Teaching is sometimes like betting. I have many courses with adults, and I
regularly teach at high school, besides that I thought nursery children, or
by category, airport staff, guards, and so on. I have come to the
conclusion, for example with my official high school job, that kids are not
sorted out randomly but they have some specific characteristics according to
the year of their birth, I am not doing astrology, just considering out of
mere observation. Some classes are excellent, and you end up working only
for them, some other ones are an actual pain and they are able to destroy
all your motivations the length of an hour.
I think that a teacher has to be prepared, or better, will soon realize what
this job is about, and will choose if it is ok with her/him. I assume that
it is the same with MFA programs or any other subject someone ends up
teaching.
I like teaching. I spent half my life trying to avoid it, and finally when I
was sort of put into it, I realized it was the right job for me. To be
underlined is also the fact that while teaching you are learning, and as
Mairead said, directly and indirectly, if you are interested in writing, the
learning aspect is most important.
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather
admirers.
Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky
----- Original Message -----
From: "mairead byrne" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 4:34 AM
Subject: Re: academic poetry / MFAs
> Dear David,
>
> As I seem to have appointed myself defender of the MFA program, I'll
> try my hand here too. I taught in a prison in Mississippi for a year;
> I enjoyed teaching poetry to those men and it seemed like a good
> enough thing for everyone to be involved with.
> I remember going into my Twentieth Century American poetry class at
> the University of Mississippi on September 12, 2001, and thinking
> poetry was a good thing to be bringing into a classroom on that day,
> if one was a teacher. I'm sure it is soul-destroying for some poets
> to teach in classes where they don't find talented poets. I don't so
> much think in those terms myself. Someone on the list a while ago
> made the distinction between poets and teachers and I think it's a
> useful one. I like teaching; I've worked as a teacher at different
> levels. As long as the students, whoever they are, are involved with
> poetry, that's good enough for me. I don't doubt that years can go by
> and no student might emerge as a "Master" of poetry as you say. I
> don't consider myself a master of poetry. I don't know that people
> with MAs are masters of English or people with PhD's are doctors of
> philosophy. If MA and PhD programs decided not to admit any students
> in a given year the prospects for their faculty would also be dire. I
> see an MFA as a course of study, time to write, and an opportunity to
> participate in a writing community. It doesn't have to have a higher
> calibre of student than any other master's program, though often it
> does. Even if they have never heard of Geoffrey Hill.
>
> Mairead
>
>
> On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 15:21:51 -0800, David Latane <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> > I've been following this thread with some interest,
> > having been on the sidelines as a "noncreative" writer
> > in a department with a creative writing MFA.
> >
> > Once any academic program is in existence, it has to
> > have students, and these students have to graduate. If
> > an MFA faculty decides not to admit any students in a
> > given year, the program is cancelled and the MFA
> > faculty, at least those tenured, will have to go from
> > teaching tiny graduate workshops to large general
> > education classes. The problem of course is that for
> > years in a row the run-of-the-mill MFA program may not
> > get a single application from anyone who might really
> > emerge as a "Master" of poetry. But students will be
> > admitted and graduated regardless. Consequently one is
> > not surprised to meet graduates with MFAs in poetry
> > who not only aren't particularly good poets, but who
> > have never even heard of Geoffrey Hill. Most of these
> > folks go on to gainful employment in some other field.
> > Maybe no harm done.
> >
> > But what's the cost to the good poet/faculty member
> > who must spend so much of his or her time with this
> > charade?
> >
> >
> > =====
> > David Latane
> > http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
> >
>
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