I was not going to do the teaching meme but two posts, one from Lumpenprofessoriat and one from WOC PhD, have moved me to speak.
Lumpenprofessoriat addresses the question of “love.” I note that many professors say they are suffering for love (of their fields, or of teaching), and they seem to believe this is ethical. Others say they are working with complete cynicism for the sake of a salary, and they seem to believe this is sensible.
I say both attitudes are bad. Lumpenprofessoriat‘s post reminded me of deciding to apply to graduate school, when I was twenty. I said: “I am very interested in this field, I am capable of doing good work in it, and I can be paid for that.” Interest and enjoyment were strong considerations, but “love” was not; work was expected, but suffering was not. I was later informed my attitude was too practical (cold) and too pleasure oriented (immature). I disagree strongly.
WOC PhD asks, obliquely at least, how teaching can be what we used to call “revolutionary.” Most days I really wonder whether we can even hope to ask that question any more, especially given what Marc Bosquet and John V. Lombardi have to say – and they are both perceptive and well informed – about the current state of the university and the status and actual purpose of faculty work. However, after teaching four different classes today on the interpretation of literary and cultural texts (yes, normally it is fewer, this was a special occasion and I was in class for a total of 7.5 hours) I realized that at the current juncture wherein we are daily inundated by what passes for information, analysis and argumentation on the Faux News, getting people to think systematically and analytically, and in the context of actual historical fact rather than moralistic illusion, is revolutionary. I am of course not the first person to think this and I do not think it is enough, but I do nevertheless think it is true.
So, in sum, I teach:
1. Practically, because I became a professor. I became a professor because I was interested in working in a large, vibrant, intellectually stimulating institution where many people were engaged in research and inquiry, because teaching is a part of that. It is something I can do well, and have no objection to and even some pleasure in doing. Unless it is a rote course drawing on canned material, teaching is creative, and also instructive to the instructor. You know the drill: you get your ideas clear, concise and jargon free; the students tell you about cool bands; everyone benefits. For all of these reasons I am happy to teach for pay.
2. Idealistically, I teach because training inquiring minds to do well not what I want them to do but what it is in their nature to do, is a revolutionary act. I am interested in revolutionary acts. If I were not, I would work in a bank.
(When I say this, people act shocked, which I find silly. If I wished to join the real establishment, I would do so directly. After all, most people do it directly. There is no reason to be coy about that, or to suggest I should be.)
3. At my particular institution, I also teach because although a B.A. may not materially improve all students’ lives – they and we are too poor and powerless for that – courses taken in college really do enrich and empower them in the old fashioned way college is supposed to do. We have graduate programs here but since the departments I work in are not the best in the country, the graduate students we get are not always as advanced in the material as the upper division majors. I am therefore the most interested in this latter group, since I can teach them at a higher level than I can either the lower division or the graduate students. That is, I can teach them at the college/university level, not the elementary level (freshmen), the middle school level (sophomores), or the high school level (graduate students).
I enjoy seeing people get up the courage to take their first trip out of state, their first trip abroad. Discovering an interest in art films. Outgrowing the druggie boyfriends they brought from high school. Realizing that “politics” do have an impact on their lives. And this isn’t bourgeois-ification, it’s broadening, and if you don’t believe it, you romanticize deprivation. I notice daily that education is still worth a shot.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
getting people to think systematically and analytically, and in the context of actual historical fact rather than moralistic illusion, is revolutionary.
Something early this year really jolted this home to me. It made me realise that the most radical thing I can do is to write my thesis in a simple and realistic tone.
Great post. I think of my boyfriend, who’s favorite part of the doctoral program so far is when he’s in front of the classroom, and he’s gaining a reputation among the Master’s students as a bright and accessible instructor. I feel for him when he is disappointed by students that a) don’t care as strongly as he does for both the subject of community planning and history or b) don’t see this education as potentially transformative in terms of heightening their awareness of their role in and potential contribution to the world.
I have no desire to teach, and am glad I have realized that early on, because though the academy does not seem to value it, it seems to be to be a real, direct value professors can provide, versus churning out our research to impress one another. (cynical much, Redstar??)
🙂
Thanks for another great post on the meme–we added you to the list over at Free Exchange!
cps
Excellent, excellent post! I especially think #2 is core, and reconnecting with that is what keeps me engaged with teaching.
OT: have you heard about a female student killing two other female students along with herself. Close to your neck of the woods.
Oh, and also check out PZ Myers’ post at the Free Exchange link list–it’s great.
Tres rapidement = yes, PZ Myers’ post is great. It also reminds me that academic freedom was in the question. So, very quickly, I am only willing to teach non-rote classes with non-canned material, and that is why academic freedom is essential to anything I teach. Muy importante!
Kitty – no, I didn’t hear about that and don’t have time today to look for the item – can you give me a hint?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/08/la.tech.shooting/index.html
I appreciate your final paragraph, in particular. I am reminded of the phrase, “you have to teach the students you have, not those you wish you had.” While there’s a truth here, taken too far it implies that, especially, first generation and working class students should not be challenged to reach beyond the habits and experiences that they bring with them to college. This maybe ‘sensitive,’ but it has the effect of reproducing America’s existing class structure by reserving serious higher education for the already privileged.
Shaun – the final paragraph is really important to me and it is the one that I discovered after becoming a professor and that surprises me, as some are surprised to discover they enjoy teaching as an activity.
#1 is still my hedonistic priority. I know #2 is or should be core but I do not believe it deeply enough – I’m a professor because of #1, my revolutionary self believes in activities outside universities more than it does in #2, and #3 turns out to be what sustains me.
Kitty – thanks for the reference. Freaky. Can’t believe I missed it, that’s very nearby … you can tell I spent 7.5 hours in class yesterday and all today working on very picky bureaucratic documents…
Free Exchange, thanks for organizing this!
Redstar thanks, yes, and HI! I am old fashioned: real (not silly) research is #1, real (not faux) teaching is #2, and service (not “management,” all governance should be in the hands of faculty and the library in my revolutionary view) is #3. J – YES to the radical idea of a readable and hard-hitting thesis.
I have a feeling that what you know about people who work at banks is very little.
Well I hope you are not here to say, “People who work in banks can be cool.” Of course they can, like my favorite grandfather, my brother in law, and a whole slew of cousins, in addition to a couple of good friends.
One thing banking got them, in terms of quality of life, that professordom has not gotten me, is that they all lived / live in cities: San Francisco, New Orleans, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, New York.
However, you can’t deny it is a pretty straight job and that a lot of what is done in it supports the structure that is – i.e. if you work for the IMF, etc.
Me, personally, I am interested in money, finance, trade, etc., and how they work, although if I worked in or on that it would be in the interest of social change.
Anyway, what exactly is *your* problem with this?
I’m here to say that making “working in a bank” the necessary foil to your “revolutionary acts” is predictable, but only makes sense to others with similar assumptions about labor, choice, the system, etc.
I would never say “people who work in banks are cool”–that one’s on you.
i love #2.
Hi Nezua! O good. You and Joanna both. I’m less convinced many days, I find it very indirect.
KJC, by contrast, did not like #2 much.
KJC – Ah, well then. You said you thought I knew very little about people who work in banks, so I took you for one. I thought the post had hurt your feelings in some way, so I hastened to let you know I hardly mean people in banking cannot be interesting, nice, and so on.
Banking is my usual example of another white collar profession, like academia, but often based in large cities, in which I might well have ended up had it just been a question of living somewhere and supporting a family. I had scholarly interests, so I have a job I care about, which is more personally interesting to me, than a job in business would be.
That’s really all. I don’t know what kinds of assumptions and so on you see, or assume. I don’t mean to contrast banking and “revolution,” although you can if you want to. Once again, I certainly don’t mean to criticize your career choice if you’re in banking. I’m just contrasting something I’m interested in that keeps me in an odd geographical location, versus something I’m not interested in, but that would have much more easily permitted me to stay home.
P.S. KJC – actually in a draft of something else today, I found myself contrasting teaching / professing to working in the oilfields … I don’t know if that makes you feel any better, but it was what occurred to me at the time: another available job.