This is back in '87 when I was in college: a theatre major at a (at the time) not very important college in NW Missouri. My dad had died a few years earlier and I was an angry and confused kid. I'm autistic - not diagnosed at the time - and I had difficulty understanding the "why"s of the education requirements, one of which was four semesters of a foreign language.
Math? Fine. English? Straight "A"s. Social Sciences? Perfectly happy. Foreign languages? Fuck no.
To my way of thinking, while I'm backstage building sets, wiring lights and designing lighting plots, and upstairs in the costume shop sewing, I'm going to be doing all that shit speaking English. I didn't see the point (kinda still don't.)
First semester of French, I was a straight B student. Next: C. Next: D. I just cared less and less as my time in college went on. I preferred to be backstage or upstairs, so I went to class very rarely, and when I did, the professor, we'll call her Mme.Hoffman, tried to engage me in class, get me to participate. Theatre major == natural performer, right? Center of attention?
Yeah, no. One day, I decided I'd had enough of being the example. We were learning the verb, "to lead": you can "lead" an army, or you could "lead" a dog on a leash. She came to my chair, pretended to hook an imaginary collar around my throat, then mimed trying to get me up with the leash, the entire time encouraging me - in French - to participate. I joined her and we walked a circle. She suggested I "Aboie comme un chien." (bark like a dog.)
"Le woof. Le bow wow."
She tried a couple more times, and finally got so frustrated she dropped into English and said, "Oh c'mon Bill, you're a theatre major, you can do better than that."
"You're right." I turned and lifted my leg to her desk and mimed peeing on it.
Class dismissed.
End of semester, the grades are posted on the department bulletin board. As expected, there was an "F" next to my name. I took the sheet down and walked into her office with it. I laid it on the desk, and slid it across to her. I pointed to the offending grade.
"That needs to be a D."
"I can't do that," she said. "You rarely attended class or turned in any assignments."
"Here's the deal," I said. "I'm taking this class because it's required for my degree. I'm never going to France. Learning the language does serve any of my long-term goals. I don't even like French food."
"I'm sorry, Bill. That's the best I can do."
Here's where the trauma comes in: "Look, I don't disagree with you. But here's what's going to happen: I'm going to take the entire class over again. All four semesters. And I'm going to take them with you."
She was silent for a full minute. Finally, she said, "Well, your pronunciation is excellent," and replaced the F with a D.
I'm forty years older now, and I regret that I never tracked her down later in life to apologize. She wasn't a bad person, she was doing the best she could having an asshole like me in her class. And for the record, I've never been employed in a theater.
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This feels more like personal growth than revenge. The self-awareness at the end really hits.
self-awareness is key for growth dude, really cool to see that
That's okay. It's not a revenge subreddit. :)
Not able to use the degree you got. Classic.
Sort of. I use every skill I learned fairly often, just not in service of a theater.
Better than me, at least you use those skills!
Fair, but life doesn’t always follow the degree plan.
Oh I know, just a funny early trend
When my mother was teaching, it was a requirement for engineering students to learn French (or whatever foreign language the school taught). She had to tutor a couple of them at the school where she was teaching music, since she had to pitch in with other subjects from time to time. I'm not sure why, but in the world of ballet (which is performed in a theatre) the terms are all in French. In the world of music (also performed in theatres or similar settings), the terms are all in Italian. Maybe there are engineering terms which aren't in English? IDK. But foreign language was compulsory for us until year 8, so the first year of high school. It's a useful skill and helps certain parts of the brain develop.
Also, engineers are often on the autism spectrum, like two of my uncles most likely are (one of them has a son who was diagnosed at 23; I was diagnosed much later, being female myself). So they might have questioned it like you did, but sometimes it's best to just knuckle down and learn what you have to.
I'm glad that over the years you've reflected and realised that you were in the wrong towards your teacher. It's a hard job for those who just want to do best by their students and have to deal with difficult ones. I have a cousin who's probably on the spectrum like me, and she's become a teacher later in life after her a-hole ex-husband divorced her to be with his girlfriend. He's very much a Sheldon type, according to my cousin. Anyway, when some of her students discovered she had asthma, they threatened to try to kill her with an asthma attack using spray deodorant if she did anything they didn't like. Some of them actually used deodorant/perfume around her to trigger an attack. She left that school, fortunately. But some kids are actual freaking psychopaths. While you didn't do that, you were clearly bad enough that she decided it wasn't worth keeping to her marking system to put up with you for another year, even though she felt you didn't deserve a better grade.
This is actually dependent on the origin (usually; sometimes the place where the instrument is more popular gets to be the primary language) of the musical instrument or performance style. The terms for guitar are in Spanish, while a French Horn's terms will be in, well, French. Italy just happens to be the place where the ideas about the musical notation we're familiar with comes from. Fast forward to now, and you have a bit of every language in an orchestra.
In general, though, if an orchestra made up of people from different countries throughout the world, all speaking different languages, were thrown together with sheet music and a conductor, and had to play, they would effectively be able to do it fairly well because sheet music is universal. That's the theory, anyway. I like to think so. But the likelihood of it being put to the test is fairly minimal.
it's funny because for a lot of STEM fields, especially like chemistry, the secondary language that would be most useful is often German, since for a long time that was the language of science.
My initial thought when I read this made me chuckle. Ballet and musical terms aren't French and Italian, they're "ballet" and "music", they just happen to coincide with a particular spoken language. Pretty sure there's not a ballet translation for "Where is the bathroom?" :)
In any event, I have tried to learn languages - Spanish, Mandarin, and German - but my brain refuses it. Spanish and German would be very useful.
You didn’t think another language might’ve been useful in case you ever went on an international tour with a show?
I was 20, autistic, angry, and unsupported. WTF did I know?
And it is why you choose Theatre Major.
You still don't think another language is useful lol
In relationship to the requirements for a degree. And French was a bad choice in any case, based on complacent advising. I'd have been better off learning Spanish.
Tbf, I do think it's useful, but I agree with OP that it seems out of place in theatre school. Just require that shit in middle/high school as part of your general education
It's about training your brain to think in a different way.
It's like a type of exercise for the brain, and especially when you're young and full of neuroplasticity that is invaluable.
I'll never understand anyone's resistance to learning a foreign language.
Institutions require foreign languages for the same reasons that engineering students are required to take some humanities and humanities majors are required to take math - it makes you a more well rounded, read educated, person.
It's a university, not a trade school, not that there's anything wrong with that, but the goal is different.
Not the schools fault but a big part of it is lack of language choices. American Sign Language was offered at my school as an alternative to Spanish or French and it was really popular just because it was different.
I would have attended that class every day.
I have a Bachelor's degree in Professional and Technical Communications (it's basically an Explaining Things degree). The engineering/comp sci majors didn't see the point in taking tech comm classes (it's good to be able to explain your jargon-filled concepts to a lay person). Ironically, the tech comm students didn't see a point in learning a foreign language, which the Bachelor of Arts track required. I was the only person in my cohort with a BA. I actually ended up tacking Japanese on as a second minor because I didn't want to stop studying it.
I love languages, but learning one is hard and takes a lot of time. That why people don’t want to do it.
Well, and some don’t out of dislike of other cultures and diversity, etc.
Twenty years old, undiagnosed autistic, poorly advised in a shitty college, and angry all the time. I was resistant to anything that didn't align with my interests at the time.
I've learned several languages, always thought that I'd be that Mom that gets my kids to learn multiple languages as well. Well then todays modern technology literally works like a Sci-Fi language translator. I still think it's important to learn the language if you're going to live in that country or region, but considering all of the other things kids need to learn to navigate modern technology, learning a foreign language is not a good use of the very limited time we have them in class.
I disagree, but I live in a part of the US where it seems every other person speaks Spanish as a first language. I took French and German in HS and college, I wish I'd taken Spanish at some point, though both French and German have been useful to me - French when traveling, German because I married into a German family.
Spanish is very similar to French. I remember in high school my BFF took Spanish. I took French but we could study together because the words were very similar. Sadly I don’t remember a lick of it now and I have been to France.
if a teacher had tryed that collar bs with me mimed pee would have been the least of her problems
I learned a bit of French and never plan on going to France.
Having the etymology of things is generally useful and it's interesting intellectually. A surprising amount of it comes up in my ordinary life.
That being said, I did it willingly...
Bearcats!
Close. I had a scholarship but no one to help me understand what that meant, and I followed my girlfriend, instead. I have the feeling I'd have done much better at Maryville.
I can relate. In high school, I had a biology teacher who was pretty amazing. He was hilarious, and he had a lot of passion for teaching. I doubt he earned much, and he had to also drive the school bus in order to try to support his family. I took a second class from him my senior year, so I guess that would have been advanced biology. I remember the general consensus among the students in that particular class was that the subject matter was too hard, and that he expected too much. For example, I remember being tested on identifying the trees that various leaves had come from, and one of the girls in my class said her sister had commented that the sister's college biology course was not even that tough. In any event, things came to a head one class, and people were complaining to him. The discussion went downhill, and I remember him saying something like, "Well, what if I just flunked all of you. What would you think of that?" I stood up, and I said, "I think that'd be bullshit." And he answered, "Well, I think the effort you guys are putting in is bullshit." (Note: this was a Catholic school, so probably any other teacher would have immediately sent me to the principal's office for my outburst, and honestly I doubt I would have tried it with any other teacher.) Years later, a woman whose father had been good friend with the biology teacher was telling us that the biology teacher had gone through a really bad year where he had strongly questioned quitting his job. But the next year, his students bought him a superhero cape that read "BIOLOGY!," and he remembered why he loved teaching. I said to the woman telling me this, "Wow. I bet my class was the one that made him question quitting." And she said, "Well ..." and looked away. I regret my role in all of this.
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Rewiring a half-dozen Lekos, designing lighting plots with only so many amps to go around, counter-balancing heavy rigs on the fly rail...I live in a one hundred year old house. All that's very useful.
This is why you take Latin.
If you have to take a language course that isn't English do Not choose French. (Unless you're interested in France.) I enjoyed learning languages and took Spanish, German and French in high school. Spanish and German made sense. French all sounded the same. Unless I was at the start of the conversation I had no clue what they were on about.
Spanish and French are soooo similar but the pron. in Fr. is sooooo much harder. Unless you have trouble rolling those "R"s
Yes, the structure of the languages is similar but to my ears, so many French words sound too similar for me
I feel like the title should have been "French Professor vs Moi", but I guess you never really went to class, so...
I did much the same thing. Our highschool only required 2 years of a foreign language to graduate, so I only took 2 years of French (and extra math). Went to college for engineering, and it was pretty much the same, but over my first summer I decided to take Japanese instead of French, even though I'm not a weeb. Damn near ended up with a minor in it instead of just the required 2 classes.
Feeling called out...
William Jewell? NWMSU? Missouri Western?
Mo West, from '86 to '90.
Fun read.
Just a throwback to all the 'why do i need to know this?' comments in my....<checks diploma> .... strong liberal arts college back in the day.
Love the username.
Did you stay in theatre? (From another on-Spectrum Theatre Kid turned Pro)
Not professionally, no. I've donated my skills many times to community theater productions.
The fact that you can look back and recognize you were the asshole in this situation honestly says a lot about the growth since then. That self awareness at the end hit harder than the revenge part.
d is not passing
No, not really, but enough to check it off the list.
When I got my theatre degree in the early-mid 90s, we had to have a solid C all 4 semesters or take our foreign language again, so be glad you were where you were! Not even a C-.
Trying to be a theatre major in an ag college could be challenging, but it did have the benefit that the administration didn't care about us.
I was at a state school in the mountains, there were ~50 total maps when I started, closer to 120 by the time I graduated. I quite like that we were all pretty close. A lot of us still are though we often don't talk regularly. Depends on the person. Facebook alumni page that's still very active though I've basically given up FB at this point.