David Gilmour utilizes his homegrown brand of pedagogy to provide riveting instruction to students. Photo via Brett Gundlock/National Post
Canadian author David Gilmour found himself in an Internet brouhaha this week in regards to an interview he provided for Hazlitt, an online magazine promoted by Random House of Canada. The interview is about the books adorning his shelves, and…well, it’s best to quote rather than paraphrase:
I’m not interested in teaching books by women…when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Except for Virginia Woolf. And when I tried to teach Virginia Woolf, she’s too sophisticated, even for a third-year class. Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren’t any women writers in the course. I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys.
Response has been passionate and plentiful, almost entirely upset with Gilmour’s misogynistic and homogeneous comments. Interestingly enough, the comment section on the Hazlitt page is almost complete condemnation of Gilmour and his interview. Gilmour has issued an attempt at a mea culpa through the National Post, claiming that he is not a misogynist, though…ah heck, it’s still best to cite rather than paraphrase:
It’s got nothing to do with any nationality, or racism, or heterosexuality. Those were jokes by the way. I mean, I’m the only guy in North America who teaches Truman Capote, and Truman Capote was not what you’d exactly call a real heterosexual guy. So I really don’t know what this is about. And this is a young woman who kind of wanted to make a little name for herself, or something, because when I said “real heterosexual guys” I’m talking about Scott Fitzgerald [and] Scott Fitzgerald was not what you’d call a real guy’s guy, a real heterosexual guy. (emphasis mine)
There are plenty of people handling the privileged white male reading of this whole issue. I see another layer to this situation regarding Gilmour’s views on education and teaching. It’s not about the copious research Gilmour did to determine he is the only person in North America who teaches Truman Capote. Rather, it’s about why an institution like the University of Toronto entrusts courses to someone like Gilmour, the antithesis of a pedagogue.
Gilmour is a fairly well-known Canadian author who wrote a memoir called The Film Club. The premise of the book is that Gilmour allows his son to drop out of school (Jesse, age 15) if the son watches three movies a week with dad. I am a proponent of homeschooling, but the methodology here is rather suspect and somewhat wonting of valuing a teacher. However, according to Wikipedia, success of The Film Club led Gilmour to his current position as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto. More quotes from Gilmour!
“It’s a f–ing dream,” he says. “You write a book about your son dropping out of school and they give you a professorship at U of T. How cool is that?” – August 29, 2011 in The National Post
“I’m a natural teacher, I was trained in television for many years. I know how to talk to a camera, therefore I know how to talk to a room of students. It’s the same thing.” – September 25, 2013 in Hazlitt
I have not taken a course from Mr. Gilmour, nor have I read The Film Club (though it is on my reading list, in part for a new project I have regarding popular media and societal assumptions on education). That said, his ideas on literary content (male and homogeneous), antiquated in modern scholarship, are just as antiquated as his ideas on teaching methodology and pedagogy. Yet the system is designed to promote the Gilmours of the world over those with experience in, you know, teaching.
One of the troubles of creative writing pedagogy is the master-led workshop model. Creative writing students enter a classroom and begin writing on a story, the master providing feedback to each student’s manuscript. While this is helpful in an abstracted, manuscript-specific sense, there are numerous flaws with the thinking: many students do not know how to develop ideas and so beginning at a draft is a doomed proposition, many writers do not know how to explain their process and craft in a scaffolded manner, many writers have no interest in providing genuine instruction and development to students, many students want accolades from a professor rather than criticism and instruction, and so forth. However, the predominant method of teaching creative writing at all levels is the workshop model. Perhaps it sounds authentic, with authors rolling up sleeves and crafting out an artisan story. Perhaps, like Freytag’s Pyramid, it’s what has always been done, so we keep doing it. Or perhaps there is value in bringing a visiting writer to the University, a writer with name recognition and sales and the sort of things that are easy to market and value and lead to adages like Those who can’t do, teach. Stephen King has no training in pedagogy or teaching methodology, but if he were offering a workshop at State University it would gain much more notoriety than Tenured Writing Professor. This is the crux of our modern-day view of education, where celebrity and notoriety are easier to sell than ability in the art of teaching. This is why it would not surprise me if the rock-star professors at the forefront of MOOCs no longer act as the relayer of content in their courses in five years’ time, replaced by Morgan Freeman and Gary Sinese.
Gilmour, with his background in television, would perhaps be immune to the change. That said, most visiting professors do not celebrate their ignorance in methodology or equate their time with students to time with a camera. Those who make it about the learner, teach. Those who make it about themselves gloat about hijacking a teaching gig.
