I don't normally express myself to angrily. Nearly everyone I've ever met in my life has described me as being very passive, someone who doesn't like to complain, for fear of being an inconvenience and someone who is rather soft spoken, and would keep opinions and feelings in rather than express them openly. basically, it means I'm that quiet person who some people, for SOME reason, assume will go crazy and shoot everybody one day.
Recently, I've gotten into a verbal argument with a teacher of mine. She had, in all respect, been being a complete b*tch to me, treating me as if I hadn't been doing work in the classroom, when I've had a perfect A+ all semester and turned in all my projects on time, getting A+ on all of them. But the teacher still treats me as if I haven't been working, which I have, accusing me of taking energy from the classroom and replacing it with negative energy, and being "unimaginative". Which I believe to be utter bullsh*t. But I never really said anything back until last week, when I asked her to stop treating me like this, when she automatically claimed "I don't believe I trwat you like that". Words were said, and I did actually curse in class, which got me dropped from the course.
This, by itself, is not why I'm truely angry now. NOW the Dean has this as my "second offense" (what my first offense exactly was, I'll never know, I've NEVER done anything like this before) so I've been assigned to manditory counciling. What makes me REALLY angry, is that they're treating the incident as "unresolved grieving process", since my Grandmother died recently.
Yes, my Grandmother's recent death has put some stress on me the past few weeks, BUT IT'S NOT THE REASON WHY I SNAPPED AT THE TEACHER. THE TEACHER WAS BEING MEAN TO ME. and it wasn't JUST that one class last week, she's been treating me like this since September. EVERYONE, the Dean, everyone, says I should have gone to someone before my outburst, but I'm like "what for?" I had the same problem last semester with a teacher, and it NEVER got fully resolved, even when I had a meeting with the teacher and everything. The dean, and this school, trusts their policy more than my words, and treat me down an assembly line just to get my case by faster, while punishing me and doing absolutely NOTHING to the teacher who's been verbally making me feel awful about my work.
That's another thing. The etacher treats everyone in the class (especially me) like we're morons who know absolutely NOTHING about Printaking, and if we so much as THINK we know something about Printmaking, she takes it as a sign that we really know nothing. I know at least 5 other people (in a class of 12, that's a big number) in the class who've had the teacher tell them they have no passion in their work, or they didn't try hard enough in their work. Another friend in class actually said to me "I've givewn up trying in this class. She doesn't approve of anything I do, she makes me feel stuupid."
It's sad that a teacher does this to her students (I understand it's her first class and she's a new teacher), but that shouldn't give her the excuse to make people constantly feel awful about themselves. Everyone else in the class feels it, but they're afraid to say anything because they don't want the teacher especially picking on them, and they wanna just suffer quietly through the class then be gone forever. Which was my plan until I snapped at her last week.
I'm not especially smart or experienced as an artist, but I believe the worst thing an art teacher would do is destroy an artist's desire to create by making them feel awful about their work. I understand the "nobody picks their own critic" phrase, meaning not everyone will have all good things to say about your work, but as a freaking TEACHER you should give helpful criticism, not just assume "it has no passion" or "There's no imagination to it" and leave the artist feeling inadequate. This woman needs to realize she's killing a lot of creativity by doing that, while also supporting strengths and being supportive about your critiques. Not just telling people in theory "wel this sucks, do it again".
Sorry that this is so long. I have a LOT more to say but I think this is enough for one rant >< *whew!*
