Actually, good teaching is a negative in hiring. It can always be
explained away. He/she had low standards. I saw that pulled on the best
teacher in my department in Berkeley.
On Mon, Mar 05, 2001 at 10:26:04PM -0500, Nathan Newman wrote:
> 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
>
>
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
