Posted
by Liz Weslander
January 26, 2006 at 8:42 a.m.
R.I.P. Art Sloan
To this day, I want nothing to do with over-ripe strawberries. While I guess I should technically be thanking Thomas Mann for this, the truth is, I may have never picked up Death in Venice, and actually appreciated it, were it not for [Art Sloan's][1] World Literature class at Lawrence High School. I'm sure I'm only one among thousands who will remember Mr. Sloan as a fun and brilliant teacher who made art and literature accessible to them. If you were ever lucky enough to be taught be Mr. Sloan, take a moment today to honor him. [1]: http://www2.ljworld.com/obits/2006/jan/26/arthur_sloan/
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bwoodard (Bill Woodard) says…
At LHS in the late '70s (yes, he was a faculty fixture for years) I took two of his English classes; he was a terrific, caring teacher. Rest in peace, Mr. Sloan.
lazz (anonymous) says…
Damn.
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
Oh wow. I hadn't heard this yet. How sad.
Mr_A (Bryan Anderson) says…
I had Mr. Sloan for World Lit. my senior year, fall of '94. He is one of the reasons that I am today a high school English teacher (that's why my L.com handle is Mr. A, cause that's what the kids call me sometimes).
cvillehawk (anonymous) says…
Yeah, I had his class in the 80's. I remember liking it, but hadn't thought about it for years. Thanks for reminding me of him, even in a sad way.
gaiapapaya (anonymous) says…
Mr. Sloan, as my kindergartener knew him, was one of the things my son liked about school this year. He was volunteering in the classroom earlier in the year. He was so awesome with the kids, but had to stop helping out because "his doctor told him he couldn't be around lots of children anymore", according to my son. How sad he's gone, but he has touched so many lives in so many ways, he'll always be remembered fondly around here.
wbabbit (Will Babbit) says…
He was a fantastic teacher. I still remember him falling asleep during Henry V scene during world lit, and no one waking him up until the bell went off.
He truly truly loved his books and did his very best to make everyone appreciate them as much as he did.
myshortsareshort (Jacob Kucza) says…
A group I was in presented an activity while he fell asleep! We were almost laughing too hard to get through it. I remember his unbelievable sense of humor and his insane school spirit. Also, his hatred of rap music. He wrote a rap song for our class. And, to him rap was nothing but "Kill whitey! Shake ya booty! Kill whitey! Shake ya booty!" It was a pleasure to be a student of his in the last year he taught. And, I love the "poem" he added to at the end of every Friday class period: "If you drink don't drive. And if you drive, don't drink..."
mike_blur (Mike Blur) says…
Never had Art as a teacher, but my primary memory of him was during a debate tournament, he was the judge, I was first affirmative, my friend Kirk was second affirmative, and these two tiny, painfully shy, blonde girls from some JoCo school were the negative. They were obviously ill-prepared, and we would have stomped them except for the fact that Kirk spent his presentations going on and on about how pathetic they were. Art gave me a "one", the two girls a two-three, and Kirk a four. We lost to the girls on his decision--probably their only victory of the year. He wrote on the judges' card, "second affirmative needs to show some decency and civility."
RIP Art.
OhioJayhawk (anonymous) says…
Awww shit.
Art was...well, Art. I'll never forget him tooling around in a wheelchair with not one, but two broken legs for a whole year. Some stair-climbing mishap, I think. He looked like Shakespeare's Falstaff portraying Raymond Burr's Ironside.
I liked him because he assumed adultness in students.
I'll also never forget my junior year at LHS when I turned in a social studies essay to one asshole teacher who I won't name (okay, screw it, it was Carl Mibeck). It was a throw-away thing on how the "melting pot" was an American myth. I got the paper back the next day, and he'd given me an F. His rationale was that since I was a football player, I clearly wasn't capable of that kind of rational thought and therefore had cheated. I happened by Sloan in the hall immediately after that class and told him what happened. He grabbed Mibeck and ran him -- well, waddled him -- down to the counselor's office and showed the a-hole my school records (I was a national merit scholar and valedictorian who happened to play offensive line for Bill Freeman in my spare time. This was before I discovered pot. But I digress...) Anyway, it was a sweet moment courtesy of a sweet man.
Sad...
PJ
hilary (anonymous) says…
Everyone remember this one?
"If you drink, don't drive.
If you smoke, don't toke.
etc..."
Does anyone remember more?
My personal favorite memory was when he directed us in "Kiss Me, Kate". We had had 2 or 3 snow days in a row, and it was during production week of the show. Our first and last dress rehearsal all took place. We managed to get through it, which was more than we had anticipated. Thankful, and excited, we sat down for notes after the run. Art shouted from the back of the auditorium, "If I had a gun, I would shoot every last one of you." We lost that feeling.
He was an incredible teacher, gave me the Rocky Horror Picture Show poster in his room. I had him for 2 classes, was in a show under his direction, and traveled with him for a festival. I ran into him last spring, and he had no recollection of me. It really saddened me.
stechell (anonymous) says…
If it weren't for Mr. Sloan falling asleep in the middle of an "Ah Wilderness!" read through, I never would have shown Willie Averill my boobs for a quarter (or was it just one boob?). Good times.
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
Um hon, I bet ya coulda charged more than a quarter!
lawrencekid (anonymous) says…
how about when mr. sloan would freakout when anyone threw anything across the room because when he was a kid he was attacked by a bird?? when i took humanities with him we did a stream on conciousness excercise and he read what we all had written, verbatim. Our class was so large it had to be held in the chorus room. It was pricessless to see mr. sloan at 8 am slowly diciphering "I___am___so___drunk__and__high__right__now". My friends and I still joke about it.
myshortsareshort (Jacob Kucza) says…
Here's as much as I can remember. I'm not sure if it's completely correct.
"If you drink, don't drive.
If you drive, don't drink.
If you smoke, don't toke.
If you toke, don't inhale--thank you former President Clinton."
Some other lines were: "If you kiss, don't tell."
"If you free-base, don't burn."
And,one about the exchange of bodily fluids...
We need to figure the whole thing out!
philby (anonymous) says…
I knew Art Sloan as an educator, artist and community activist. I was out of town and was very sorry to hear of Art's passing. He was quite the character, quite the educator, quite the man. I remember distinctly when I was in a high school production of My Fair Lady with Art as theatrical director. And what not many know is that in recent years Art used to come to the Sandbar on Friday after work, (where I ply my hobby and re-live my youth as an occasional bartender), to visit with former students and have a libation (although lately it was of the soft variety). I like many of you have stories and would like to share them with others.
"The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. "
Agree, disagree, dislike or cherish, I believe he did and the evidence is in you all.
Your friend,
PB
There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.
George Matthew Adams
deskiedennis (anonymous) says…
I have a lot of fond memories of Sloan. I was lucky enough to have two of his classes in the same semester, and have him direct me in a play. My character was onstage for the entire show, and half of it I spent "sleeping." Of course during rehearsal I would accidentally fall asleep for real. I don't know if anyone else has ever been woken up by Mr. Sloan yelling "mersmann!" but it's kind of life changing. His voice was so booming, I thought I'd died and God was screaming at me. I didn't feel too bad about it since he fell asleep during one of my in-class presentations.
"if you mainline, don't miss."
mcoan (anonymous) says…
Sadly, obesity kills.
Fun reading everyone's memories here. Gawd, the Internet is cool.
jayhawkanne (Anne Bracker) says…
I was lucky enough to have Mr. Sloan for a 20th Century Lit class in the late 80s. It was held over lunch period and we'd "check in" to class for a few minutes and then go to 1st lunch. We'd all trickle in over about a 10 minute period upon return from lunch and Mr. Sloan would always get into an interesting conversation with one of us during that time.
One day during lunch, a friend of mine (name withheld to protect the "innocent") heard a word she had never heard and the rest of us in the group wouldn't tell her what it meant and instead suggested she look it up in the big ole unabridged dictionary on the window sill in Mr. Sloan's classroom. We, of course, were totally smirking and giggling because *we* knew the word was slang for a, um, female part. When we came back to class, she crossed the room to check the dictionary and Mr. Sloan asked her what word she was looking up. Beginning to suspect treachery on our part, she didn't want to tell Mr. Sloan the word. She blushed and Mr. Sloan immediately pegged it correctly, "Are you looking up a dirty word?" She replied that she was looking it up because she didn't know if it was a dirty word or not. Mr. Sloan looked at the rest of us and we completely dissolved into boisterous laughter.
Mr. Sloan: "Is it a 4 letter word?"
Her: "uh-huh"
Mr. Sloan: "What letter does it start with?"
Her: "T"
Mr. Sloan: "What letter does it end with?"
Her: "T"
Mr. Sloan:
Her: "Oh, here it is. I found it...."
By this time, about 75% of the class had returned to Mr. Sloan and my group chuckling and chortling and the girl looking embarrassed enough to want to crawl under the floor. Someone asked what was going on and Mr. Sloan mentioned that she was looking up an unknown and perhaps embarrassing word. When someone asked what the word was, he took great glee in bursting out with a resounding, resonating response..."TWAT!" The class never recovered that day, and for the rest of the semester, when things started to deteriorate over something or other, one of us would say the word under our breath and the room would completely degenerate. Good times, Mr. Sloan...good times.
Carmenilla (anonymous) says…
Haven't posted on here in months but this one's worth it.....
Art Sloan made learning easy. He made it fun.
I will never forget the way he would say "connubial couch" with that devilish gleam in his eyes. The man never took for granted the power of bawdy humor and double entendre. He made art history and humanities lectures come alive. He really took you back in time.
Sad to see him go......
Phylgood (anonymous) says…
Indeed, an inspirational educator. I only wish I had gone to his class more, however, I do remember:
If you speed, don't crash!!!
R.I.P. Mr. Sloan,
Phylgood 1993
Willer (anonymous) says…
Someone clarify this! --
Was it that he thought he was eating a bag of overripe strawberries and they turned out to be fried hummingbirds? Tell me I am remembering this correctly...
and even if this is only partially correct, you get the idea as to what kind of teacher Art Sloan was. Hilarious,, irreverant, narcoleptic.. the guy really did make an effort to share his love of literature with my World Lit class.
I remember walking into class early from lunch one day (I don't know how this happened, as it was easy as pie to sneak in late without Art noticing) and finding Art passed out asleep in his desk chair, sprawled over his desk, snoring like a walrus with a debiated septum. I shepherded the rest of the students quietly into the classroom, and we managed to go the rest of the period without him waking up. The bell woke him up all snorting and confused and whatnot, and I can remember him chuckling softly as we filed out of the room as if nothing had happened.
Thanks for this and other nice memories, Art, you seemed to know that we were smarter than most teachers gave us credit for, and gave us the voice to express ourselves. You will be missed.
tbecs (anonymous) says…
A friend of mine gave me his entire "Friday Advice from Mr. Sloan" at the funeral on Saturday.
Remember, if you drive, don't drink, and if you drink, don't drive; if you chug, don't choke, if you smoke, don't toke; if you toke, don't inhale (thank you, former President Clinton!); if you snort, don't sneeze; if you mainline don't miss; if you free base, don't burn; if you do acid, stay polacid; if you cruise don't crash; if you park don't pet; if you kiss, don't tell; if you French, don't bite; if you peck, don't hickey; if you flirt, don't tease; if you tease don't laugh; and if you truly love, do not exchange bodily fluids!
Mr. Sloan was a great teacher. At the time, I don't think that I realized just how much I learned from him. It wasn't until years later when having an intelligent conversation about War and Peace did I figure out just how much I gained from his class.
I loved counting the "okayeees" (nasel noise) that he did while teaching!
We were all very lucky to have Mr. Sloan be a part of our lives. He will be missed.
BB
kangamini (anonymous) says…
My favorite memories of Sloan are both from class and from the trip through Europe I went on when I graduated in 96. One of my favorite class stories is when I wanted to attend a seminar at KU's computer center on the UNIX operating system. I had a permission slip from the gifted office and I needed him to sign it - when he asked what I was going for I told him. He got a confused look on his face and said, in his loud booming voice (class was about to start at this point) "You're going to learn how to be a eunich??"
Ahh - he will be missed!
vegasartie (anonymous) says…
Art
Sorry 'bout your two legs
How was I to know you'd fall down the steps and break them both?
It was Chuck's fault, the swine.
Champagne in Vienna,
That was my first Champagne buzz -- I was only 16 --
And the Hoffbrau House! -- a great first drunk.
Iguana X, Pope Soap on a Rope, The Boomtown Rats,
A nunnery in Rome and turtle soup along the Thames.
Remember when you wanted to toss me off the last car of the Orient Express? Bastille Day in Paris? The night the Opera stopped for the death of a pope and we made it onto Good Morning America -- Them nuns was evil!
Visit me in dreams...you never knew the influence you had...
megiddo (anonymous) says…
One of the best teachers I had in school. He was the exception to the rule. Fuck LHS, Fuck my school.