Re: a gentle guru

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Sat, 31 Oct 1998 08:32:40 -0700 (MST)

Ah Scottie, you have an archer's bull's eye sense when it comes to such
things...and as the son of willian tell (the one you don't hear about, the
one still walking around with an arrow in his eye!) I can tell you that I
am "will" in my teaching life and use "Dr." only to make reservations but
even then my wife squirms...she doesn't like it when folks call me Doctor
because I'm a Ph.D, not MD, and I tend to think that some of the "Doctor"
stuff gets in the way of my teaching method.  My mom however, a 3rd grade
teacher of 25 years and big supporter of her younger son's education and
art always sends me letters addressed to "Dr. Hochman," but as a Jewish
mother whose other son is lawyer, what would you expect?

It's interesting that you used the word "transaction" since I used Louise
Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory of Literature in my dissertation and
since we are probably both talking about how people such as doctors and
students/patients experience knowledge together.  From my personal pov, I
tend to be a challenger/nurturer as a teacher and like the friendly first
name informality because I can sometimes be perceived as intimidating
(please leave this one alone since the real intimidation comes from
ignorance and not people). 

...you see I know what happens in transactional zones isn't about
hierarchy of titles so I tend to make my sense of teaching based on truth
and intelligence, not "Dr./Professor" titling.  

BTW, email is the nail on the Dr. Coffin (Happy Halloween Everyone!) for
me since my experience shows that informality and easy access open up more
teaching moments to me than formal addressing and classic "office hours." 

will