She's an Assemblage Artist (a bad one)

[singedsun]

questionoftheday asks: Do you have any interesting stories about an old teacher? Did they ever do something crazy or unforgettable in front of the class?



Oh boy. I've had a few doozies.

I went to a very, very conservative Christian high school so all the teachers there were they're own kind of special. As an example, one of my teachers made me put the smiley face necklace I wore in my pocket during his classes because he thought it was distracting. He was also the teacher that called me out for drawing a peace sign and a ying yang on my notebook (it was the 90s) because those are obvious anti-Christians symbols.

I went to a regular college, but I was an art major which comes with a variety of strangeness. I made very good friends with another student in our first year of college (she's still my best friend in the whole world) and the director of our art department was a little annoyed by how well we got along. I honestly don't know what her deal was, she just didn't like us.

In our sophomore year, my friend and I agreed to buy supplies for a 3D project our class was making for a parade. We showed up a little late, and there was a substitute teacher that day because our director was out of the country for something. Anyway, the two of us come into class about five minutes late, having been detained by parking/traffic on campus. This substitute is in the middle of the class, looking at the project we've been working on and we walk in with the supplies.

This dude in front of the whole class looks us dead in the face and says, "Oh, I've heard about you two." His tone says he's annoyed and we try to play it off, dropping the supplies and whatnot. But he proceeds to yell at us for being late and being disrespectful. After that he's passive aggressive with my friend an I and made sure to let us know that the fact we were five minutes late would be going in the record for our director when she got back. Not that it mattered. He was just so angry.

Over the next few years we'd learn that this was the director's basic go-to anytime my friend and I signed up with another art teacher too. We'd arrive and be told that they'd "been told" about us. Whatever that meant. With that substitute, it didn't work out so well. Turned out he was the new pottery teacher and graphic design teacher. Graphic Design being the major both my friend and I were working toward. Things were awkward for a few years. We never really found out what exactly she was telling people about us. It was obvious it was bad. Especially after our Interior Design teacher was like, you guys are great.

Towards the end of the first half our senior year, as we're wrapping up classes signups for the last semester so we can work towards graduation and our senior art show, I had some Come to Jesus meetings with both of those teachers. I wasn't going to let whatever pettiness they'd festered affect whether or not I graduated. Thankfully we were all (in the end after a stern talking to) able to see our way clear of each other. The art department director signed the paperwork finalizing my credit hours and my friend's and we never saw each other again.

But if you want to hear a great coincidence, that same friend just out of the blue sent me the Rate My Professor page for that teacher earlier today. Unprompted by anything, just sent me the link with a laugh. (She's rated pretty average with a total of five ratings. lol) It's a good thing that site wasn't a thing when I graduated college, or there'd definitely be a few more scathing reviews for her.