Posted: November 26th, 2009
To whom it may concern:
As I leaned over the edge of the rocks, my gloved hand gripping the rope, I looked into her eyes. I could see the terror as water gathered into tears. Her feet were slipping. “Look at me,” I said willing the calm tone into my voice. “Just keep your eyes on me, you’re not going anywhere. Just keep your hand on the rope and keep it tight behind you. Now walk up the rock. One foot in front of the other.” My eyes never left hers. Carefully, tentatively her foot began to creep up the face of the rock. “Just keep moving your feet up the rock until you are sitting in the harness. I’m right here and I promise you won’t fall.” Finally, she was once again sitting in the harness and began to let a few inches of rope slide through her hands. It was a long process of sliding her hand back to let out more rope and walking down the face of the rocks but at last she reached the ground below.
It was there on the rocks, leaning out into nothingness and looking into those wide terrified eyes, that I knew who I was. I’m a teacher. Growing up in my parents’ Christian home I had always heard of our “calling.” That profession that God almighty has ordained for each of us. I don’t claim to know what’s on God’s mind or if God, in fact, has a mind. All I know is that I fell in love with teaching.
After my graduation from Marshall in 2004 I sat back, breathed a sigh of relief and quoted Elliot, “Well that’s over and I’m glad its done.” I joined the military, a big mistake, and volunteered to train new recruits preparing them for boot-camp, not a mistake. I found that I was much better at training these young soldiers at maneuvers, first-aid, the pomp ,circumstance and BS of the army than I was at following others into it. When teaching, I came alive. I was always looking for new things to incorporate, new ways to keep their attention. When they got bored with the same drills outside, I taught them military history and showed how those same tactics have been used for centuries. I would use clips from movies to illustrate my points and they got it. I love that feeling when you’re teaching something and you see the light go on, they GET it.
A year ago I began volunteering as a docent at the Huntington museum. I found myself leading more high-school and college aged groups than anything else and the excitement of teaching once again overwhelmed me. This time the drug was even more powerful as I was teaching something I actually cared about. It was here that I realized why I love Art and Literature.
I was looking at a series of colorfield paintings, by colorfield paintings I mean roughly cut pieces of wood and styrofoam painted solid colors. At first look I admit I wasn’t impressed. Often, even if the subject or style doesn’t interest me, I can at least appreciate the craftsmanship of the work. These just seemed bad. They were the quintessential, my five year old could do that, paintings. But as the curator told us about the artist and her background of scrounging through alleys and abandoned warehouses for art materials the work made more sense to me. I still didn’t like it, which is fine, but now I could appreciate it.
I began thinking of my own background, my time spent studying Literature and parsing meaning from the words of authors long since dead. My girlfriend and I have discussed the validation of searching for the elusive “authors intent” as opposed to enjoying the story for what it is. I agree that author’s intent is like a white whale, hard to find and in the end fairly useless. But the practice of examining a text, holding it up to the history that surrounds it or playing Freud and psychoanalyzing the characters to extract some idea that can be applied to our own lives is a valuable tool. I have found that there are two kinds of art, whether visual, literary or anything else. There is art that you can experience and pull something from it immediately, then there are works that only take on meaning when you hold them up to something else. Teaching others to think in these broader ideas and how to apply art and literature to their own lives has become my overwhelming passion.
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