I'm sick of people misunderstanding what a scientist is, what a scientist does. . . . It isn't looking for a better cigarette filter or a softer face tissue or a longer-lasting house paint, God help us. . . . When most other companies brag about their research, they're talking about industrial hack technicians who wear white coats, work out of cookbooks, and dream up an improved windshield wiper for next year's Oldsmobile. . . .Here, and shockingly few other places in this country, men are paid to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that.
Dr. Asa Breed, Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Okay, I realize this is my second Vonnegut reference in as many posts, and this is in no way intentional. Serendipity is a driving force in my life, which may account for the fact that I earn approximately $20,000 less now than I did ten years ago, but, as usual, I digress.
I had another run-in with a member of The Academy last week that further cemented my opinion of it. I'd like to state for the record that there are exceptions: Dr. Eric Houck of the University of North Carolina, Dr. Tricia Reeves of the University of Georgia, Dr. Jude Preissle (retired). Clearly, this list is not exhaustive, but, in my experience, it's also not very long.
A professor's primary function is not teaching. I cannot stress this enough. At most universities that you've heard of, the faculty work load is typically 50% research, 25% service, 25% teaching. In fact, the big joke in academia is that if you receive a teaching award, you might as well kiss you chance of getting promoted good-bye. [Ha-ha.]
Professors are experts in a particular field. Their job is to identify holes in the body of knowledge of which they are experts and then perform original research in an effort to plug the holes. Over time, this web of information should yield changes in practice and perhaps in how the general public understands the universe (or some small part of it). Theoretical physics is a great example of this process in action. In the 1920s, the average Joe might have yawned and asked, "Okay, E=MC2. So the #@(* what?" Several decades later, we landed a man on the mood using that information.
Teachers are not experts, per se. They have expertise. This is a subtle but crucial distinction. I taught high school English. An English professor might know everything there is to know about Mark Twain and his body of work. I knew more about Twain than the most people, but I was not an expert. I couldn't afford to be since I also had to know more than most people about the life and work of Toni Morrison, Shakespeare, Esmeralda Santiago, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Upton Sinclair and a host of others.
My primary role was not to "profess" my expertise. It was to use my expertise in both the subject matter and the science of teaching (called pedagogy) to lessen the likelihood that my students would say, "So Toni Morrison's Beloved is post-modernist. So the #@(* what?"
The bumper sticker wisdom in teaching circles is that your students won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Teachers, as opposed to professors, have to take into consideration such thins as
- Mike doesn't have his homework because he put his backpack in the car last night so he wouldn't forget it, but then his father got drunk, cursed out the entire family, left in the car, and hasn't been heard from since;
- Paula has been absent eight times this quarter because she was forced to take out a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend--who also attends the school--and has been either in court or avoiding the ex's friends who have begun harassing her;
- Adam doesn't write very well, but he built a working grandfather clock in his industrial technology class.
I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory (full text of said episode available at the preceding link) in which Sheldon receives horrible reviews for his teaching. Wounded by their comments, including one girl who wrote, "Dr. Cooper has made me want to start cutting myself again," he seeks advice from his girlfriend, Amy.
Amy: Have you considered improving your socialization skills, thus allowing you to communicate more effectively with other people?Sheldon: Isn’t that their burden? I’m the one with something interesting to say.
While much of TBBT's portrayal of academia is pure fiction, this interchange is kind of right on the money.
Which brings me to my current beef .
The facility for which I work is offering a professional development seminar in a subject area in which none of our full-time faculty have expertise. We therefore contracted with a scholar who has both research chops and K-12 teaching experience. In looking over the proposed schedule, I became concerned because I saw a lot of activities that appeared to assume fairly high ability levels in the children, whereas I was anticipating that the teachers attending would be in need of remediation techniques for students with low ability levels. Because the schedule was written in bullet points, I realized there might be material there that I just didn't know about. So I called the scholar and asked for clarification.
Any man who has ever said to his wife, "Hey, honey, you want to take a walk?" and had his head bitten off with, "Why?! Do you think I'm fat?! I need more exercise?!" will recognize what happened next.
Unbeknownst to me, Madame Scholar took extreme umbrage with me. Apparently, she felt I was questioning her credentials. I'd like it noted that she did not share this with me directly; I only found out after another faculty member had to do damage control when Madame Scholar threatened to renege on her agreement to teach the seminar.
I am not a diplomatic person. However, I'm rarely intentionally cruel or disrespectful--at least not to someone's face--and I'm quick to admit it and apologize when I've behaved like a jerk. I plead complete innocence on this one. The upshot, unfortunately, is that I've been removed from any further responsiblities regarding this seminar, including sitting in on it to increase my own knowledge.
When I was at UGA,one of my professors--a fully tenured professor, I might add--had us read several of his articles. Part of the final project was a critique of the literature, so, assuming he meant ALL the literature, I pointed out that his work ignored the implementation difficulties that are inherent in transferring research to the classroom. He was not grateful.
Scholars like to consider themselves part of a conversation in which they make their work available to other scholars who read and respond critically to it. My experience has been that many of them are interested only in the give, not the take. They are defensive of their work, almost to the point of childishness.
I look forward to finding out how Madame Scholar responds if the teachers in this seminar dare to ask her questions similar to those I raised.
XOX,
The Know-it-All
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