Although I am not a full time teacher, in light of my
personal experience in teaching, I like to make a case
for public education. Acquiring a university education
by the upper middle classes following the principle of
competitive emulation represents a blatant
misallocation of resources. Teaching students that
attend a university because mom and dad want to be
made proud, puts students and teachers in a bad
position and under a lot of stress. To some, getting a
university degree is very much like acquiring that
Mercedes. I have seen some of the students in this
category suffer because it is not where their talents
lie. To add insult to injury, they all want an A. I
have a hard time teaching and on top of it all I do
not like to fail students. The message I make: we are
here to learn the grade does not matter, but this goes
unnoticed and for good reasons. I understand that the
state has a function in assisting capital in the
reproduction of the skilled working classes, but to
put the rich through the machination of statistics
causes undue harm to both the rich and the poor and to
yours truly.
--- Michael Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a little missive
> titled, "Farewell to
> Academe." The responses were many, and they came
> from all over the
> world. Most were sympathetic, some were critical,
> and a few were nasty.
> I think I responded to everyone who wrote. Thanks
> to all who did.
>
> In my note I made some critical comments about my
> students. So I think
> it is only fair that I report on a great classroom
> experience I had
> today. In my seminar on Marx's Capital, I began
> last week to assign
> pages for specific students to read and then lead
> the discussion based
> upon what they had read. Today a student led a
> discusion on the chapter
> titled, "Cooperation." In this chapter, Marx
> explains that capitalism
> requires that capitalists hire a certain mass of
> workers before they can
> extract themselves from the labor process and focus
> their attention on
> superintending the labor process so that they can,
> in turn, expand and
> systematize the extraction of surplus value. Once
> a large number of
> workers are brought together under a single roof,
> the very fact that
> they work together raises the relative surplus
> value. Marx give a
> number of examples of this, then points out that
> while the cooperation
> of laborers and the attendant rise in productivity
> are remarkable human
> achievements, in capitalism, this cooperation is
> imposed by the
> capitalist and is therefore experienced by the
> workers in an alienating
> way. Marx hints that cooperation can be achieved
> without the
> capitalist, and he provides some examples.
>
> My student came to class in a coat and tie! He
> brought two friends to
> hear him. He is a business major, and as a group,
> business majors here
> are distinguished by thier general lack of
> enthusiasm for things
> intellectual and their dislike of and poor
> performance in economic
> classes. This particular student is an exception.
> He was initially
> antagonistic to Marx, but he has been impressed by
> Marx's remarkable
> brilliance and insight into the nature of
> capitalism. He gave an
> excellent presentation, complete with a good outline
> of the chapter,
> clear and concise explanations, and very concrete
> and interesting
> examples (though he did refer to a couple of movies
> I had not seen but
> the students had. Made me feel a little old! And I
> was a little envious
> too.). We had a good discussion afterwards,
> including discussion of the
> Rochdale cooperative movement, the so-called tragedy
> of the commons, the
> possibility of socialism in one country, the
> propagandistic attacks on
> indigenous peoples accused of trashing their
> environments, etc.
>
> I felt very good after this class. I congratulated
> my student for a job
> well done. I should have hugged him. At the same
> time, I regretted that
> this does not happen more often, that I and all too
> many teachers have
> to deal with too many classes, too many students,
> and all the other
> problems besetting academe. But, today for a moment
> or two, I felt like
> shouting like James Cagney White Heat, "Look at me
> now, ma, [I'm on] top
> of the world."
>
> Michael Yates
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
