Victor Cahn: Classroom Virtuoso

Victor Cahn

Skidmore English professor and Shakespeare expert Victor L. Cahn teaches courses in the Bard, modern drama, and the history of drama. He is also a serious amateur violinist, a fierce table tennis player, and an accomplished playwright and actor. Right now, for instance, he's starring as Felix Unger in the Curtain Call Theatre production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (weekends through Oct. 10; call 518-877-7529 for info and tickets). His published works include six scholarly books, two guides to student life, and several plays. Below he shares some high points from his recently published Classroom Virtuoso: Recollections of a Life in Learning, which he dedicates "To My Students."

Classroom Virtuoso recounts some stories that you tell students about your varied interests. Has being an intellectual jack-of-all-trades been good for you?

One of my lines in the book is that "there's talent, and then there's Talent." Over the years I've discovered that I have a few talents with a small "t," and maybe one or two with a capital "T." Basically, though, I'm a performer, and the classroom has turned into my venue. I came to actual theatrical acting late in life, but in a sense I've been performing since I started teaching. I'm one of those people who's more comfortable onstage than in an audience, as I realized when I wrote this book. I guess the theme of my life is learning in one form or another, and that subject definitely includes performing.

Your book's introduction recalls the moment you realized you were meant to teach—in your second day working at a prep school in Pennsylvania. You actually sat down on your desk, with legs dangling, and from that moment all went well?

I won't say that everything has gone well, because I've made plenty of mistakes. But on that first day, when I drilled vocabulary words with the class, I spoke more passionately and imaginatively than I had during eight years of high school and college, so I knew that something was up. 

These days I still sit on my desk, almost always in a dark suit with a bright tie, and I still think of myself onstage, improvising. I don't have lecture notes, just comments in the text to remind me of certain key points I want to make. I start most classes by asking students to react to the reading assignment, and their responses dictate how we proceed. I've taught a good many of Shakespeare's plays 25 times or more, but I'm still surprised by where my students lead me. Some, for instance, love The Taming of the Shrew, while others can't stand it.

And they're allowed to hate it?

Sure. One of my favorite comments to write on a paper is something like "I disagree entirely with your thesis – A." If the paper is well-organized and intelligently written, and uses evidence effectively, fine. Whether students adhere to my point of view doesn't matter. In fact, I have more fun when they disagree.

What do you want from your students?

If they put forth a good effort and master the material, then respond to it passionately, I'm happy.

And what do students want from a teacher?

Organization, for one. Students have a right to know what a teacher expects from them. At the beginning of the semester, I announce that unless there's an earthquake, we'll stick closely to the syllabus, which includes quite a few quizzes, often unannounced, as well as a short-answer midterm. A portion of my students don't particularly care for these exams, which have clear right-and-wrong answers, but when I was in school such tests kept me reading, and I suspect most of my students feel the same way.

There are so many funny stories in your book. Do you ever relate them in class?

All the time. Although students appreciate structure, they also enjoy occasional digressions about a teacher's life outside the classroom. About 20 years ago in New York City, I ran into a student whom I had taught in 1969, my first year on the job. He told me, "One thing I remember is that we always could get you to tell a story." I haven't changed. I just hope I don't indulge myself too often.

Can you imagine teaching anything other than English?

If you told me that next semester I'll be teaching algebra or French, I'd be okay. On the other hand, I suspect that many of my colleagues who are accomplished and dedicated teachers think of the discipline itself as their profession. No matter whether they specialize in literature, philosophy, or physics, their subject is paramount. But I'm a teacher first, and English just happens to be what I teach. I certainly enjoy dramatic literature, and I also enjoy studying criticism and other aspects of the field. Yet I know that what attracts me most is the element of performance.

How does that work out in the classroom?

A lot of students enter my courses figuring that Shakespeare has to be boring. But from the first day, I remind them that we'll be reading plays, with lines meant to be spoken by actors in front of an audience. I also tell them that since I'm an actor and a playwright, I'll follow my natural tendency and approach these plays like scripts. Other teachers approach the plays very effectively from an historical perspective or through the intricacies of the verse, but I'm concerned most about how an audience reacts, just as I always ask myself how students are reacting to what I present.

Any tips you might want to pass on to those considering teaching as a profession?

I hesitate to offer advice to anyone, because what works for me might not work for anybody else. Good teachers come in all varieties. Some lecture, others repeatedly call on students to answer pointed questions. Some teachers are quiet and reflective. Others are extroverts who put on a show.

I do think that one ingredient essential to being an effective teacher is to establish guidelines for the class as a whole, but also to respond to students as individuals. And I'm pretty sure that my colleagues in the English Department not only agree with me, but also strive toward that goal.

I also look to be encouraging whenever I can. Finding fault is easy, but if students put forth a substantial effort, then receive nothing but disapproval, they may simply give up.

What's probably most important is how you conduct yourself as a person. Students don't expect teachers to be perfect, but they do expect us to be fair. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it, then do your best to correct it. Ultimately, I suspect, the core of what we teach is ourselves.

B.F. Skinner wrote, "Education is what remains after everything that has been learned has been forgotten." I know that my students will probably not remember details about what Richard II said in Act I, Scene ii, but I hope that their enthusiasm for Shakespeare and drama lasts forever.  ~ Interview conducted by Barbara Melville, Office of Communications

**A short of list of this interviewer's favorite passages from Classroom Virtuoso includes "The Universe and Dr. Cahn" (about his dream as a 14-year-old to achieve a career in physics so blazing that "Someone would name a unit of measurement after me: a 'cahn'"); a rant about the board game Monopoly (pp. 91-92, in a chapter titled "Confessions of a Closet Jock"); and the book's closing chapter, "Curtain." (Portions and/or versions of both "Confessions" and "Curtain" originally appeared in The New York Times.)

 

 

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