Think YOU had a bad teacher?

          I remember some horrible instructors I’ve learned from in the past, but only the writing prof I took a class from at the University of Saskatchewan even approaches this one’s behaviour:

From “The Master,” by Marc Fisher:

Assigned to [Robert] Berman for tenth-grade English, I took a seat one September morning alongside sixteen or seventeen other boys. We waited in silence as he sat at his desk, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges cigarettes and watching us from behind dark glasses. Finally, Mr. Berman stood up, above the blackboard to draw a horizontal line on the paint. “This,” he said, after a theatrical pause, “is Milton.” He let his hand fall a few inches, drew another line, and said, “This is Shakespeare.” Another line lower, on the blackboard: “This is Mahler.” And, just below, “Here is Browning.” Then he took a long drag on his cigarette, dropped the chalk to the floor, and, using the heel of his black leather loafer, ground it into the wooden floorboards. “And this, gentlemen,” he said, “is you.”

Thankfully, mine wasn’t quite this bad (Berman was a pedophile, on top of his in-your-face behaviour), but he DID ridicule me and my writing by name, with a few overheads of my work and an overhead projector, in front of a lecture theatre full of students…. In my mind, he’s a bit of a villain all the same…

Try this:

Think of one of those disastrous people you’ve had the misfortune of meeting. Change the age, gender, or appearance, and make them a villain in your next piece of poetry or prose.

Coming tomorrow: A bit of FANCY FOOTWORK involving Sarah Braunstein and the use of contrast.