Teaching and Talking

I feel like I work hard, all week, every week, and at the end of that week I think to myself that I should make some kind of blog post, if only to prove to myself that I got somewhere or did something. This was a longgg week, on a personal and professional level. Most of what happened won't be bloggable for a bit longer, not because it's exciting and top secret, but just because it can't be articulated or is best saved for a more timely announcement of a show or project, etc. Needless to say, the week was full of the usual: working, writing a few articles, making art, etc, and this weekend will be filled with fun stuff, like meeeting with the folks of Anno Domini Gallery and NPR to discuss plans for ISEA06 and going to see the first cut of Strange Culture, Lynn Hershman's film about Steve Kurtz.

But this week seems to have been dominated more by teaching and talking about teaching. This week, my students were required to give oral presentations on a work of new media art and I was so pleasantly surprised with the works they discovered and got into. They ranged from Nam June Paik to Spike Jonze, but in between there was Cory Arcangel, Ken Feingold, Mannfred Mohr, Mauricio Arango, Jim Campbell, Lee Walton, Vuk Cosic, Paul Pfeiffer, Jeanne Finley, and others. (Sorry I'm too lazy to find and code links, but here's one to Google.) It was pretty exciting.

But, also this week, I happened to speak to a number of friends who are "young" teachers and they all said that they are constantly trying to improve their teaching skills and styles, and that they are all constantly trying to overcome a level of insecuirty about their pedagogical methods, levels of authority, etc. It was interesting to know that while I'm worried about and almost overcompensating for fear of coming off as a dumb blonde, another friend of mine is worried about coming off as the "quiet Asian girl." One friend did admit what I'd suspected all along, though: men have it easier in the classroom, as people don't second guess their knowledge or authority as much. I mean, I bet Mr. T never had a problem with self-confidence.