Well, feeling like I could get better and potentially get to the point of a career in art, I am back at school, have been the last few months.  And it mostly has gone rather well.  Minus one aspect.

Art History 207 B.

This is the absolute worst class I have ever EVER been in.  Period.  Going into the beginning of the semester, I didn't realize this would be the case.  I had never been in a real Lecture Hall before, which is what the class was.  There were lots of people, yes, but that didn't really bother me, I had been in big classes before.  But, there was one thing this class had that others did not.

A terrible teacher.

His name is Renzo Baldasso.  The first day, it seemed like it might be okay, as he seemed amusing enough.  First, he looked like this.

[link]

With a suit and glasses, but regardless.  Not to mention, he SOUNDED like Dracula.  Or, The Count from Sesame Street.  So yeah, first day, it was kind of amusing.  It was difficult to understand him, but it was kind of funny.  Plus, it was History.  Sure, there would be a lot I would need to remember, I knew this, but even if it wasn't my strongest point, how bad could it be?  

Oh.  It could be bad.

First, once real class was started, his voice was no longer amusing.  We couldn't understand him at all.  And he talked very fast.  If that wasn't bad enough, his teaching style simply made it worse.  See, while it says B, this is the first Art history course I had ever been in.  They are divided into three sections, more or less, thanks to the really big book.  So, I got put into the 2nd part, where we would cover Early Christian art to Italian Renaissance.  Doesn't sound that bad, right?  Well, first, to compound his speaking, his slides were bad.  Very poorly made.  They had no information about what you were looking at, nothing to right down, you had to understand this guy, which was nigh impossible.  And, more importantly, he seemed to expect US to know all of it anyway.  

The first day, we were told that this course is built in the thought that we as students have no prior knowledge of Art History.  Which, for me, I knew a little, but of course I knew some of the big names.  Either way, we would learn as if we didn't know a thing.

What a lie.

First lecture, this guy is asking us questions, which took repeating to figure out what he was saying, about Ancient Roman rulers of some kind, and all this other crap, as if we should already have a complete grasp on the subject.  And that's how most of the lecture's went.  He would show us something we have likely never seen before, and ask us to tell him what it is.  And, what's more, these first few days, almost no one had books.  Fedex or UPS or something had 'misplaced' the shipment or some bullcrap, so they didn't arrive until a few days before our first test.  Which was like a week or so into class.  Yeah, we had a test that quickly.  And these tests were hard.  There were five multiple choice questions, which had generally vague information, and especially here in the beginning, how could we know about this stuff as we didn't' even have a freaking book.  And then, we have to know dozens of images, the complete name of them, which lots of these had very confusing and difficult to spell words in them, the dates, where they were made and/or found, who made them, their art medium.  And, this wasn't even consistent.  Sometimes, they would cut out parts of that you likely studied harder on.

Which brings me to the final I took last night.

I had over a hundred of images I studied.  A hundred.  Over and over, looking at them, trying to recognize them, trying to place the artist's name, of which there were almost as many artists, to the piece.  So many dates, so many countries, locations.  There was no way I could remember it all, ever, so I tried to get down what I could.  So, yesterday alone, I studied 9 hours.  

And guess what the hell happens when I sit down there.

First image is not even something I ever saw in the book.  Plus, they also gave us a list in review sheets what we should've studied.  Maybe 2 of the countless images were there.  One set of images, of a Cathedral, were take in different shots than what we had access too, and I think I got it right, but how were you supposed to recognize a building you only saw in one format.  Cause that was the other problem.  We had the book, yes.  Might as well not of had bothered.  Cause there was very little used out of it.  Seriously, when you are given a book for a class, you expect them to use THAT book, right?  Not getting other crap from other areas and just expect you to know them.  Over half of the images we were supposed to identify were not in the book period, anywhere.  Like, there was some Marble statue or something of the Greek God Dionysus, being flanked by a Satyr.  No, it was nowhere in the book.  I had went through it so many times, I would know.  And more than that, I hadn't seen it mentioned ONCE during the entire semester.  I merely knew what it was because, being interested in Mythologies and such, I just knew who it was.  I can't say the same for others out there.  In particular, there was a heavy Christian theme in the artwork, which was really commonplace back then, but anything regarding that, I likely could've recognized for the same reason, being Christian myself, having been raised in that environment.  I feel sorry for those in the class who weren't, and there were a few there in the beginning who had virtually no knowledge.  Being lost that much would have been horrible.

Now, the good news is, I think, keyword think, I was able to pull it off.  While they screwed me on the physical information, there was another aspect to questions, which was giving their significance or something.  I could generally recognize this.  So, I was able to put something on every question, and I feel confident on the 100 point Extra Credit Essay we could do at the end of the test, which had us identify four different works about David in three different mediums, which I did.  I didn't give dates, as I wasn't sure of all of them, and one of the pieces, David the Psalmist, I didn't know as well, but still, i think I would get a fair chunk.  So, I should be able to pass the class.  It's just somewhat sickening that is what I'm hoping for, passing the class.

I've had hard classes before.  I had an intro to literature class, very hard, but I loved it.  The teacher was great, but he expected a lot out of you.  I got a B in that one, and I worked for it, but I wasn't simply thrown under a bus and expected to lift it.  If I worked hard on something, it paid off.  I spent so long working on something they told me to work on, and then do something completely different.  That is the mark of a bad class.  If it isn't, I don't know what is.  

The only saving grace is the section, where about 20 students got together to meet once a week.  Our TA was completely a better teacher than the professor.  I have her to thank for doing as well as I did.  She wasn't perfect, some of the information on her Power Points were a bit off, particular as she had two of these to do, and she would reuse the slides, and sometimes not properly fix them.  But, she's a TA, a Teacher's Assistant.  She is working towards being a Teacher, a Professor herself, and this was the first time she taught.  Of course there would be mistakes.  But when a TA is infinitely superior to the Professor... that is a problem.  And the one blemish of my entire Semester, otherwise having very solid courses.

So, I wait to see what I get.  As such a vast number of students were in a similar boat to me, I wonder if their might be a curve to compensate for the poor teaching job.  It's not like this isn't known, in the Art Department, this nightmare of a course is known, as I was told by my Adviser, who had heard about it.  She reassured me that next semester's Art History won't be like this, and based on what I hear other students say, I believe her.  Almost any other student who has had an Art History course aside from Renzo's said they were great.  

I feel a bit bad.  I don't really wish anything ill on him.  Plus, he had to go through so many years to get to this point, so, I hope he is able to do something to turn it around.  It felt we were in a Graduate course almost instead of just a rather basic Art History, so maybe if he's teaching something like that, it's not so bad.  But, it doesn't change this was pretty well a complete disaster of a class, and having never had anything like this before, and especially in otherwise such a flawless semester, it's a complete eyesore.

Oh well, rant end.