.  She left and took
     another position within the district.  They've never hired
     anyone else to replace her and this was before Christmas.
     So they've had substitute teachers all this time and the
     only reason that anyone can see as to why it has taken so
     long is because of all the bureaucratic, you know, junk that
     you have to sift through.  So, who is really being affected
     by this?  One, you make a teacher very frustrated and less
     effective and the kids are suffering.
 
Q.   How much do you think _____________ function _________ to
     student population?
 
A.   Well, I don't know.  We're talking about a school here that
     is pre-K through 12 with around 600 students, and its
     governed by a board of trustees, that's not to say we don't
     have bureaucracy here because we do, but I think in a public
     school district where you are dealing with, you know, many
     many more students than we have, with the school board, with
     you know, various heads of schools, superintendents, asst.
     supt. and their assistants and so on and so on, I think it
     is probably worse.
 
Q.   How would you describe the bureaucracy here?
 
A.   I don't know.  I mean, going back to earlier questions, I've
     more or less been left alone so I haven't really been faced
     with much of it, but I just know because of it a lot of
     times there are some decisions that could have been made
     early on that haven't been made because of this.
 
Q.   Rank activities.  Only one ranking to each.
 
A.   I guess I can't rank A first because like any discipline,
     there are certain things that have to be taught, so I mean I
     can't be selective about that, so I would say that my
     ranking would be: 1)=B, 2)=C, 3)=D, 4)=A.
 
Q.   Any other issues that you think I should ask about that I
     haven't?
     

Q.   What was the response when you asked to _______________?
 
A.   No you can't.  At this time, you are not, you can't see
     them, and the people I've talked to have asked why not, and
     they don't know why not.  Apparently now the only person who
     sees them in this school is the head master, and one other
     person -- and I really find that to be a little degrading in
     terms of me as department chairman because ultimately, I
     think, in terms of knowing who's best suited to teach within
     a discipline would me, moreso than anyone else because first
     of all, they are not an art educator nor are they that in
     tune with what, to make a decision as to what is good and
     what is bad about art.  I feel I'm more qualified, so that's
     been a real interesting situation I've been into the last
     few months.  But I guess that is a bureaucratic thing that I
     don't understand, I've not even been allowed to call any
     references on these people.
 
Q.   I don't understand.
 
A.   I don't either.  I'm not the only one who has had to go
     through this -- other department chairmen have ____________?
 
Q.   What I do with all these interviews, I kind of code them and
     your name gets disassociated in some respects,
     ________________ that come up which _-______________ no
     idea, _________________________________ other questions,
     could I come back?  May I have your home phone number ----