rynling | Statement of Teaching Philosophy

I’m not sure how to explain the vibe of Washington DC if you’ve never spent any significant amount of time there, but it’s an extremely wealthy and competitive city where cosmetic surgery is inexpensive and practically universal. And I don’t mean “universal” as “a white people / Jewish / Armenian thing”; I mean everyone gets it, generally when they’re young. Once you know what to look for, you can easily see it, but it’s not like it’s a secret. Most people are happy to talk about it.

Cosmetic surgery isn’t something that interests me. My soul is ugly, so my face doesn’t really matter.

Nevertheless, when I started giving lectures at media conventions, I realized that something had to be done. I wasn’t a DC insider by any means, so I had to get the names of doctors off the internet like a peasant.

At the first place I went to, the doctor explained that they specialized in treating severe medical cases that require skin grafting. Still, he studied my face for a good five minutes. It was intense. When he was done, he stepped back, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “You are beautiful and perfect.”

“Maybe no one has ever told you that,” he added, “so I thought it might help for you to hear it.”

Then he sighed and gave me a business card for a clinic in the northern Virginia suburbs that does the sort of work I was interested in, which was super helpful. I ended up spending the money on a suit instead of cosmetic surgery, but it was nice to know where I could go if I wanted to fix my face.

Anyway, this is the sort of feedback I want to be able to give my students. I want them to know they are beautiful and perfect, but I also want to give them concrete advice about how to take their work to the next level if that’s what they’re interested in.