Big Sid's Vincati: A Father, A Son and the Motorcycle of a Lifetime by Matthew Biberman

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Reading Crawford’s polemic Shop Class as Soul Craft made me think back to my days teaching community college.  Crawford stresses throughout his book that physical labor is good and that we ought to revive shop class in the United States, but no where does he talk about going in to teach such a class himself.

Well, back in the mid-90’s I found myself living in Iowa, slaving away on my fiction. But I also needed to earn some cash and like so many of my fellow creative writers I ended up teaching at the local community college for about a thousand dollars a class.   Most often it was composition I or II, but at the start of one semester, the English Department chair called me in to ask if I would consider teaching a class called communication skills.  He explained that it was a course they required of all vocational students and that my section would be filled with men who were enrolled in the auto mechanics certification program Des Moines Area Community College then offered. He was asking me to take the class because he knew my dad was a motorcycle mechanic and he thought I might be able to reach those students or at the very least keep them in line, something the past instructor had failed to do.  I reluctantly agreed.

I quickly sought out the previous instructor, an older woman with a D.Phil degree from Drake.  I liked her and she confided to me that she had grown to hate those students with a visceral passion.  She summed it all up by stressing to me one basic fact: “Matthew,” she said, “they smell.” The memory contorted her face and for a second she looked as if she was being forced to breathe in excrement.

I thought then of George Orwell’s unforgettable account of working class life—The Road To Wigan Pier.  There he had the bravery to admit that as a child of the middle class he could bond with the working man in concept but that if he was honest the true hurdle he could never overcome was his physical recoil from the smell of poverty.  Crawford talks about how his wife came to recognize the smells of solvents on his body but he never stresses the degree to which this experience can drive a couple apart.  There is nothing like watching a woman look at you like you are an animal that needs to be hosed off.   There is nothing like growing up in a house hearing your mother sob at never being able to keep a house clean.  There is nothing like looking at clothes tossed into the trash because the washer somehow transferred the smell from your father’s clothes to your school clothes.

The first day I taught communication skills I got a rude awakening. I spent the first half of the class doing a walk through of the syllabus and matching names with faces.  As I worked down the roster and looked at the rows of cornfed husky farm boys I took stock of my situation.  I sensed that they were actually good kids but that this was their first time away from home and Des Moines beckoned as a place to get wild.

During break, the smallest of the students approached me with a missive.  He was like Piggy in Lord of the Flies: glasses and a pot belly.  I later learned he had served in Panama during the US invasion.  “Sir,” he explained politely as if I was a commanding officer who could not be expected to look at an insignificant memo, “we’re just grease monkeys.  Its no use trying to teach us.”  I was being offered a deal: conduct the class as a study hall, file grades and move on.

Maybe I should have taken the deal.  But instead I reconvened class and told them that they needed to learn how to communicate.  I got as basic as I could.  I asked them, when you stop midway in a repair because your shift has ended, what do you do? One of the men responded: “Leave a note for the next guy.”

 “A-ha,” I said. “You see—you do need to write, you need to look up  parts, read service sheets, work with computer diagnostics—you need to take this class.”

Still, when I dismissed them that first day, I knew the battle was far from won. My students sensed that I wasn’t going to roll over but they left confident that they had the upper hand. 

The next day I announced a change in the schedule.  I was following the generic syllabus that had been given me.  It had the speaking unit at the end.  I told them I was beginning with the speaking unit.  We would do the speeches at the end of the class but that for the next class I wanted each student to get use to the experience of talking before an audience now so that they would be ready to give a longer presentation later.  Therefore, each student was to stand where I stood, at the front of the class, and talk for two minutes—about anything they wanted.  Then I sat in the first row and asked each student to just stand up and walk to the front of the class and get a feel for the space they would be speaking in. Now I watched each young man walk up front, and as they looked out over the class I glared at them just as they glared at me.  I could tell that some of the men didn’t believe I would follow through on the assignment.

When the next class came it was a revelation.  Each student realized how tough it was to stand in front of that group and talk. I couldn’t have scripted it better. In fact the biggest smart ass in the class actually froze and walked out into the hallway.  I found him outside and we talked until I persuaded him that he wasn’t a chicken and his buddies would still respect him and he should go back in and take his seat.  I told him I wanted him to succeed and get a good job as a mechanic.  He just needed to work with me.

After that, the class actually went well.  And the speeches at the end were fun: I still remember the one Piggy gave about being assigned to one of Noreiga’s  mansions.  He spent his time guarding Noreiga’s parrot.

NOTE

A RESPONSE DEEP SINGH'S BLOG ON BIG SID'S VINCATI:

http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/the_sort_of_book_you_actually_want_to_write_big_sids_vincati

ALSO

STANLEY FISH ON BIBERMAN, CRAWFORD and PIRSIG 

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/fathers-sons-and-motorcycles/

THE NEW YORKER ON CRAWFORD 

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/22/090622

CRAWFORD IN THE NYT MAG 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html