Happy New Year! 2012! We're off to a great start this semester. I have two classes full of eager, rested students ready to work! I am organized, fueled and ready to go. The first few days are full of anticipation, both for my students and for myself. As the week went by, I realized that this may be a new year, but there are some things that will NEVER change...allow me to explain.
Day four of our first week, I start in on my in-class essay work. I have a great exercise where I give my students a postcard, pair them up, and ask them to talk about it, take notes and brainstorm about the senses it evokes, or words that come to them. We are working on a descriptive essay and my students seem sharp and interested even before we start. I start giving out the postcards, one is of Picasso's lover, one is a scene in Vienna, Austria, another is a scene in Santorini, Greece. Picturesque, beautiful landscapes, with brilliant blue skies, architecture that is thousands of years old. I am floating around the classroom, handing out my joy, in the form of a postcard. My traveling life is in this pile of postcards and I'm delighted to share it with my students.
I give two males students the postcard of the Sistina Chapel, The Creation of Adam. That's when it started. Immediately, they started laughing, I ignored them. I walked back to my computer and explained further what to do with the newly passed out postcard. They kept laughing, I continued to ignore them. Finally, I slowly start to realize that these two "boys" are in fact boys and that they may be laughing at Michaelangelo's depiction of the human body. This swiftly enters my brain, and I solidly reject it. Surely, this is a group of graduate students, this is art. How can think it's silly?
After I realized that they weren't going to stop anytime soon, I had to get up and go back and have a talk with my two hysterical males. I quietly asked why they were laughing so uncontrollably. That's when one of my students said, "These are homosexy mens". I remain calm and ask them do you realize what you are looking at? They both shake their heads, no. I quietly tell them this is the cornerstone of High Renaissance Art. I ask them do they know what that means. They say no. I tell them to stop laughing and just do the assignment.
I go back to my desk and sigh a very long sigh......grown men looking at a drawing of a naked man and laughing hysterically, unable to stop........I shift my weight and look up at the ceiling and think, holy hairdos, I am teaching a bunch of eight year olds.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Culture.....oh yeah, that!
I am on break and since being on break, I have taken to reading my many books that my friends and loved ones recommend to me. I have procured a new cookbook written by Julia Child's collaborator and bosom buddy, Simca. Since I love reading about food and the various adventures Simca had, I was thrilled to start reading about her life, her stories and how food has played a major part in all of it.
For those who do not know the background, Simca had a marvelous idea. She thought to compose a book of French recipes for the Americans who wanted to learn how to cook French. This is where her trouble began. Much like many of my students, Simca labored under the illusion that what is good for one, must be good for the other. The Americans are just like the French, we eat, they eat. The ingredients are the same, the attitude toward food is the same. She tried to get her first cookbook published by an American publishing house and received a flat refusal. Why? Too detailed, too complicated and not enough knowledge of how Americans REALLY cook. She was stumped, what could possibly be so different in America?
Enter Julia Child. Simca met Julia through a fellow friend and it was through Julia that she realized what many of my students do not. Culture is omni-present, it is in everything we think, do and act out. It is in our food, how we prepare our food, how we think about food and why we think in that particular manner. Julia helped Simca to realize that Americans do not approach food as the French do. The ingredients are different, they eat at different times, they would never even know were to purchase creme fraiche, let alone learn how to pronounce it. Simca was amazed and realized that she had been foolish. Culture matters, even in the kitchen, with such a simple act as making a cookie or home roasting coffee, culture seeps into every aspect of the actions and the outcomes.
Reading Simca's account made me think about how bamboozled we are when faced with the actuality that other people in other countries simply do not do what we do. We travel to other countries and insist on carrying on in our own little cultural pods of behavior and thought, not realizing we are pissing everyone else around us off.
In conclusion, as we move through 2012 and continue to travel, write, compose, create, and in general move about with our fabulous lives, it is always important to think about our cultural expectations and just how odd they may seem to others! Happy New Year to all! May your new year be filled with cultural adventures, good food, great conversations, and fabulous books!
For those who do not know the background, Simca had a marvelous idea. She thought to compose a book of French recipes for the Americans who wanted to learn how to cook French. This is where her trouble began. Much like many of my students, Simca labored under the illusion that what is good for one, must be good for the other. The Americans are just like the French, we eat, they eat. The ingredients are the same, the attitude toward food is the same. She tried to get her first cookbook published by an American publishing house and received a flat refusal. Why? Too detailed, too complicated and not enough knowledge of how Americans REALLY cook. She was stumped, what could possibly be so different in America?
Enter Julia Child. Simca met Julia through a fellow friend and it was through Julia that she realized what many of my students do not. Culture is omni-present, it is in everything we think, do and act out. It is in our food, how we prepare our food, how we think about food and why we think in that particular manner. Julia helped Simca to realize that Americans do not approach food as the French do. The ingredients are different, they eat at different times, they would never even know were to purchase creme fraiche, let alone learn how to pronounce it. Simca was amazed and realized that she had been foolish. Culture matters, even in the kitchen, with such a simple act as making a cookie or home roasting coffee, culture seeps into every aspect of the actions and the outcomes.
Reading Simca's account made me think about how bamboozled we are when faced with the actuality that other people in other countries simply do not do what we do. We travel to other countries and insist on carrying on in our own little cultural pods of behavior and thought, not realizing we are pissing everyone else around us off.
In conclusion, as we move through 2012 and continue to travel, write, compose, create, and in general move about with our fabulous lives, it is always important to think about our cultural expectations and just how odd they may seem to others! Happy New Year to all! May your new year be filled with cultural adventures, good food, great conversations, and fabulous books!
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