Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

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PETER SLATER Often, too often perhaps, students are tempted to judge teach- ers on criteria better suited to judging actors. We lend to think teachers should above all be ' exciting ' . We like well organized, fast moving classes. Peter Slater ' s classes have been known to be unor- ganized; they have been known to drag. He has little sense of the dramatic. Nonetheless, Peter Slater is a good teacher, and maybe even better than that. His strength is, in one sense, precisely thai he is not interested in acting. He is interested, first of all in his discipline. Religion: and he is content to lei the discipline itself and his own involve- ment in it do the business of ' exciting ' students. Consequently, his classes are characterized by being thoroughly relaxed and natural. There is no tension that one must listen carefully to catch every rising intonation; there is no tension that one must become involv- ed in a student -teacher dialogue. One sits back and considers the discipline; one is, as it were, freed to learn. ■The discussion rambles, focused only occasionally by Mr. Slater with a burst of critical intelligence directed sometimes at the litera- ture and sometimes at students. He fills blackboards with references and suggestions for reading one could do, if you ' re interested. If not, that ' s all right too. He is interested, and he hopes you might be too; but that ' s up to you. — Ethan Feinsod