On Teaching v1 Why do you want to teach?

As you can see by my use of v1, I have a lot of thoughts about teaching swirling around in my head.  This comes from 2 sides.  First, my goal when I got an MFA was to teach.  I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, but I also wasn’t looking for an entry level, staff position where the best I could hope for was a stagecraft class while I was TD for all of the shows – I want to actively teach (and have a role in curriculum development).  Those positions are not as ready available, and frankly if I ever went back to teaching (which I hope, in some way that I do, eventually) I think my current work will probably help in adding to my effectiveness as a future teacher.  Second, I’m in the midst of a MS degree (middle mostly in that I haven’t applied for graduation yet, and have not completed “thesis” component of the degree.

Probably more so is that yet again, I have encountered what I believe is a fundamentally poor teacher.  Part of this problem is institutional in higher education.  Professors are hired not because they teach well, but, often, since they are “subject matter experts”.  In business especially, many professors do not have doctorates, but are successful people in their line of business.  Secondly, they are often hired based on research (as this can help fund the department).  Neither of these qualities have anything to do with the skill required to be a good teacher.

Granted to get tenure (if you happen to be in a tenure track position) student assessments are taken into consideration.  Historically I have done these at the last class.  At the current institution that I take classes at the assessments are not required to be done by all, and are due a week or so before the quarter electronically.  I don’t always complete them.  I would say that typically I would expect these to come back only in highly positive or highly negative since they are somewhat voluntary, except that I know that I have missed the deadline even when I had strong opinions about a class. Thus the only student metric is not one that is reliable.

It seems to me that many poor teachers seem to want to teach because it is easy to make extra $ (as an adjunct working a full time job).  Or perhaps if they are full time, they perceive the position as having less work required than any other work since it is semester or quarter based.  It seems to be forgotten that developing course content, grading, making sure that students understand core concepts are all part of teaching, much of which happens outside of the actual onsite teaching hours that are required per course.  Granted creating and teaching a course for the first time is probably hard than teaching is subsequently, but you have to keep updated on the subject and you have to keep your content updated.  If you have a staff or faculty position there is often advising and committee work on top of teaching duties.  Further, you need to stay current on industry trends, go to conferences, potentially speak at conferences and such, and so forth.  In short, teaching is not any easier than any other line of work.  How good you are at what you do is directly related to what you put into it.

The issue however, is that I am not sure how much universities really care if the teachers they hire (especially as adjuncts) are good or not.  Part of this is the predatory trend that I think colleges have been headed down (another topic of discussion).  Maybe there are a glut of unqualified individuals.  Maybe there are a lack of positions available in all of the different specialties required, and these are reasons behind adjuncts.  What I know, are that professors who have little investment in teaching are often very poor. 

As a student – I don’t pay any less to have a poor teacher than a good one.  It doesn’t serve employers down the road you expect to hire a graduate if they were taught by poor instructors and didn’t learn what they needed to.  And ultimately this gives the college or university a bad reputation. 

None of the above is rocket science.  While being a professor is a lot of work, to be fair putting together a life as an adjunct is also a lot of work.  The pay is very poor compared to a full time position, you need to string together a variety of courses (taking on a much higher course load) to equal out to the income a full time professor might make (on the low end), and they don’t receive benefits. 

Since it is not easy to be an adjunct, and it isn’t necessarily easy – it comes back to why are they doing, and probably more to why I am writing this) why they are often poor teachers.  Is that they are too busy to do the job successfully?  Are they just looking for an extra boost to their normal full time employment and don’t feel obligated to go above and beyond what they see their duties are (showing up for class and grading?)?

I think the situation is getting progressively worst – in that it seems to be more and more common that a teacher is given 2 courses to teach – one section in person, and one online.  In my personal experience this seems to equate out to the teacher giving a lecture (which online students later have access to via a recorded session) and grading assignments (which are the same) for both groups of students.  In reality this doesn’t work.  What works well in a classroom does not work well online.  Obviously there are differences dependent on class type (discussion versus lecture), but in either case an online class should be taught differently.  Secondly, no one at the university level seem to be giving instructors information on how to teach effectively online (or at least insuring that they know).  For instance – they should speak towards the microphone.  They shouldn’t block the board that they are writing on with their body.  They should repeat student questions. These seem basic to me, but I see countless times that I have issues understanding an instructor because of one of the above reasons.  There is also technology that some professors use that allow you to join their class live (if you want), and / or that that have virtual office hours where they are online in an environment with a  white board where you can draw, message back and form, and even share documents and mark up the document live.  I know that even attending live classes that skill and teaching style varies, so of course it doesn’t online.  But the best teachers, in either location also get that students also have different learning styles.  I guess the bottom line is why colleges and universities are so lax in their regulation of quality teaching (or why it’s not a priority on the first place).

Stand offs and Metal Turning

Metomic brass turning has a variety of brass turned finials.  They also have stand offs and picture lamps.  An odd assortment of stuff - but items that could be difficult to find again in the future.

Food Props

I came across this article about the props used on the Food Networks shows.  Its always kind of interesting to look into what other folks have.  I think real shame (or highlight if you have the honor to walk through and talk to Wendy Waxman the resident historian and design director) is that so many of the nuggets of information that could be learned will never be committed to paper and will become lost over time. The photos also reveal other interesting notes that designers could find useful - like saturated colors do best under stage lights on film.

I have to say that everything looked really clean - and there was no evidence that the items were stored under a dust cover...  it makes me wonder if they were cleaned for the shoot!

Off the shelf Turntables

Everynow and then you need a turntable - not for a car or for a major, but for something small and low tech - like to make an a small object spin.  While creating a small turntable isn't difficult, you don't always need to recreate the wheel either.  (My apologies, the bad pun was entirely intended!)

A few I have come across during my last look:
Vue-More has a variety of small turntables and sign rotators.
Dino Rentos Studios has a variety of display turntables as well.
Turntable 360 has, you guessed, it - turntables. Small, for displays.
Young Electro-Mechanical Company has "motiondiser" turntables, they are small but have a high loading capacity.

Of these I have used both the Vue-More and the the "motiondiser".  The vue more was not very functional, but it was undersized for the application (provided by the artist for a sculpture.  The motionsiser is a fairly small little robust piece that will probably work as long as you can plug in a standard plug.  The unit has to be at least 10 years old - maybe 15, and spins happily away.

Labor Power and Organization

I read an interesting article today called Labor Power and Organization in the Early U. S. Motion Picture Industry by Michael C. Nielson.  It is located in Film History, Vol 2, No 2.  It generally is more about how theatrical workers created IASTE and that stage mechanics typically either worked on the road or specialized in building the scenery for the combination tours.  Film is a more economical model than live theatre.  I assume that it is mostly true today.  After all million dollar movies still cost 8 bucks (or so) plus concessions at a movie theatre.  Any touring show has a range of price points, but you can barely see a high school play or community theatre production for the price of movie ticket today. 

Another quote from the article stands out to me:

It occurred to us that we could use Bill (Bill Bowers was a prop man that had toured in vaudeville attractions) at the studio to take charge of obtaining all the odds and ends needed to dress the sets.  I think Bill established the principle upon which the props departments function today, namely that a director gets whatever he asks for without argument, no matter how crazy or impossible the request.  …early film craft workers set a tone of “doing the impossible” for the sake of creating whatever illusion the director wanted to produce. 

I also thought it was interesting how the article brought up that the unions were based on industrial lines (film and theatre) versus the trades like carpenters and IBEW.  It’s a conflict that still played out in some projects that I have worked on, and we end up working along beside the trades on some jobs depending on jurisdiction.  

Bending PVC

I came across pvcbendit while looking at PVC stuff for home projects.  We frequently either bend steel, or have it bent for us to make a design work.  Sometimes it structural.  Sometimes it must be welded, and PVC fittings might not work -but being easily able to consistently bend PVC, especially at a low economic cost, could be a useful theatrical tool for scenery fabrication.

RGB Light Matching

On a project last year we installed RGB lighting within a visitor experience center.  The client wanted the lighting to reflect the colors in their logo.  It actually turned out to be a fairly simple things to do.  We used this site: pantone-to-rgb  and used the numerical number supplied to create the color.  The colors were a close (enough) match!

Universal Theatrical Hardware

An exaggeration in many ways, yet, it seems like the below two items are indispensable stage hardware.  The first for holding movies scenery together, the second for lifting decks up off of wheels, though I have used it in other situations as well.
Pull Action Latch Clamp #341
Straight Line Clamp #630R

On Being a Linchpin

First, to all Happy New Year.  My hope is to bring you many more posts this year!

I recently read Seth Godin’s book Linchpin Are You Indispensable.  I thought it was an interesting read.  It hit on a lot of items that bother me with today’s society – how people are replaceable, how schooling spits out compliant individuals that have lost their creativity and ability to think and create. When I was young I think there was still this idea that if you worked hard (doing what you were told) that you would be taken care of in return.  That isn’t true.  When I was young I worked at a lot of small theatres, many of which paid poorly. But they also operated almost like a family.  There was a community.  Once I hot larger theatres, and corporate theatre, the factory model became much more apparent. 

Godin claims that most people around us are “bureaucrats, note takes, literalists, manual readers, TGIF laborers, map followers and fearful employees.”  I want to think that I don’t see it in the places I have been in theatre, but I do.  It’s there lurking. Yes, certain individuals create – designers, directors.  Theoretically the rest of us have opportunities, but either we don’t exercise them, or they are minimized by the organization. 

When I left the world of theatre, I went to education then to corporate work.  Every place I went to I thought the grass would be greener in terms of experimentation, testing, and R&D.  What’s the difference between the 20 different ways that I know of to cover foam (foam coat, super 88, muslin cover, sculptor coat, urethane hardcoat, and so forth).  What is cheapest, what is most durable?  What is best for rocks versus trees?  Many there is no right answer.  But if you don’t look at things like this, then how do you discover something innovative, new and different?

I often hear discussions about shop standards.  I don’t necessarily disagree that these should not be developed.  I think sometime that once you have a functioning wheel, and you know how and when it works, then using it in the situations in which it applies should be done.  But that doesn’t mean that you should think about a better wheel.  But that costs money.  And it is easier for your folks to just follow instructions on using the first wheel.

At the same time as reading Seth Godin’s book, I read an article on facebook about suicides rates for kids in the Silicon Valley.  Their parents are rich.  They can afford to give the kids everything to give them a good life – lessons and schooling, and connections to give them a leg up.  But they can’t necessarily get them a job, or make sure that they are successful in the future.  So there is stress, and the kids are literally opting out at an alarming rate.

At this point, for decent paying work, you can’t just show up.  There is no miracle job.  You need to contribute and make a difference. Godin asks you to “be remarkable, be generous, create art, make judgement calls, connect people and ideas”.  I’m not good at doing this all the time, but I would like to.  I think that Godin has a lot of good things to say about stepping up.  I think there are parts where (and perhaps it is my own insecurity) that he indicates that the reader could be the next Steve Jobs, or some other similar famous entrepreneur.  But that’s beside the point. 

I also read an article on Forbes Called “Seth Godin’s Linchpin Theory: Sound advice or Career Suicide”.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2011/11/29/seth-godins-linchpin-theory-sound-advice-or-career-suicide/

It was an interesting comparison.  This article, to me over states the idea that to be a linchpin the entire company pivots around you – and that you are in a position in the company that is not at perhaps the CEO level (since at that point most entrepreneurial businesses often revolve around the creator, at least for a time).  The key, that this article makes that is very important (and very important theatrically) is that organizations need a way to manage knowledge.  When person A creates something, what happens with the knowledge that they have learned?  Without managing that knowledge, and somehow sharing it with others, that individual becomes valuable, but also problematic.  Historically that person doesn’t want to share information because that makes his job less stable.  But sharing that knowledge, is to me, pivotal with moving forward in our industry, as well as many other industries. 

Excel is a typical program to be using as a TD.  I am surrounded by users who have all used it for over a decade.  In the past month – I have had at least 4 moments where I or someone else learned a random things that you can do in excel by watching someone else.  All of us (in my example) thought of ourselves as pretty decent users of the program – but there is always something to learn.

Knowledge management, allowing people to share information, and providing space to experiment and test ideas, techniques, and so forth are critical things that I believe are necessary to cultivate in our world today.

Museum Men

I have been watching a new show on the History Channel called “Museum Men”.  It’s about a small custom fabrication (design/build) shop in Florida that builds (at least primarily) museum exhibits.  In some ways the shop is very much like what I work in, and it is interesting to see how projects play out in their shop. 

On the flip side, the show brings up a number of concerns (which I am sure is true for every industry that is boiled down to a short reality tv series).

                -Their timeline from project initiation to installation is about a month.  At times it seems as though they have a month of fabrication time, either way, this isn’t very realistic or practical.

                -How the content is developed seems a little odd.  Perhaps we just aren’t seeing the nuts and bolts here, but the show goes from a conversation about an element, to going forward full steam.  In fact in an episode about building Chuck Yeager’s Supersonic Jet, they were half way through building the piece when the owner comes in with goods news and bad news.  Good – they client was spending more money, bad – they jet is too large and a new piece needs to be built and installed with only the remaining 2 weeks that had been previously scheduled.  Seems like the client is paying extra to have the jet redone- but this seems like a pretty major detail that should have been worked out on paper before anything was built. 

                -Drawings and research, as well as what is being delivered seems to be at the owner’s discretion.  Once thy wondered if the jet could be installed upside down?  Even if the unit is a design build contract, the client should be signing off on something – including what it will be and look like once it is installed.  It seems like they move forward into construction before they even know all of the details about what they are constructing.

                -Perhaps a few all night work calls still exists in the industry – but showing the tight timelines and then encouraging these work practices doesn’t really help clients understand what we can reasonably accomplish. 

                -And a 1 hour load in is just a little crazy. 

I can only hope that the bigger picture is edited out, but I am left with a connotation that it shouldn’t take more than a month to design, build, and install a major piece of exhibition scenery, which is not really feasible.  Now there are a couple of things to note – they do mention not taking on much additional work – it does seem like they primarily work on one project at a time.  Whether bad or good it is interesting to see some of their processes and get an inside look!

Creative Arts Tampa Bay Times