"I believe it’s important to try and get a class to laugh at least once a week. Laughter relaxes a lot of stress. And day-to-day classroom, if I’m going to lecture a lot, I’m stressing them a lot. Are they getting all of this down? Do they have to memorize pages of this stuff that he’s throwing at us? If they find themselves laughing right in the middle of that anxiety, they’re less anxious. And if you’re less anxious, I think—I believe that I can get more teaching done."
T.P. Elliott-Smith
Former Professor
Participant: T.P. Elliott-Smith
Interviewer: Jennifer Rudolph
Date of Interview: March 20, 2014
Location of Interview: MCC Brockton campus, Brockton, MA
Time Period Discussed: 1940s - 2014
Project: Massasoit Community College Oral History Project
Department: Massasoit Library ARCHIVE
Length of Interview: minutes
Description: Elliott-Smith discusses childhood and education from World War II era, his draft into the army, attendance at University of Vermont, and his early teaching career in public schools. He began at Massasoit in 1966, where he taught many different classes for the English department and continued to do so through until the time of this interview in 2014.