Dear M—–,
I’ve thought about writing this for a while – I waited 4 weeks before doing so, and now, before I finish my time here at UChicago, I want you to know something.
I dropped your class. This much you know, but what you don’t know are the reasons. You may think that it is because I saw the error of my ways and dropped out because I didn’t have the prerequisites or because I realized I didn’t have the background necessary to take intro to composition.
That’s not it. That’s not it at all. I left because I don’t want to be in a class where the teacher has no faith in me. I don’t want to be in a class where the teacher says “you can’t”. I am graduating from the University of Chicago in 2.5 years, I have received numerous grants and fellowships, taught myself to play the guitar and the piano, have trained my voice, am in a professional a cappella group, and arrange music and have written/co-written six songs. I’m not dumb. I’m actually rather smart (and it took me a while to be able to say that and not feel like an arrogant ass), and I’m not new to music (I started playing the saxophone when I was 8. Twelve years I’ve had it). So telling me that I can’t learn the necessary music theory because I hadn’t taken the prereq’s (which were never mentioned anywhere in the literature about the course), is ridiculous. I was taking three classes, was deeply interested in taking your class, and then left, because you didn’t think I could do it. I knew I could, but I didn’t want to be in a class with a teacher who doubted me. If you get nothing else from this letter, hold on to this, since you will be teaching in the future. Have faith in your students. If they say they can do something, chances are, they can do it. Give them a chance. Believe in them as they do and then some, because if you don’t – and you don’t have to tell them you don’t for them to know that you don’t (although that certainly doesn’t help) – you will lose them and a teacher without students is just a person talking to themself about things they already know.
I’m taking another class – still working on doing catch-up work and I’m actually doing rather poorly in the class. But the TA’s and the professor seem hopeful that I’ll be able to pass and go on to graduate this quarter. You didn’t even think I could do that.
What I’ve learned from this whole thing is that I should never give in. I shouldn’t have just backed out and said it wasn’t worth the fight. Every fight like that is worth it. Even if I had spent every night sleepless, learning music theory in 10 weeks, while concurrently learning how to apply it, it would have been worth it, because while I didn’t need to prove it to myself that I could, I would have been able to prove it to you. And now you will never know. I will know. But you won’t, and that frustrates me.
I’ve learned to pick my battles. Hindsight’s a bitch, but then again, now you won’t get a chance to see what I can do. Your loss.
Sincerely,
Adam
