Monday, July 23, 2007
We Were Just Starting to Enjoy the Summer
(and don't replace my title with your usual glib and unfunny 'attempts' at humor.
- Because you think your own 'research' is more important than students. (PS: nobody reads academic books except other academics.)
- Because students need guidance not disciplinary punishments and 'rules'.
- Because you only work 8 months of the year while many of your students and the rest of the 'real' world work 12 or more.
- Because an 'academic' degree means less and less in this world. (Check out CNN.com to see why.)
- Because on this site you all complain so much about hating it. Why wouldn't you choose to be 'happy'?
- Because too many of you have taught for too long and are 'burnt out' and have stopped bringing new material into the classroom anyway.
- Because too many of you rely on Powerpoint and old notes.
- Because I can 'earn' my education through books and the internet without having to pay a dime of your overpriced tuition.
- Because I care more about my education than you 'ever' did.
- Because you aren't good enough.
I have read most of your entries and am disgusted. I think it's repulsive that an 'authority' figure would stoop to such a low height to make fun of students like you do. I know you'll just delete this, but I think you should have an alternative position on your blog to show what a farce you are.
Wow, this 'list' really 'made' me 'rethink' my way of 'life.' I especially like #8--my 'students' are 'definitely' exactly the type to go read a ton of books on their own without 'grade incentives'! Fershure!
ReplyDeleteAlso...http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
Number 3 is curious. How 'can' I get more months in 'my' year?
ReplyDeleteI thought the exact same thing: where are these extra months, and can I please spend them on vacation?
Delete> Because I care more about my education than you 'ever' did.
ReplyDeleteYou should care more about your education than I do. Education is ultimately your responsibility. I can provide you with the resources and tools; you must do the work and process the information in a meaningful way.
> Because I can 'earn' my education through books and the internet without having to pay a dime of your overpriced tuition.
Please feel free to do so.
Yes, I love #9. That's some big victory? You care more about your education than I do? Jesus, even back in the old days the bar was set low.
ReplyDeleteBecause if we don't vent, we'll explode all over the snowflakes and make them a bunch of Red Commies.
ReplyDelete1. I didn't think my research was more important than students. I knew it was. When I work on my research, I get to use my mind and my education. I have to switch my brain off in order to teach twerps like you. It's bad enough that I have to deal with the fact that you didn't learn any manners while you were in school but you act like you didn't learn anything else during that time, either. Worse yet, you take any attempt on my part to teach you any course material as a personal affront and a disruption of what's "important" to you.
ReplyDelete2. See #1 for my comments on your behaviour. Self-discipline and respect for authority are alien concepts to you. If you did have any, you displayed it selectively and I certainly wasn't on the list.
3. I worked for several years in industry before I started teaching and much of that wasn't 8-to-4, either. I often put in long hours, something that you might have to do if you want to keep a job, if you ever get one.
4. Maybe an "academic" degree doesn't mean as much as it did in the past, but I have 4 of them. I earned them and got a good education in the process. I put all that to good use. You, however, squander whatever educational opportunities that come your way.
5. One reason I hated teaching was because I had to deal with you and your antics.
6. You're right. I was burned out by the time I quit teaching because I had to deal with people who, in bygone times, wouldn't have graduated from high school, let alone be accepted by any respectable post-secondary institution. I spent years putting up with the shenanigans of immature, work-shy, and ill-disciplined adults. I was required to because my supervisors didn't want to get involved. I was required to because the administrators at the place I used to teach at were more interested in taking your money and giving you a meaningless piece of paper for it than in making sure you not only were properly educated, you became responsible citizens as a result.
7. I rarely changed my notes over the years because each new group of your peers came equally ill-prepared and lacking in knowledge of the same things. I frequently had to teach that before I could even begin on the actual course material.
8. Go ahead. Get your education from books and the Internet, but good luck in getting a job with it. Try to get some sort of professional certification with your "schooling".
9. You're right. I didn't care about your education and why should I have? You sat there like a useless lump, demanded I do all of your work for you, and then you expected to graduate, having done next to nothing to earn that magical piece of paper you thought you "richly" deserved. Sorry, but the real world expect one to earn one's rewards. You didn't.
10. Of course I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough to be your personal servant and to coddle and pamper you while you took up space in my lectures. And, of course, I wasn't good enough to recognize how much of a "genius" you were.
Yes, most academic books are read by other academics; why is that a problem? Academic monographs are expert-level material. That material is read, reviewed, analyzed and often adopted by other experts for use in texts directed at a more general audience. If that process weren't constantly taking place, we'd still be deifying Columbus and ignoring Native Americans. We'd still be accepting a billion problematic assumptions about the past without question, because without the experts doing original research, there'd be no one to question our entrenched interpretations and assumptions. The OP is in the company of many on the political right in wishing that academics would stop *thinking* so much, because all that larnin' just plumb forces us to stay informed and critical about what we hold to be true about our shared past.
ReplyDeleteAnd Dog help us all if academic writing becomes aimed at the intellectual level of the average undergraduate.
Anyone who wants to learn things on their own and get certified can take the CLEP exams. Very few people have that kind of discipline and ability.
ReplyDeleteThis one reason I'm so skeptical about online learning. They offer nothing that the CLEP exams don't, except a) the exam that sees if they actually know anything and b) the opportunities to cheat.
Is it just me, or are #1 and #6 at odds with each other? How would our content provider, were he or she here right now, account for the fact that we bring new material to the classroom by reading those academic books and conducting that research that makes academic books?
ReplyDeleteI thought so.
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