The Essential Need for an Honest Critique
I believe that we all are the sum of both the positive and negative experiences, and people, in our past and present lives. As an instructor, I know that both my good teachers and bad teachers helped to shape my teaching styles and methods. In some cases, one of my teachers would do or say something, and I would think, wow, I gotta use that when I teach! Other teachers, I would make a note to do the exact opposite.
It is with this in mind that I would like to publicly share what I feel was the defining moment in my style of giving direct, brutally honest, critiques.
It was my senior year at the Atlanta College of Art, and as custom before graduation I had to have several members of the faculty, as well as my department head, give final critiques (an exit review), of my portfolio. My reviews were going well, and if memory serves me correctly, I only had one review left, my department head. I had this gentleman as an instructor once or twice, and to be fair, I was not a fan of his teaching, or his lack of knowledge on what he was teaching, either that, or I was a typical, arrogant, slack student at the time, aspiring to be a professor—anyway, back to the review.
I presented my work, and his critiques and suggestions for improvement were good, better than good, they were awesome! So much so that it led me to say to this gentleman…
“I would like to thank you, this has been one of the best critiques you’ve ever given me.”
He replied, “Well it’s a lot easier to critique you now, because you’re not a student in my class. I mean, lets face it, you’re a big guy.”
As a side note, my department head was an average height, average build kind of guy, I on the other hand, am 6 foot 4, 300+ pounds.
It then occurred to me that this gentleman had never given me an honest critique before because he was afraid of me. Ironically, I had never wished to cause this man any bodily harm, until he had uttered those words.
I would like to take you now years later, to my 1st day of class opening lecture.
“I am going to call roll now, this will be the last time you hear your name from me until you’ve earned it. If by the end of the semester I am not calling you by name, it’s not that I’m bad with names, it’s that your work sucked, it’s not my fault. At times I may appear friendly, but I am not here to be your friend, I am here to teach you. In fact if you can’t stand me, it makes grading you a lot easier. If you ask for a critique from me, I may ask you for “permission to be blunt”, if you feel that is something you can not handle, do not give me permission… We will now take a 30 minute break so those of you that feel you need to drop this class may do so.”
So this is all to say that telling someone that their work is OK, when you really think its sub par, or even worse, utter crap, it does more harm than good.
Equally, if the work is good, even if you hate it, especially if you hate it – even if you hate the fact that the very sight of the work singes your cornea, and sucks your will to live! If it’s good, tell them its good!
I believe it is far better to simply be honest, or be simply quiet.
