Good teaching means caring

I just met for a few minutes with my Cinematography professor and it reminded me just how much of a fantastic teacher John is. I gush about Debbie a lot because I find what I do for her particularly challenging so I would never get through without her guidance and encouragement. What strikes me about John is how much he cares about his students.

He had stopped by to pick up a package that had been left behind after the last class. The expectation is that everything in there is probably crap, but just in case someone actually did good work he wants to make sure that they get the feedback/bump in grade for it.

Then we stood in my vestibule and talked about the kids who had asked him for recommendations for internships, or getting into Production 3, or whatever one might need a letter for. He wanted my read on them. Who I thought had leadership potential, because ultimately Director of Photography is a leadership job. One of them was such a no-brainer for a recommendation that my response was "if she weren't going to LA I'd be trying to recruit her for my film." Which in my position is probably the best recommendation I can give about a student.

That led us to discussing whether or not I was going to LA. John was like, you don't seem like the LA type, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go for a bit. I told him Sam had recommended against it if what I really want to do is teach. Unless I'm willing to stay for 10 years to make connection, a semester of internship isn't enough to make a university care that I'd been. John's reply was that the number one question he gets from students is how to make it in LA or NYC and so experiencing the internship hoops will give me some very practical things to tell them. I told him I'm applying to do a summer internship in Sydney, which he thought sounded like a lot of fun.

Here's the thing, we talked about what I like, and what I'm good at, and what I want to do. Then he gave me his best advice, and followed it up with wanting me to teach actual classes rather than just give gear demos in the spring term. He cares about helping me get to where I want to be. Just like he cares about doing right by the kids in class this term. So he's willing to sit through what will probably be awful films. There was trouble with the gear so I don't think he's planning on dinging anyone for the films being bad. But he doesn't want to miss it on the off chance that one of these is going to be fantastic.