Robert Pirsig Tell Us She Is => *** The Divine Sarah!!! ***

Robert Pirsig MOQ Media Interview Excerpt => “On Teaching English, Especially Writing, At Montana State College, Bozeman Montana”. (Now Montana State University.)
…This excerpt has been taken, with his kind permission, from Dr Anthony McWatt's “On The Road With Robert Pirsig” and “The MOQ at Oxford” DVDs.
…See below for Blue Link and explanation. where you may obtain these and his other DVDs below.
…The Notes in [brackets] are by me (transcriber, Henry Gurr). Mr. Pirsig's pauses are indicated by “….”. It may seem that there are a lot of “ands”, but these were in the original DVD.
…Permission to transcribe and post, was granted by Dr McWatt, in an email to me dated 7 June 2010. Many “thank yous” go to Dr McWatt for first making these DVDs, checking these transcriptions, and then granting this permission to post this transcription.

NOTICE: Additional Duplication of the copyrighted materials found on this WebPage, may NOT be done, without additional written permission of the copyright holder, in this case Dr Anthony McWatt. If you want to Duplicate (or Internet Post) copyrighted materials, you yourself, must first write to get permission. This applies for any copyrighted material, whether on this page or not. Henry Gurr ZMMQ Web Master 15 June 2010.

Robert Pirsig Discusses His Problems With Teaching English And The Origins Of His Awareness Of Quality.

…This transcribed segment below, starts at ~27:20 minute, in the “On the Road with Robert Pirsig” DVD and continues for about 3 min.

"[Back in 1959 to1960,] I was in Bozeman Montana, teaching English, and the problems came up of …. it isn't getting across. I had a textbook in front of me that told me what to tell students, … and I could see the students sitting back there bored and I was not connecting in any way. I didn't know how you could teach English in such a way they would really learn it, other than to simply imitate what I was telling them. And this became a deeper and deeper problem as I went on. And I tried all sorts of experiments.
…"And then there was a really sweet old lady there named Sarah Vinke, was her name. And she …. just to tease me a little said, “Well I hope you are teaching Quality to your students” you know. She knew very well, that I didn't know what she meant by that, but it was part of her …. her wisdom, to just keep asking that question. She'd ask that day [every day?]. “How is Quality coming with your students? And I would say, “Oh it's wonderful!, I'm doing well.” And she would say “Oh I'm so happy you are teaching Quality to you students! But you are, you are the only one!” [RP laughter here.]
…So she is gradually drawing me into this question, “What is Quality?” And that got me into the situation where I wanted to teach honestly something about English, but found the way this thing was set up, I wasn't teaching anything honestly. I was just telling them rote things: Get your sentences straight. Don't dangle your modifiers. Organize your outlines and all this stuff. But it really, really wasn't there. And then came this comment from this lady, a former Greek Scholar, who said “I hope you are teaching Quality”. And that began this migration which has led us here. [Pirsig very quiet and thoughtful at this point.]

Interviewer: "It's interesting that she was a Greek Scholar, [and] that you’ve gone back and traced the roots of ….

" Yes, If you are going to up-end all human understanding, you've got to go back to the beginning. [And] our Western understanding does really start with the [Ancient] Greeks really. God knows why …. God doesn't know how they got started on that particular questioning which led to their love of reason and their ability to analyze things, … it was lost ….. The Romans never really picked up on it.
…But I asked her the question: “Did Greeks, the Ancient Greeks, was that [Quality] a part of their thought?” And she said “It was every part of their thought.” [Here RP is talking in a whisper for emphasis, then burst out loudly and happily next sentence:]
…And SHE had a sense of Quality! A brilliant teacher! They [her students] called her “The Divine Sarah!”, that was her first name. And the students who’d had her, said “When your got done with the class with her, your head just went round and round and round!!” She's that kind of person, [who] would bring it out of herself and present it to her classes!! I think I was her last student. She retired just after that, and I missed her greatly.”

At time 1h:27:55 on “The MOQ at Oxford” DVD, Pirsig then adds “You meet people and they give you something and you try to give them something in return. And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but in her case I won .. you know.”

Later, at time 34:09 on the “On The Road” DVD, Pirsig says “Sarah was the only one supporting me. She said of me “The rest of them [English faculty], didn't know what you are talking about.” [END of above excerpts.]

[For a similar Robert Pirsig statements re Sarah “only one supporting me”, scroll down to the last letter on my WebPage “Letters ToFrom Robert Pirsig” at:
http://venturearete.org/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/Documents/LetPirsig2006-2007 ]

[In the next DVD part, Mr Pirsig tells how, he came to realize he too “Did not know what Quality was!!!" He ended up thinking about Sarah's “Quality”, till 3 AM in the morning. Since he had not prepared any lecture for the next day's class, he tells what happened when he assigned this as an class writing exercise. Mr Pirsig's DVD "story" here on this DVD, follows closely ZMM Chapters 16 and most of 17. It is significant that these two Chapters are the beginning of ZMM Part Two.
…By Henry Gurr ZMMQ Web Master 15 June 2010.]

Robert Pirsig Tells Approximately the Same Story, At The AHP Conference “THE HEART OF THE MATTER: VALUES FOR A WORLD COMMUNITY” July 29th - August 1st, 1993 San Diego, California.

…The whole Robert Pirsig - Chip Baggett, Transcript Is VERY Interesting, But You'll need to scroll down to read the Sarah Vinke Part, Click Here

Where to learn more about Dr Anthony McWatt' website & available documentaries on DVD . These are all about Robert Pirsig and his books: "Lila" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Click on the link given below to view Dr Anthony McWatt's DVDs, which at one time (but no longer) were available from his old website, now viewable thru Archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20180109183945/http:/robertpirsig.org/

Contact Information For Henry Gurr, WebSite Master For This ZMMQ Site.

If you have questions or more information is needed, please do not hesitate to write by email. At lower left, a click will take you to my Professor Henry Gurr page having my full contact information.
Sincerely
Henry Gurr
Professor of Physics Emeritus
University of South Carolina Aiken.
15 July 2010. Rev 17 Nov 2023.

Links To Additional Reading Related To the Above Article.

1) The Sarah Vinke Of My Student Days, by Dennis Gary

2) Short article, “BOOKS I’VE ENJOYED” by Sarah Jennings Vinke, with added commentary by Dennis Gary and Henry Gurr. This was originally published, 1960, in the Montana Library Association Journal.

3) COMMENTARY RE SARAH VINKE’S “BOOKS I’VE ENJOYED”.
Our Email Conversations As Well As Information Re Viewing On Internet
by Dennis Gary, BS. Montana State College 1960, & Henry Gurr, ZMMQ WebSite Master

4)
New pages, for your study & research, have been placed on these ZMMQ WebPages. To see the most relevant of these please click at upper left (on the main menu) where it says "Research:1950’s Montana State U English Dept".

Composed HG 13 June’10; Rev Add AHP Link 30 May’15. RevHSG17Nov23.

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