Dr. Maya Angelou
Dr. Maya Angelou is
the Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,
NC where she teaches a master class in World Poetry and Dram–atic Performance. Teaching
is extremely important to her and teaching literature an affair
of the soul. “To educate is to liberate,” and great
teachers “remind people of what they already know instinctively,” though
they have wonderful allies in great literature. Bad teaching
is learning by rote and, even if unintentionally, conveying
an attitude of condescension. She is sorry to say so, but she
does—there are teachers today who humiliate, insult,
or remain indifferent or insensitive to their struggling young
charges, many of whom have no stable home. They punish instead
of reward, even demanding that poor behavior and performance
be met by extra reading assignments. What a distortion of literature,
what a block to inculcating self-esteem! “Youngsters
may do wrong but they know in their heart what is right.”
—Joan
Baum, Ph.D
