What is sad is that teaching is so little respected in hiring decisions. I
have to say that I was incredibly spoiled getting to go to the small liberal
arts college thing. At Amherst, students sat on hiring committees and
student letters would kill a prof coming up for tenure if he or she stunk,
so the faculty either were good teachers or learned how to do it at an
acceptable level. It amazes me that at both Berkeley and Yale, really
terrible teaching is allowed to exist and it makes almost no difference in
hiring and tenure decisions.
My basic attitude is that a good teacher, even with conservative politics,
is a far more radical thing than a radical prof who sucks at teaching. A
good teacher awakens excitement and engagement and I think that is
ultimately more likely to lead to radical reevaluation of the world and
possibilities.
It is the deadening of imagination that most breeds apathy and acceptance of
the status quo.
It's not that I denigrate radical scholarship, since I'm a good consumer of
it, but there is no question in my mind that my radicalism was more fed by
the good teachers I had early in life, and not necessarily just the radical
ones, far more than any particular book I may have read.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Yates" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:39 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8698] Re: Re: farewell to academe
Nathan,
Your comments are very well taken. Two comments: Most teachers are not
very good at it and do not take the time to learn how to teach
effectively. Second, new teachers, including progressives, say that
they cannot make waves til they get tenure. But passivity becomes a
habit, and it is rare inded that a professor who kept quiet for 7 years
suddenly becomes a troublemaker. I have supported for tenure some
persons with whom I had sharp political disagreements just because they
were troublemakers from the start.
Michael Yates
Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> I have to say that I have great sympathy for Michael's commentary on left
> academia. I never really intended to be an academic, although there were
> short periods when I considered it while working on my Ph.D., but the
> biggest deterrent was that I didn't want "to be" any of the folks I saw in
> the professoriat-- talking the talk but doing almost nothing to engage
snip
