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.
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