Last year I was interviewed for Visible Distance Fanzine about DIY ethics in the classroom. The zine came out a few months ago. The interview is cut up a bit so everyone who was interviewed has their answers separated, so I’ve including my original answers below.
Who are you? Your name, age, where did you grow up?where do you live ?
William Patrick Wend. 40. I grew up in northern New Jersey (AOD and The FUs played like 2 minutes away from where my pediatrician was located), but moved to the shore in 1992. I started slowly getting into hardcore that winter and went to my first show in 1994. I currently live in Mount Laurel, which is about 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia. The address on the Turning Point demo is a few minutes away.
What is/was your involvement in punk/hc (play in a band? Do a label or zine? book shows? Enthusiastic show goer, record collector ? Sxe? Vegan/vegetarian?) What were /are you favorite bands?
Never quite played in a band. Did practice a few times for one, but we were too disorganized to ever play. I think the songs would have ended up sounding like early Youth of Today, Cause For Alarm, Antidote, etc. I know we wanted to cover Artificial Peace's "Outside Looking In." I did a whole bunch of fanzines over the years which are, mostly, collected at signifyningnothing.net. I'm still missing copies of a few things...
I did do American releases for a few band demos back in the 90s. I was also supposed to do a tape compilation which would have had bands from the tri-state area, Europe, and Australia, BCT style, but it fell through. A bunch of American bands were going to give me live stuff....the European bands were from demos and the Australian ones were a bunch of different stuff. I miss BCT style tape compilations a lot. Spotify mixes aren't the same, but especially when it could vanish one day because of "licensing issues." Punk fucking rock.
I only officially was involved with booking two shows. One included Floorpunch, Vision, and some others. The other was a local show. I was the "responsible adult" involved. I was 19. I was not responsible.
Not a big showgoer. I don't like crowds and have significant anxiety issues, so even back in the day I feel like I missed a ton of shows because of that. Also shows were too damn long. I hate how shows have trended towards being longer and longer these days and absolutely loath "fests." 3-5 bands. No set longer than 30 minutes. This is hardcore, not Van Halen.
Half ass collected records but then realized it was a waste of money. Once I was able to digitize everything I sold it all off.
Not straight edge.
28 years vegetarian. I've actually been vegetarian for about a year before I started getting into hardcore.
I guess my biggest contribution to hardcore these days is that I run the Hardcore Show Flyers archive.
Why did you want to become a teacher?
It's all I ever wanted to be. One of my earliest memories was having problems in preschool and wondering if I could do that too. It went from there. I really never had any other career ambitions until much later when I briefly considered journalism (but the job fell through and then the paper went out of business about a year later) and then library/research work, but the day after I went up to Rutgers for their MLS open house events I got the call that nudged me towards my current job. .
What do you teach (grade level, subject, etc.,)
I worked in K-12 from 2002 to 2009. I currently I am an Assistant Professor of Communication Arts. I teach freshman and sophomore level writing courses, plus literature courses (primarily British literature, which is my research field), plus two film courses. I have been the coordinator of our honors program since 2017 and ran the THATCamp Community College unconference at the college from 2013-2019. I just ended my stint as faculty senate secretary the other day.
How has your experience in this subculture influenced your work as a teacher? What about punk/hc, if anything, influences your approach to teaching? Does if come into play at all?
I think the best thing it influences is making sure I am an advocate for my students. I often butt heads with people because I try to bring in not only the excelling student's voice, but the disheartened or underwhelmed ones too. We're in the middle of finals week right now and, especially in the situation we are in right now, I have to make extremely individualized decisions for each student beyond just grading their work. Some of it is making sure they know about resources at the college. Some of it is getting them access to mental health resources. In other cases it's advocating for them with the college. I can't really change a lot in the larger context of academia or politics or whatever, but locally I can really "make a change" and whatnot.
Does being a teacher factor into your engagement with punk/hc ? Is being in a band or doing a label or a zine or something, at all similar/have any parallels or are they unrelated ?
I think the biggest influence was creating zines. The experience of crafting your own projects by hand (I was never one for Pagemaker or Quark Express) and distributing them taught me so much about how to design things that help when creating assignments and projects. I like to do things my way and not use publisher created content that isn't my own. Sure there might be a few typos or changes made after discussing it with students, but I'd rather have raw edges than something real slick and shiny that is soulless or only exists to collect data for third parties.
What, if any tension or conflict to you feel as a teacher? For example: if you have anti-authoritarian leanings, but a teacher is an authority figure of sorts. How do you address these challenges?
Who in hardcore doesn't have anti-authority leanings? I make my classroom very student centered. We have discussions, not lectures. I hate lecturing. I run all assignments by my classes to ensure they are sensible and do not need corrections or further elaboration before they go "live." Any major policy changes made on syllabi are done with a student committee who help me to draft policy language that is then opened up to comment by all of my students before becoming official policy.
A lot of punk/hc is about rethinking, questioning, or unlearning what we were/are told or what ever been taught. Do you ever have to deal with curriculum that you feel is bullshit , is there room to present other perspectives?
One of the big reasons I got out of K-12 was that. It's also why my classes are very discussion based. I want students to feel comfortable expressing themselves and see other perspectives they might not have seen before.
An example of this is the Women's Literature course I teach once every few years. Inevitably, and rightfully, women's suffrage comes up in connection to something we are reading. Last time it was a Kate Chopin short story. I always end up bringing up, on one hand, that many white suffragettes were extremely racist, but, on the other hand, there were also many women during that era who opposed women voting for a wide range of reasons including a belief it wasn't a "woman's place" or a cynicism towards choosing between a range of men who likely did not have their best interests in mind. Students are often stunned to find this out and wonder why they had not before. It makes them rethink what we are reading and leads to new possibilities for research and essay writing.
The education system can at times be a factory like system that churns students out. Sometimes it ends up being about memorization and test score and not always about actually learning something. How do you address the challenge of balancing authentic learning with making sure your students get the necessary boxes checked.
We do a lot of assessments, but they are pretty organically added into assignments. Any exam I give, which is mostly just finals, is take home and available for at least a week. These days our students' lives are so fractured whether by family, work, or personal issues and that gives them a chance to get the work done in their own time. I don't give quizzes or ask for memorization. If someone can just look it up on their phone, why waste their time?
Do you connect differently with students if they seem punk or alternative leaning/ oddball/ weirdo
I guess? I don't really think about that much.
Do students and parents have a sense of or have any knowledge of your punk/hc side or is that not something you share?
I run into students at shows sometimes, but not really. Like 5 years ago I had a student who was totally blown away that I was hanging out with members of a fairly prominent hardcore band at a show. I don't know. They have been my friends for over 20 years. It's not really a big deal to me.
