I've been so busy with MusicSpoke and the beginning of the semester that I haven't had time to blog in a while. I did, however, finally receive a packet of much overdue evaluations of the students at Nebraska Wesleyan from the Fall semester today. I always like to post some highlights from their ever inventive comments. Hopefully Spring comments will be coming soon. Five things need to be clarified.
#1 A student was trying to get my attention one day from across the lounge area of the department. She called out, sort of spontaneously, "Hey...Evil Master, can you come here." The moniker stuck. They made a sign that said, "Evil Master's Lair" and posted it on my office door.
#2 Every semester that I teach undergrad theory, I do an exercise where we compare a Schubert song, a Gershwin song, and a pop song of their choosing. During that semester, we used "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus.
#3 Samantha Peeters still reigns with the best evaluation comment of all time: "He cured my leprosy."
#4 I grew up shark fishing in Florida. The students found an internet picture of me sitting on a shark and made a Christmas tree ornament out of it.
#5 I was a hair model in a trade show once.
Here are the highlights:
"This class is probably the hardest class I have ever taken and he really helps us get through it."
"Evil Master knows how to teach and do it well."
"Thank you Evil Master for putting up with my tardiness."
"He came in like a wrecking ball. Shark-riding abilities. Hair Model."
"He's the wrecking ball of my life."
"We can't stop...doing theory...and we won't stop" - Miley Cyrus
"We put our hands up playing our song and the Theory all goes away. Party in theory USA."
"Knecht came in like a Wrecking Ball, he can't stop and he won't stop. But don't you ever say he just walked away because he will always want you to sight sing."