24 hours is not enough time to make me feel all right. Yesterday I almost cried in class. Why? Because I am not learning anything; because I feel I’ve been taken advantage of as a student, and I am not receiving the education I’ve paid for. And the worst of it is, my instructor doesn’t seem to care enough to change anything. In fact, he said to me 10-minutes in to our lighting design class, “Jessica, stop making faces and pay attention! I don’t even know why you bother coming to class.“
OK, I admit I was smiling at another classmate at one of his passing comments about some light that’s “big and British” (because my classmate is with a British guy; and yes, I am immature like that). I looked at my instructor and bit my tongue because I know whatever I’m going to spew out will only agitate him more. “What is a neon light?” he asked.
“Uh… a light that’s neon? I don’t know,” I was caught off-guard by his sudden change in tone and replied honestly.
“Right, that’s what I thought,” he nodded matter-of-factly and snapped, “go find out about neon lights for homework.”
“Like, everything… about neon lights?”
“Yeah, everything!”
Part of me wants to scream and shout, “HEY, I’m not the only one in the class who doesn’t know about neon lights, why pick on me? I wonder how much YOU know about them!!!” And WHAT about neon lights? What am I doing with the information when I do find out everything there is to know about neon lights? Are we going to apply it to something related to class? Just like all the other homework assignments sent out via e-mail (all of which are probably spontaneous), there’s a good chance won’t end up talking about it. And even just that – talk. All we do in class is talk. Talk and yap about other people’s lighting choices, but no actual practice.
The truth is, I was already choked when he said he didn’t know why I bother coming to class. This statement resonates so well with me that I wish it was more of an insult than a truth, because I really don’t know why I bother going to class! Well, actually, I go for participation marks so I can pass the class, so I can graduate and get this paper that says I have a minor in theatre production. But other than that, I don’t know why I bother; apparently I go to class to be scolded about my attitude! (though that’s my own problem; when I’m not getting anything out of the classes I adopt a “screw this” and careless attitude… which is probably the instigator for causing myself trouble most of the time, but I’m not one to willingly let them get away with not teaching us anything.)
Really, how much attention and respect do you deserve as a theatre production instructor who can’t even figure out why moving lights weren’t controllable from the board? Why do you still need to read a manual for moving lights when you’ve worked so much with them? If we’re learning from reading manuals, I can do that on my spare time by myself, not in a class where I’m also wasting 3 other classmate’s valuable time. And how is four students trouble-shooting ONE technical problem efficient? Isn’t there a better way to spend our 3-hour class time in learning how to go about designing lights? And what are the chances that we’ll get to design anything with moving lights when we design in the local theatres (IF we’ll even get that opportunity to)? Which theatre(s) are fortunate enough to have as many resources and differing equipment as we have at SFU?
That’s the other sore spot. Because there’s a wealth of “toys” at school, I feel there should be an even higher expectation for a quality education to come with it. We have access to all these top-notch equipment and spaces, why not make the best of it? Instead of doing practical crap like how to hang and focus lights, why don’t we figure out how to use Vectorworks to put together a plot, or how to build a look, and how that look will be different if we use different lights?
(One of the biggest problems in class is that the four of us have varying degrees and levels of knowledge in theatre production, and most of them have had more stage management experiences than production/technology ones. And I’ve been working for over a year at school as an on-call technician, so I know the in’s and out’s of the school and its equipment. I didn’t sign up for lighting design class to learn the names of lighting fixtures I already know, daisy-chain data cables from fixture to fixture, or teach the first-years how to do stuff.)
The feeling of helplessness at ever changing anything in regards to the program and the despair at the severity of the situation was so overwhelming that I could not help but feel distraught the entire class, and day(s) after. I was not in the best of moods; I was upset, angry, frustrated, grumpy, and bitter all at the same time. I was also a little upset at my classmates for being such “lab rats” and not being proactive enough to make things change in class; so that we can actually learn some design approaches.
THE POINT BEING: I’m sick and tired of paying big bucks and wasting my valuable time to learn shit all from instructors who are NOT working artists (why yes, I am also sick and tired of you talking about your stories and experiences from TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO) and are stuck in the same rut and routine for the past 10 plus years! They are incredibly inflexible and not at all open to change. I thought moving down to Woodward’s would mean revamping the program (there was talk of it)… Nope, it’s become even worse. The lighting design class used to be responsible for lighting directing projects. But now we don’t even get a chance to implement a design! (or even come up with one – the final project doesn’t count. I mean, yes, we’re doing lighting for a performance… together, all four of us, for the final performance of Martin’s class in Woodward’s lobbies. But I can bet you that wasn’t even in the syllabus at the start of the semester! WAIT, SYLLABUS? WHAT’S THAT? TOTALLY UNHEARD OF IN THE PROGRAM. Basically, you have no idea HOW or WHAT you’re being marked on. You have to play on their good side and put up with their bullshit to get a satisfactory grade. How’s that for bias and fairness?)
And they wonder why no one wants to stay in the program… I would start by looking at yourselves, boys. This isn’t to say that they’re all-around bad. They have some good, however little. But the bad outweighs the good by an encompassing amount that their good-will is sidelined by their faults. I can talk trash about this program all day long, and unless you change your attitude or teaching style, I’m not going to shut up about it.
