20 years of soul searching:
Why did it happen to me? How can I rip the memories from my mind? When will the nightmares ever end? Will I ever able to open a book again?
N.B., I take the risk, but this time, I know I may very well have a very bad fall. This blog post is not intended to be art history in the traditional sense.
Though some may believe that I "should have moved on," I believe that what happened to me should be made part of the public record.
For the psychologically fragile, the conduct recounted here could be potentially devastating.
A History of an Education in Image and Word
The Good Teacher
孔丘 Confucius, 马 远 Ma Yuan 北京 故宫博物院
Reves de serenite et bonheur,
pas honte et terreur.
"Parfois on oublie les noms de certaines personnes mais on n'oublie jamais les visages, les paroles." -le Dalai Lama
The final art history examination:
Art and Belief
Dear Ms. Haufler:
I have something to share with you.
The famous painting of "The Scream" by Edward Munch does not portray a scream so much as it does a person who has heard the scream. The effect of the scream on the person is what is so vividly,portrayed. The face expresses shock and terror, a gaping mouth, bulging eyes, and hands covering the face and clasping his head as if to say, "I can't get over what I heard. My ears are still ringing from the scream."
Sky, land, and water swirl in response.too. The scream has set in motion, like waves, the entire lurid landscape. For the scream is not his, though it has gone through him like a tsunami.
This is precisely the effect your screaming at me had on my soul. I suspect it has had a similar effect on others, too, weaker than you, those whom you scarred for life.
I need to say this. You need to read, if not hear, this from me.
I need to say this. You need to read, if not hear, this from me.
The face could also be that of Kurtz's:
"The horror! The horror!"
spoken by Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
History: A history.
The truth will "out." Even 20 years later.
People often speak of sexual misconduct in academia but rarely about psychological abuse or misconduct of students by professors.
I think the time has come...for me to come out of the closet and tell what happened between you and me.
I was psychologically abused by Ms. Weidner that day I walked into her office about some innocuous matter and was screamed at, just a few inches from my face, for what seemed like an eternity but was probably around 10-15 minutes of unabated fury. Her face was a crimson red, her facial features contorted, her voice relentlessly harsh, angry, and punishing, and her words a torrent of blame and accusation.
The truth was, as she had accused me of saying to another professor, that she was indeed as hard as nails. She gave me the impression that she was as much pounding words into brains and that for all intents and purposes she could have been driving nails into flesh.
I was too much in a state of shock--no one in my life had spoken to me this way--that I could not even nod my head, at the end. I sat there the whole time without even a whimper of protest, just listening to every word and phrase she uttered.
I was badly damaged by that encounter. It is difficult to put into words, but it was akin, psychologically speaking, to have scalding water poured over one's face. The hurt was all on the inside.
The rest of the semester I felt engulfed in a black bottomless despair from which I could not get out and an overwhelming but impossible-at-the-time desire to flee immediately Lawrence, Kansas. I could not get over that encounter. The cost was not being able to concentrate on my studies and a foolish decision to take the Ph.D. qualifying examination a month or so later.
Inthe days, weeks, months, and years, I have continued to suffer: I still get nightmares in which I struggle to stand up for myself and yell back at her: "Enough! No more! You're a horrible horrrible...horrible." Silently, dumbly enduring the red-hot lashing was something I will never fogive myself for.
In my opinion, physical punishment and verbal abuse are, in essence, the same thing, and re-wire the brain in similar pathways.
I did not deserve to be screamed at and threatened, the threat being implicit (ironically, what I feared most actually did happen, anyway, though it is true, I was able to physically stay in Lawrence for the duration of the term instead of pack my things and leave immediately.
I wonder why it is that failures as human beings often succeed in academia
In my experience, academia, even in the humanities, does not necessarily produce better people.
My second-grade teacher who wrote on my report card that "[he [I] always tries his best" had a more positive influence on my education than anyone else, including Ms. Weidner. She did not instill fear or inflict pain.
A teacher's job is not simply to transmit knowledge to students and evaluate their progress. Instilling an atmosphere of trust in the classroom, especially between instructor and student,--without which freedom of inquiry is impossible--is as more important.
In the classroom or seminar room, students--especially adults in theirs 20s, 30s, 40s, and older--should not be cowering in far of being harshly scolded, punished, or humiliated. A one-on-one student-teacher meeting, should not, metaphorically speaking, be an opportunity for date rape. Nor should, in the classroom or outside, ostracism, selective grading, favoritism, and rumor and innuendo be tolerated.
This kind of behavior is degrading to the person humiliated as well sas the person who humiliates the other.
Yes, Professor Weidner set a terrible example of how destructive a person can be in making fear the principle and primary tool of her teaching methodology instead of a love of learning.
My definition of integrity is that one leaves those people whose paths one has crossed in better shape than before that, not worse.
And you, Ms. Haufler, cannot threaten or cause any more pain than you already have.
You were never able or willing to see the pain and sheer terror you meted out to yoru students, much less heard my own inner cries. You may have noticed but probably not acknowledged to yourself that some of your students shook uncontrollably, their voices wavering, in your presence. If that is not failure, I don't what is.
If I were to go through this again, I would never allow you to beat me up. No sentient being deserves this treatment. I do not do this to my two cats no matter how annoyed I might be at their behavior.
The "F" is for you, Ms. Haufler, as a teacher and a human being.
Queen of Bullies.
Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio), 1597. Oil on leather shield. Uffizi Gallery.
Méduse symboliserait « la perversion de la pulsion spirituelle » qu'est « la stagnation vaniteuse » et sa chevelure de serpents manifesterait « le tourment de la culpabilité refoulée ». La quête de Persée est universelle en tant qu'elle consiste pour tout homme à affronter sa propre vérité intérieure en reconnaissant sa vanité coupable et refoulée : « Méduse symbolise l'image déformée de soi […] La pétrification par l'horreur (par la tête de Méduse, miroir déformant) est due à l'incapacité de supporter objectivement la vérité à l'égard de soi-même. Une seule attitude, une seule arme, peut protéger contre Méduse : ne pas la regarder afin de ne pas être pétrifié d'horreur, mais capter son image dans le miroir de vérité.
What happens when Medusa regards herself in the mirror?
I was forced out of a graduate program by the very woman who had abused me. I kept the shame secret for 20 years.
- "Je suis petit mais je ne suis bas."
Julien Sorel in Stendhal, Le Rouge et le Noir
Il a enseigne tout le long de sa vie que la force brute n'etait pas la verite.
Lifting the veil of sham, shame, and secrecy.
Le Titien, Diane et Actaeon (1556-59), National Gallery of Scotland.
La reine ne porte rien que son courroux.
Shukongojin, guardian deity, dry clay sculpture, ca. 733, Japan.
We are told to forgive and forget. And the karmic cycle continues on and on, generation after generation.
Kshitigarbha with the Ten Kings of Hell, ink and colors on silk. Cave 17, Mogao, near Dunhuang, China. Late 9th - early 10th century AD
Seated Guanyin, Jin dynasty (1115-1234 CE). Shanghai Art Museum
The Good Master
Seated Buddha Preaching the First Sermon or The Turning of the Wheel 法輪 in Dharma-charkra-pravertana mudra (Teaching Mudra) धर्मचक्र. Archaeological Museum in Sarnath, India. Fifth century C.E. (475).
Returning Home.
Seated Buddha
* I could site other cases, including one where I was shoved, without provocation, by another student who became the protege of the individual whose conduct left such a deep, lasting impression on me.
References:
1. Hannah Arendt, The Banality of Evil
2. Alice Miller, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
2. Alice Miller, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
For another version, see: http://lilliansblog-d.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-history-of-education-in-image-and-word.html
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