Art Criticism - The State University of New York

student-as-Other "calls" us to teach well; as a teacher one is always already
obligated by the future well-being of his or her students.
Not only is the good of teaching a flexible end, but the Good itself is
heterogenous. For in teaching in the classroom, one is not only obligated to
the students, but also to many people not immediately present: administrators
(to uphold the University's reputation); departmental colleagues (coverage of
topics requisite for subsequent courses in the Art major); colleagues in art
history (respecting the current state of scholarship); family (keeping the job to
bring home a paycheck); and so on. The practice of teaching is always interwoven
into other practices, be they administrative, collegial, professional, or
familial. 17 So, for example, when giving a midterm examination, a teacher is
obliged by students' rights to learn, but also by administrative imperatives for
proper grading, collegial pleas for skill development, and more. How one
structures the examination is a "response" to these heterogenous demands.ls
I hl!-ve been speaking of the practice of teaching, but there is also the
practice of being a student. Although teacher and student practices require
each other, there are facets of being a student that exceed what might count for
a teacher as properly educational. A good example is the growing obsession
with getting good grades, whether this is to please Mom and Dad, impress a
girlfriend, or enhance the chance of obtaining a high paying job. There is
noticeable tension between the overlapping horizons of teacher and student,
where the good of teaching to educate students is incommensurable with the
good of being a student as this is increasingly dominated by the pressures of
economic security. Rather than denigrating how students are now oriented,
we need to except these circumstances and invent new ways of teaching well.
My own experience is that as long as grades loom large on the horizon,
students will orient themselves towards academic "success." I have
therefore attempted to downplay grades, creating seminars that are AI F (a
pa