![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Today's Lesson: I Want to Keeel You Dead
Oct. 3rd, 2004 04:39 pmI took my weaving course this weekend. I now know how to thread a loom, weave, and will learn how to remove it later.
I also know that I do not want to encounter this teacher any more, ever. (Besides the part where I *have* to, in order to give her back spare chenille yarn.)
First, the 'teaching' bit was never fully engaged. The talking randomly about one subject, jumping to another, giving indistinct instructions about what we might do at one point...that was full on. Questions occasionally encouraged a response disparaging "Cambridge students and their desire to know *why* rather than just *do* it". Refusing to inspect student work when they found a mistake, to help correct, and instead just saying "Well, you must have screwed up earlier. Start over." Giving incomplete instructions to one set of students, then giving complete and somewhat contradictory ones to another set.
Two people did not complete the class. So the main topic of conversation from her was 'how weaving isn't for everyone, how some people just can't do it, how some people don't have their minds in the right place, how some people just can't seem to shift from right brain to left brain...' Look, lady. They left because they were frustrated, upset, near tears in one case, and felt that they were receiving no help. Not because they were 'not weaving people'.
And the piece de resistance? Bigotry. Not of the hatred kind, but of the damning with compliments. Yup.
(To a Brazilian student, who later left) "You know, some people hold ethnic stereotypes, but all the Brazilians on the Vineyard are very hardworking. They clean the island, they cook, they work very hard." (She went on in this vein for a bit. Later she asked how his English was, then disparaged it after he left.)
"Laotians, they're the no-problem people. I have a Laotian assistant, and she's always smiling, always happy, always so innovative with saving money. So they're the No Problem people."
"Whenever I see an Asian face, I'm just in heaven. You know, Asians have a natural facility for fiber work."
"When I worked in XX, with the community making tapestries, we never had any trouble with young men of un-American ethnicity. But American young men didn't want to do any weaving..."
Huh. Oh gee, I'm not a bigot! I love those little brown people! (No, she didn't say that.)
I just don't get it. She probably thinks I'm prickly, because after the third or fourth time, I felt absolutely no need to be polite to her.
I also know that I do not want to encounter this teacher any more, ever. (Besides the part where I *have* to, in order to give her back spare chenille yarn.)
First, the 'teaching' bit was never fully engaged. The talking randomly about one subject, jumping to another, giving indistinct instructions about what we might do at one point...that was full on. Questions occasionally encouraged a response disparaging "Cambridge students and their desire to know *why* rather than just *do* it". Refusing to inspect student work when they found a mistake, to help correct, and instead just saying "Well, you must have screwed up earlier. Start over." Giving incomplete instructions to one set of students, then giving complete and somewhat contradictory ones to another set.
Two people did not complete the class. So the main topic of conversation from her was 'how weaving isn't for everyone, how some people just can't do it, how some people don't have their minds in the right place, how some people just can't seem to shift from right brain to left brain...' Look, lady. They left because they were frustrated, upset, near tears in one case, and felt that they were receiving no help. Not because they were 'not weaving people'.
And the piece de resistance? Bigotry. Not of the hatred kind, but of the damning with compliments. Yup.
(To a Brazilian student, who later left) "You know, some people hold ethnic stereotypes, but all the Brazilians on the Vineyard are very hardworking. They clean the island, they cook, they work very hard." (She went on in this vein for a bit. Later she asked how his English was, then disparaged it after he left.)
"Laotians, they're the no-problem people. I have a Laotian assistant, and she's always smiling, always happy, always so innovative with saving money. So they're the No Problem people."
"Whenever I see an Asian face, I'm just in heaven. You know, Asians have a natural facility for fiber work."
"When I worked in XX, with the community making tapestries, we never had any trouble with young men of un-American ethnicity. But American young men didn't want to do any weaving..."
Huh. Oh gee, I'm not a bigot! I love those little brown people! (No, she didn't say that.)
I just don't get it. She probably thinks I'm prickly, because after the third or fourth time, I felt absolutely no need to be polite to her.
