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These six little words are all that is necessary, Allitt claims, to instill in his students at Emory the proper fear of authority. After hearing these profound words of wisdom, students immediately fall in love with his 1985-era slides and teaching ideas. They appreciate that he, a man, and a white man at that, might consider speaking about women from time to time, and even tell them stories about the heroic black people!! They love him. Because he is the teacher.
Patrcik Allitt traces his life through a single term at Emory. His comments are full of these little pearls of wisdom and he delivers them with a sense of condescension that makes you feel gross while touching the page to continue reading. I did nearly put the book down multiple times, but since I was reading this as a favor to a friend I resisted the impulse to throw the book out the window and finished it anyway.
What bothers me so much about this book? It is about a tenured professor who complains that students do not care for education any more. (He should see our blog! If he knows what a blog is) He complains about all while teaching a single-course on his tenure track.
Yes, he is on a 1/1 load.
In order to make "extra money" (since tenured professors don't make much these days, on NOES!!) he also gives fortnightly lectures to wealthy octogenarians who pay him handsomely for an hour's work. In the summers, he teaches at Oxford in England. [One might suggest that he could use his free time from teaching A SINGLE CLASS to get an additional job if $60,000 a year isn't enough for him, but I digress.]
Allitt seems to resent that there are women in his classroom. He employs the impersonal he frequently, but it seems clear to me that an editor when through to include women with a few "shes" from time to time. The inclusion of people who are not male is not done elegantly, by pluralizing words like "student" and then using "their" instead of "he." No, this book adds the occasional and inconsistent "he-or-she" and then drops the "she" from subsequent phrases. Or occasionally uses the impersonal she where, again, using the plural would make more sense. Readers are addressed in second person (Oh, dear reader! If you are a parent, please email me about your children!) and then flipped to third person (Reader, as a parent, you must know that your son is doing his father proud), alternatively all men or all women; never both (so awkward). His wife must be a dear woman, for she makes the occasional appearance as "Mrs Allitt" who cautions him about eating too much and warns him from caring too deeply for his students. His female students are described as dim, deserving of a chance in Big Boy College, but occasionally over-emotional, such as when Allitt discusses babies or art history. He speaks often of his trembling, confidence-lacking teaching assistant, Regina, whom he treats with kid gloves and then shakes his head when she is unable to command the classroom during her second lecture ever. He does not seem to respect her -- she is, still, a student after all -- and at times he seems to downright despise her very presence in his class.
Allitt loves talking to parents about their children's grades. He has no appreciation for FERPA and sees his students less as adults and more as slightly larger children. Which would be fine if he were teaching children or even high school students. But he is not. And he is making a bad name for all of us by assuming that a) all students are funded by parents and b) all parents have a right to know of their adult children's activities and progress.
These kinds of underlying issues -- thinly veiled assumptions of gender, race, age, and class -- can appear anywhere. And indeed they are found all over blogs and news articles, peppering pop culture around us. But for this book, these assumptions seem symptomatic of a larger culture now gone. His experience does not reflect mine nor most of what I read on this blog or encounter through colleagues and friends.
Not only is Allitt the unquestionable authority and the student a mere vessel for his wisdom, he also toasts the Professor life. Oh, sure, he admits, teaching a class 3 days a week is tough. But in return, he gets benefits, and a pretty good salary, and summers off. What a life!!
Professor Allitt perpeutates the myth that professors get all sorts of time off. He describes his term at Emory as one where he works 3 days a week. He councils students on senior projects and honors coursework, but other than that his single course is his only obligation. And for that, he has job security and days off to spend with "Mrs Allitt" and her excellent cooking.
He reminds me of half my graduate committee, old Silverbacks all of them, who had no idea what the job market was like yet felt that their advice must be listened to at all costs. Why should I listen to their advice on what the job market was 30 years ago?
I'M THE TEACHER!!!! YOU'RE THE STUDENT!!!
It becomes an almost hostile refrain, one that Allitt repeats throughout his book. He drones on and on about how the most important thing about his subject -- history -- is chronology. He tuts over those students who wish to avoid a strict, single-line narrative in favor of broader, non-chronological themes instead. He calls on students by name, shames them publicly when they do not know an answer, drags them out of their chairs and up to the chalkboard (yes, chalk) to draw pictures of bicycles or maps of the US. He shakes his head at their lack of drawing skills. He is their teacher; they are failing as his students.
I see the germ of helpful advice here; getting sloggish students out of their seats is a great way to interrupt the class and get the blood pumping, but his point here is not to enhance learning as much as it is to emphasize that in his classroom, Professor Allitt has the ultimate authority and can, and will, force students to jump through hoops. His final exam is nothing about critical thought, such as a series of short essays, but rather 109 terms for identification (a portion of those to be drawn on a map). His theory is that if they cannot recreate every fact from the reading and lectures, then they did not pay enough attention. He does not care much for critical thinking and favors more the "crucial" learning of straight "facts." In my opinion, he is everything my high school history teacher did, and the direct reason why I slept through most of high school history.
Ultimately, Patrick Allitt's book I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom does horrible things to the reputation of college professors. It perpetuates the myth of laziness and days of leisure, of overpaid and stuffy professors who are power-hungry in the classroom, elite occupiers of the Ivory Tower. It focuses on the traditional, white male middle-class student when our students are increasingly anything but white and male and middle class. Over half are women, now, and if you include community colleges, then a recent study puts 70% of all students in the "non-traditional" category -- that is, they work or have families, or are older than 22, or come from poor backgrounds. Fewer and fewer students are there, as Allitt suggests "on Daddy's dime" or in search of a husband.
So why is his unrepresentative account so praised by teachers? Is it nostalgia for a former time? Is it a response to the problem of snowflakes, where instructors really do wish they could take a student by the shoulders and shake, while screaming "I'M THE TEACHER!!! YOU'RE THE STUDENT!!!"
I have no idea. I did not enjoy the book. I felt it was wholly unaware of the 21st century classroom both in terms of media and relationships. Yes, there is a problem with entitled students. But when you treat them as 9th graders, and refuse to allow them to explore projects and critical thinking, then they will probably act out, or fall asleep at their desks, or resent the way you kick them awake or call on them to draw a bison on the chalkboard.
Being a professor can be a great life. I certainly enjoy mine. I teach a lot more than one class. I respect my partner, and I don't get to spend my summers in England. My life is very different from that of Dr. Patrick Allitt. But based on his work, those who meet me might assume that I too work only 3 days a week, that I teach only one class of 39 each semester, and that I am paid handsomely for that honor. That, perhaps, we are all doing only one course at a time and are the sole reason for the ridiculous rise in tuition in the past 20 years.
Honestly? I suspect Dr Allitt is a liar. How can he only have 39 students? How can there be such a position in existence? It boggles the mind, and makes me angry.
I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom was published in 2007 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. If you are interested, you can check out portions on Google Books or purchase the inaccurate account of most university experiences on Amazon.
To be fair, just because he teaches one class doesn't mean he has lots of free time. I assume that if he teaches one class, he has a large research load. Don't make the same silly mistake that students do, not recognizing that professors do more than just teach.
ReplyDeleteAs for the gender-neutral he: this is still accepted practice, as is gender-neutral she these days. Consistency is usually the only rule. Personally I try to write so that the issue doesn't come up, but can hardly fault an author that follows a very old, standard practice when there are not very good alternatives.
I've taught as little as 1/1 and as much as 5/5/2 (summer). It's all hard; it all has value. The 1/1 job involved other duties. Sometimes I wish I'd had a fuller teaching schedule and less time making other things go.
ReplyDeleteJust because he has a 1/1 schedule shouldn't mean that his ideas have no value. Don't worry about regular folks lumping your job in with his. Do well at your gig.
I deeply hope he is not Yaro, as my heart would break.
ReplyDeleteNah. We all know Yaro, and he's no Yaro.
ReplyDeleteHis 1/1 load may not disqualify him from being able to make a contribution to a discussion of teaching; in fact arguably it may give him a little time to actually think about his teaching, instead of always being run off his feet actually doing it. But it does not sound, from this review, as if he has used his time particularly well.
He does describe, in detail, his life outside of class and it paints a picture of the mythical casual academic with loads of free time. He wants to show, he says, how great professor life is.
ReplyDeleteAs for gender neutrality, I found that his otherwise condescending comments about female students, his wife, and his TA supported what I read into the inconsistent use of the impersonal he. It paints a picture together; I am not generalizing on the use of singular pronouns alone.
ReplyDeleteB. A. Modern History, Oxford University (UK), 1977.
Ph.D. American History, University of California, Berkeley 1986.
Henry Luce Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Divinity School, 1985-88.
Assistant Professor of U.S. History, Emory, 1988-1994.
Fellow, Princeton University Center for Study of American Religion, 1992-93.
Associate Professor, Emory, 1994-1998.
Professor, Emory, 1998-presen
Fucking piker.
He reminds me of MOST of my crazy Xtian school teachers.....did he ever say, "You know I could be earning far more in the private sector?" I would hear that from them from time to time, but coupled with "the Lord has commanded me to teach you students, and I WILL."
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this - I was very glad to read your review, rather than the book.
ReplyDeleteA group of us at my college read this book 5-6 years ago. It was a terrific read. I don't doubt that Academic Monkey has valid reasons for being upset by his pronouns and so on, but it's a fabulous look at the day to day machinations of teaching.
ReplyDeleteAnd, the Yaro references above are not totally out of line. There is a real love in Allitt about students and teaching. We found it a very uplifting book, one that made you want to get to class and vow to be better, do better.
It reads much like a memoir, and it's a very positive book about the value of doing our jobs well.
Reg W, I'd be very interested to hear what you liked, specifically, about this book. Something more specific than "the day to day machinations of teaching" and such.
ReplyDeleteSince my appraisal of this work mentions pronouns only briefly, and as part of a larger interpretation of Allitt's attitudes towards women in general, it appears that you were simply trying to add your own condescending voice to the fray.
Do you find teaching 39 students in a class to be representative of your own work? Do you like to tell students that they are mere cogs in the machine and that you have all the authority? Or, better yet, do you assume that your students are funded by parents, and use that assumption to speak exclusively to parents concerning their dear children's grades?
Rot.
Monkey, I don't believe you one bit when you say you'd be "very interested" in hearing what I liked about the book. You've made your mind up about the book, and that's fine. If I shouldn't have commented on liking the book, then I don't know we even bother coming to this site.
ReplyDeleteBut I'll play along. It's been quite a long time since I read the book, but what my reading group liked about it the most was that Allitt made it clear that keeping some personal distance from students was a key component in holding on to some academic shape to the class.
And that there was some value in our education and training, and that we should not feel ashamed about teaching what we knew to pure novices in the field.
(Again, the book came out 7 years ago, and I don't have a copy in my home, so I'm just loosely recalling things. Perhaps you can point to chapters that are bad and I probably can't fight you on them.)
But his whole approach to the teaching of that class was extremely smart, even his rather surprising support of texting and email. Allitt really really hates bad grammar, and even though those forms of text often yield the worst of our writing, at least it kept students writing, and he simply requires students to write each thing, essay, test, email, as formally as an academic document should.
And I remember his constant urging to keep students active in class. I remember thinking that my own class sometimes dragged toward the end of an hour, but Allitt was all about getting students to be involved at all times, reading aloud, working arguments out on the board, arguing orally some point that came from the study of the class. I found that to be extremely helpful.
As for teaching 39 students? Well, I have fewer than that in my 3 sections right now, and I've never taught a class of more than 20. Of course I teach at a really good school and my colleagues are mostly 2/2 folks, one grad seminar of about 10 students, and one undergrad class of about 15. So I'm doing heavy lifting here at least until next year.
Emory is a great school with great students, and it's not uncommon at places like that to have that kind of load. My colleagues have rich and full lives off campus, and I can't name a single person in my department who is on campus more than 3 days as week; most, including me, are only here 2 days a week.
I know that people who teach at jucos put in much longer hours and days and all that, but this blog is not - I don't think - a space for them to vent.
I would suppose Allitt would come off different for lots of folks. The only people I know personally who've read that particular book liked it.
I never found it odd that he favored "he." He is an old guy, after all, from quite a male-dominated field and academic institutions. It doesn't make it right, of course, but it also doesn't negate the value that this reader found in his instruction about teaching.
Reg, I was being absolutely serious. As you noted, I have finished this book with a very specific, rather poor, reaction. But I have to meet with my friend (and possible future supervisor) to discuss its merits, so I appreciate a few points you made.
ReplyDeleteI also liked some of the approaches Allitt took with accessing his material. I stand by my criticisms, but it isn't like the book was all bad. Thank you for your thorough response (despite the passage of time since you read it).