My Cambridge Experience
I had been fortunate enough to spend three weeks at Oxford several years ago, participating in a program for teachers and their students, so I had some idea how the system worked. Cambridge and Oxford consist of groups of colleges where students live and eat, and where, presumably, their supervising professor works. The advantage is that the students, who have begun specializing in high school, focus on the field they hope to work in; they do not have to take courses in the variety of liberal arts fields which American students study both in high school and at university. Obviously, it would benefit our AP students who feel they must take everything from science to math to history, English, and language in high school. But I can’t help feeling that students who emerge from the Oxbridge world wind up so highly specialized that they have missed some rich skirmishes into other fields. I am glad I took chemistry, zoology, botany, advanced math, sociology, political science, psychology, French, and history courses in addition to the English courses I took in my major. I am excited to discuss this issue with my students in the fall to see what they think about the British system. This is also the system in France, but I don’t know about other countries.
Anyway, I arrived from London on the Cambridge train about two p.m. and got the keys to my room. The rooms are designated by staircases around a beautiful courtyard filled with flowers and inhabited by a tortoise who comes out to wander around during the daylight hours. I had twin beds in my room along with a sink, but had to share a toilet and shower with the entire floor. However, they had spread us out around the staircases, so only three of us shared the floor.
Our first evening we gathered in the combination room and were given our schedules for the week, then onto a dinner in the college dining room. Todd, the other Memorial teacher in our group, had arrived by then, and we began to meet other people. It seems that we were the only public school teachers there. At least the only people I got to know taught at private schools in Manhattan, Maryland, New Orleans, Edmonton, Alberta, and other places. When they asked me how I got to come to the seminar, I responded that it was a gift from my school, which I really think is true. The hope, of course, is that we will bring back a variety of experiences to enrich our teaching. Todd and I both were revitalized, inspirited, and stimulated by what we learned during the week, and we are both excited to share our adventures and new ideas with our students.
The next morning our group of six met with Sophie Pickford, our instructor in visual experience. She plays the oboe professionally, engages in photography, has competed in water polo for Cambridge, and specializes in the performance of music in French Renaissance chateaux. However, because of all the cuts in the arts these days, she was not able to find a teaching job in a university and will now be attending law school in London, hoping to eventually combine law with her passions for history, art, and music.
We first discussed the portrayal of the nude in art, focussing the portrayal of feminine form. We then walked to New College, the only all women college in Cambridge, I believe, to view the collection of art by women artists. We were asked to think about subjects and approaches by female artists which might differentiate them from male artists. I was not able to draw any firm conclusions except in cases of particular experiences, such as bearing a child and giving him up for adoption, which were manifested in the work. The garden contained some interesting sculptures; one I liked in particular which suggested the form of owls. We thought about the ways in which placement of sculptures affected the experience of viewing them as well, and about the strong need to touch a sculpture which is usually discouraged by the artist. We were given handouts to read that afternoon from writers who posed questions about seeing, about feminism in art history, and about women artists in history.
After class we took a guided tour around a few points of interest, visited a college chapel where John Harvard, the founder of Harvard College, is immortalized in stained glass, and saw the building where the double helix was discovered by Watson and Crick. Cambridge University is used to designate the few places such as labs and the medical school where many students would work in an area of interest and which would require laboratories and equipment. At least that is what I think is meant by the term university there. It is still a bit confusing. I know that lectures in particular fields are university wide, but are not required. Though why anyone would fail to attend them I can’t imagine as they would be helpful to your course of study and given by renowned professors in the field. The days we read about in nineteenth and early twentieth-century novels in which privileged young aristocrats loll around the colleges are long gone. Gaining admission to Oxford or Cambridge is quite difficult, though tuition is still quite low by American standards. So one can’t imagine anyone who does get admitted wanting to waste any time at all. Those exams which loom at the end of one’s third year determine whether a student leaves with a degree or with nothing, and there is no going back!
Tuesday we ventured into two of the most wondrous parts of the Visual Experience seminar and of Cambridge. We were honored with a tour of the Old Library at St. John’s college to see illuminated medieval manuscripts. They are thrilling to behold because they are so meticulously written and illustrated, and because the colors seem as rich and gorgeous as they must have been when first applied. These were copies of the Bible done by monks in abbeys and could only be read by the head of the abbey himself, once they were prepared.
Afterwards we went to Magdelene (pronounced maudlin) College to see Pepys’ library. Everything was explained by an elderly man who exuded passion for and scholarly knowledge of, the books collected by Pepys. They were actually arranged in ornate cabinets called book presses, press being an old name for storage place. Pepys had what seems to be the first bookcases built to store his collection, which he arranged by size, beginning with the smallest and working around the room to the largest volumes. As Pepys was interested in a wide variety of topics from naval history to folk ballads, his collection is a treasure trove for scholars, but as the books are not arranged by topic, they must be carefullly catalogued. He left the collection to a nephew who had to finish the cataloguing, and eventually the collection was donated to Magdelene.
I think this was the day that my Brazilian friends Shelli, Anni, and I went to the Eagle pub for fish and chips. The ceiling of the rear room is a national monument as members of the RAF and the American 8th Air Force (of which my father was a member) had written names in soot on the ceiling. Now it will forever recall those hectic and frightening days of World War II, and the way some airmen relaxed and had a little fun between missions. East Anglia, where Cambridge is located, was one of the major air fields in England. I am sure that my father, who was in the crew of a B17, must have been based there at least for part of the war. He was certainly somewhere in England when I was born soon after D-Day.
After lunch Sophie took the entire group to the Fitzwilliam Museum (of art) where she talked about particular works of interest. As Cambridge was experiencing a heat wave, and as nothing is air conditioned, I was happy I had my little fan, but I did get very hot and tired and, though I enjoyed everything she spoke about, I found I was much too fatigued to continue looking at the other works. It was a bit cooler outside under the trees. The Fitzwilliam itself is large and beautiful with marble columns and staircases in gorgeous colors.
We had a lecture in the afternoon on poetry about slavery written before 1810, which was enriching, but all the walking had made me very tired and uncomfortable sitting in the hard seats.
The next morning, Wednesday, we discussed theory of sculpture and were able to use the computers to show a sculpture we had particularly enjoyed. I had chosen the glorious tall work outside the Fort Worth Museum of Art which I had visited with both my sons and their families in October of 2007. The glorious day we had being all together made the sculpture resonate as one of my favorites ever. Also I wanted to show the beautiful Etruscan statue inside the museum which faces a mirror reflecting in turn a pool opposite. Duncan took a picture of me holding Elise next to the statue, and when I looked up Google images of the museum that very picture popped up! So I showed that as well. A delicious example of synchronicity.
We all had fun talking about our favorite sculptures and why they were favorites--and it was fun to be able to see them online at the same time. The young teacher from Alberta chose a Haida totem sculpture, so that was fun to see as I have seen so many in British Columbia, not to mention the immense ones at the British Museum.
I had another moment of synchronicity the same morning. Duncan had given me a reproduction of a head of a Roman woman for my birthday a few days before. I e-mailed him that morning that I thought of her as the mother of the Gracchii who said she wore no adornments as her two sons were her jewels. I have thought about that phrase over and over during my life since I had two sons myself. Then when we went across the street to see the display of sculpture at Jesus College, Cornelia Gracchus was one of the women honored by a female sculptor as she had encouraged her two senator sons to pass legislation to help the poor. The sculptures of dresses of various errors are topped with bricks and other items to indicate the woman’s contribution to history. I think Cornelia Gracchus’s head was a pile of bricks. I learned later that the sculptor is a poverist, one who works with inexpensive materials. The gowns being inexpensive plaster and the heads formed from found materials or other inexpensive pieces.
The sculptures which were the group favorites, however, were the identical iron men placed all around the garden--one on the roof overlooking the lawn! we got into join a giant pile of them and took pictures. It was so much fun. The artist encourages touching which is delightful for everyone. A group of children were in the garden and mistook one set of sculptures for playground equipment--and these were by an artist who does not want his works touched.
That afternoon we had two speakers, the former poet laureate of England, Andrew Motion, whom I enjoyed very much, though it was getting really hard to sit still in the hard chairs in the lecture hall. His poems are understated and lovely, and his reading gentle and graceful and elegant. I asked a question about finding the perfect word, which he agreed is very difficult to do.
The next speaker, after our tea, attempted to get a discussion going about animals and ethics, which he is currently thinking and writing about, but it didn’t seem to go very far. I think everyone was tired by this point, and none of us felt we had much to contribute. He did say he does not believe in doing research on primates because they are so close to human beings. I think no one disagreed.
That night we took a wonderful walk to a pub on the Cam River where we could see the crews rowing in their shells and then sit outside to have something to drink--mine was herbal tea which felt great in the cool weather. Since it does not get dark until after ten pm, we could walk back home while it was still light.
The next day was an absolute delight beginning with a tour of Kettles Yard House which is a work of art in itself, filled with the owner’s collections of round pebbles arranged gracefully, with various kinds of art works, hung in unusual ways, such as low to the floor where a table might have been. Beautiful glass and pottery, found objects such as pieces of wood--the whole house was pristine and graceful, though I cannot imagine trying to live in a space where even putting a teacup down on a table would seem to be an intrusion. We also visiting the folk museum which contained domestic items from earlier times including my favorites, the doll houses. Old washing machines, stoves, and all kinds of utensils were on display, each room being a room in the house used for a particular purpose such as the kitchen.
That afternoon we attended a lecture on Oliver Cromwell, had our tea, and then engaged in a learning experience in which we tried to figure out how a card trick was done and then find the explanation for how it worked. The head of Cambridge’s Education college demonstrated this to make us see how difficult learning material can be for our students. It was a great teaching activity. I am thrilled, as well, to say that our group of three was successful, but I think it may have been because of one member, Michael, who seemed to get into the idea of how the deck of cards worked pretty fast. I think I contributed a few ideas but doubt that I could have solved it alone as I never seem to know how magic tricks work!
Friday our group attended a conference in which various scholars presented papers on music and art in Renaissance houses. We were all excited to hear Sophie’s presentation in the afternoon in which she explained what conclusions may be drawn from examining lists of the contents of various French chateaux (she had gone to 37 of them). She is especially interested in musical instruments and rooms in which music may have been played. She explained how the lists were obtained and what they might mean, as many objects, such as children’s toys might be omitted. None of the chateaux now contain original furniture.
We heard several other lectures including one on acoustics and others involving family festivals, the place of music in the artist’s home, and a mural depicting women of one prominent Italian family. It was all very intriguing because the papers are all works in progress, presenting them gave the professors an opportunity to hear the responses and criticisms of others in the field.
That night we went punting on the river with Todd learning to be an expert punter in very short time. We made it to the dam and back without being tipped over once! and I felt like the characters in The Wind in the Willows--so calm and peaceful as we drifted under the weeping willows. Though the words are difficult for her to say in English, our Japanese friend Yoshiko loves weeping willows which also grow in Japan.
Saturday Sophie had to leave early for a wedding, though we were able to discuss many of the experiences we had had with her and to wish her well in her new path in life. She had asked a young lecturer from Christ’s College to discuss the ways works of art are priced and various underhanded means sometimes used to that end. His talk was horrifying as it illuminated the world of art as being much closer to that of rock and roll hype than I would have ever imagined. The galleries control everything it seems--the prices, who is shown, who becomes well known, with the producers of the works themselves gaining only a small percentage. Some auction houses are also corrupt, making false sales, for example, though not the most prestigious ones such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
That afternoon we took a four-mile walk to Grantchester to have tea at the Orchard, a famous gathering place for many years, and a favorite of the Bloomsbury group. I realized that, though I contribute to discussion and questions, I felt a bit out place because I am so slow at walking that the group is continually looking back to see if I have gotten lost. Fortunately, my friend Yoshiko was with me, and I knew it would be better to get there by walking slowly enough that I would not trip or break my ankle again! The other people were mostly in their thirties and much more athletic than I am. But I made it, though Yoshiko and I took a taxi back to the college.
I met so many delightful people including my friends Shellida and Anni from Brazil. Now we can communicate with the internet and maybe even with Skype as we are closer to the same time zones I think. Shelli teaches Portuguese grammar and literature, and Anni teaches science.
The whole experience was inspiring in more ways than I could ever have imagined, and I am thrilled that Memorial was able to send Patti, Todd, and me into this wondrous world of ideas and places. I have certainly enlarged my vista of knowledge.
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