David Stafford-Clark

Transcription

So my dad, William Stafford, is a mystery to me after knowing him for 64 years today, my birthday. He came out of Kansas, Hutchinson one of the most conservative towns in America, and yet he was kind of a radical a free thinker. He was a seeker, as he said, when people asked him about his calling, "I am a seeker" and I think that that identifies something that informed his writing, his teaching and his witness. In his writing he was not trying to prove anything he was not ever on high, he was seeking, he was listening every morning before it got light. And in his teaching he was not professing he was listening. In his witness in the world he traveled in order to invite people to listen to each other, that was his form of witness. So one thing about my dad's way of teaching is, I don't know if I can say typified but exemplified by his last semester. He went into class, humanities class, he sort of did what he'd done, he had a conversation with the students and so on but then at the end of the class he said to the students “You know, I think I talked too much. So, our next class, I’m not going to say anything. We’ll call it dumb day. Of course I’ll be very interested in what happens, and we just need someone to volunteer to start the discussion, and then we’ll just let it go.” and so one student raised her hand, like that would be the easy part to start the discussion so he came the next class and the students said "Hello Dr. Stafford" and he said [raises his finger to his lips] oh that's right you're not going to say anything he looked at the student who was going to start the discussion, and she was way over-prepared. She had done a lot of reading, she had all kinds of agenda, and finally the students said, “Relax, relax, it’s okay.” And my father said, “I witnessed the best day of teaching of my career. Everyone spoke. there was a big variety of opinions. They’d look at me, I wouldn’t say anything, they’d go back to talking. And I thought, why didn’t I do that my whole career?” So I think that experiment typifies his readiness to try new things, his loyalty to the initiative of the students, his humility, his engagement with the learning process.