I found Mary Ann's intro to Drawing 1 to be direct while still funny and a bit self deprecating. Several individual questions came up at the beginning of class, which she addressed informally, often asking students for their experience and input, which already created a sense of a "safe space" before it felt like class had formally, officially begun.
She used her introduction of me as a segue into different teaching and learning styles--students can seek out or listen for different methods and explanations from each of us. She got into this more by explicitly talking about how some students in this class will be renderers and some won't, how that doesn't determine value as a practicing artist, how you might be the worst in the class but by the end you'll be better than you were before. Strong renderers, she said, would be an asset, sharing insight with others. It diffused tension about "talent" and set a tone for individual comparisons only. She followed it up by clearly stating why we were still practicing figure drawing, if it doesn't determine artists' value--and continued to reiterate those reasons throughout the intro.
Talk about academic ethics was funny. "In history, it's called plagiarism; in art it's called appropriation." She encouraged students to openly look, copy, steal, adapt. They liked it. I liked it! I've never heard that in a course intro before. She also consistently offered students choices--about what materials to buy, when and where to work, etc--making a point of treating them as adults. Metaphors added color. Mary Ann talked about figure drawing in terms of jogging (for some people the first two miles just suck) and calisthenics (a practicum, not the end game).
When she needed to get into "real talk"--about evaluation specifics, expectations, anything really serious--she took a step away from the podium, away from the syllabus, and made more eye contact. It was slight but noticeable. Here, there weren't choices, there were expectations, but she also made a point to explain why those policies were fair.
