I Was a Flying Buttress

Six years ago, in 10th grade, I took an Art History course for the first time. I loved it - the teacher was this fantastic lade who loved her subject and went out to the way to make it interesting and made probably the best brownines I've ever had because she was totally boss that way. For many years, I wanted to pursure a career in Art History because I had so much fun in that class.

My second Art History course was as a sophomore in college and I hated it. The professor was not an Art History teacher, but an Art teacher, something that was made very clear on the first day of class. There was no enthusiasm in the material she was teaching and seemed to resent the job all things considered. Even so, her incredible ability to take a subject as fascinating as Art History and make it boring wasn't enough to crush the love I held for it (though I'll always hate her for doing her darndest to make us hate it the way she did).

The third time I took an Art History course was after I transferred to UALR. The professor had a much deeper understanding and respect for the material, but seemed to hate her students. Not an Umbridge or anything, but she didn't bother to hide the condemnation in her tone when correcting a wrong answer - that is to say, any answer with an interpretation she disagreed with.

So we have here three teachers:

- One who loves her subject, but hates her students.

- One who likes her students, but hates the subject.

- One who loves her subject and her students.

I'd hate to know what happens when you're unlucky enough to snag a teacher that doesn't like either half of the job.

I bring this up because I'm taking a course right now called "Drama in the Classroom," a course primarily directed at teaching Education majors how to incorporate dramatic techniques into teaching. There are certainly obvious reasons why only one of these teachers was effective and the other two weren't, but there are undoubtedly reasons I won't be able to properly explain - reasons that have to do with the way a class is structured and planned.

I already liked this class by default of Minnick being the one to teach it, but I'm certainly interested in removing my own bias as best I can to examine the mechanics of why only one of these classes sparked an interest that continues even now. Certain things like discussion sessions and class exercises stand out right off the bat - only in the 10th grade class was discussion encouraged for example. In the second it was in the way of getting out of class faster; in the third, it was belitted. As for class exercises...

The thing I'll always remember about that 10th grade class was when we were studying Gothic architecture. We had been learning about the symbology behind the design, but also the practicality of the whole thing - those ribbed vaults you see on cathedral ceilings aren't just there to look visually interesting; they divide the weight of all the stone that's pressing down from above. Nor are flying buttresses just a funny word; they too are responsible for dividing up the weight and channeling it to keep the cathedral from buckling in on itself.

Which is fine and dandy - all it really takes is a chart to explain. But one lesson, she has us all file out into the common/ cafeteria and shows us how to build a human cathedral. She lined us up by height and built a floorplan out of our bodies. The ones towards the middle composed the ribbed vaults - they had their hands and arms connected to form the basic structure of the building. At one end, the shorter ones composed the apse and would hold the counterweight which I'll explain in a moment. Those of us surrounding, including myself, were the flying buttresses. We stood there with out arms outstretched straight in from of us, almost, but not quite touching the person composing the ribbed vault in front of us.

The shortest person in the class would become the counterweight. Thus far, all we created was a skeleton of what a cathedral was supposed to be. The people of the apse all had one arm in the half-circle they composed and it was from this that the counterweight would hang. Angela, our counterweight, grabbed hold and had to lift her legs off the floor and the rest of us could feel the weight distribution with our own bodies. As one of the buttresses, my job was to stand there with my arms out and support - not push back, but just stand, which was why we weren't supposed to be touching the person in front of us, but had to be very close - when the pressure came, you could feel the vaults very subtly bend under the weight. The people on the outside kept that bending to a minimum.

I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, so here's a video I just found when I finlly had the bright idea to look up "human cathedral" on Google:

It's a bit messy, but you get the idea. This one is just a single vault, but it's the same principle ours was built on (though ours didn't have the gargoyles XD). But you can see, especially towards the end when the girl is demonstrating the strength of the vault, how it works. The counterweight is supported by the vaults which are themselves supported by the buttresses when sufficient pressure is applied. The vaults alone would collapse on themselves without the buttresses and wouldn't stand at all if they weren't ribbed (this is why she has two sets of arches, and has them cross arms and connect to the arch alongside them). Gothic architecture is still my fave <3

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was I'm only two classes into Drama and I already really love it and you'll probably have to hear me talk about it a lot in the future.