Thank you, Teachers, but . . .

All good points, but remember before the "public school" and college degreed teachers or even church academies from the middle ages forward, people still learned and became artists, doctors, lawyers, musicians, etc. It was through apprenticeship, working with parents and grandparents, learning from village elders, monasteries, traveling artisans, etc. And we still have that opportunity today.

 

And it is a well kept secret that teachers are not underpaid--that they do indeed have "wage justice."  The Bureau of Labor Statistics figure a middle school teacher's hourly wage at about $57 an hour, higher than accountants or architects, and that was in 2011--probably higher now.

Teaching as a subversive activity redux

Most academicians are liberals.  Also librarians, journalists, lawyers.  They want to “save the world.” Not in the sense of open minded, fair, thoughtful,  more humane, examining all sides, and in line with the ancient principles of western civilization or the renaissance.  But liberal in the modern sense—leftists.  Socialists.  Progressives. That’s why I say, “Liberals aren’t.”  After saying, “We need to have a ‘conversation,’ ” they will then tell you that your share of the information is not “fair,” or “reasonable,” and therefore you need to shut up or or they will leave.

From Teaching as a Subversive Activity: [a talk based on a book of that title from 1969]

Professor Brown's talk focuses specifically on this problem: His basic thesis is that it is no longer sufficient to simply tell students to think for themselves, because then we lose the ability to influence them, and there's no guarantee that the students will then develop progressive worldviews. The "Revisited" part of the lecture's title means that these days, we must be more blunt and to the point: Since the good guys are now in charge, let's just dispense with all the experimentation and instead directly indoctrinate the students in leftist thought and ideals.  . .

Includes the transcript and audio of 6 questions/answers.

. . .

Code Phrases Alluding to Indoctrination
If you hear or read academics using any of these tell-tale terms, they are actually discussing how to indoctrinate students:
&bull Critical pedagogy
&bull Agent for change
&bull Moral imperative
&bull "Critical" anything
&bull Subversive
&bull Mandate

Summer? What's that?

The life of an on-line instructor apparently doesn't include summer break. This is from Rate Your Students, a really entertaining and informative blog about all levels of education, students and instructors. Good solid writing, lots of humor and sarcasm

"Summer? Your old fashioned notions of academic life having a seasonal rhythm are so quaint. As an online instructor teaching non-trads at a school with classes starting every month, I don't have summer. I don't have winter. Or Christmas. I never go to class, but I never don't have class. I can go to the archives in Bananastan whenever I want and teach from the Internet café in the evening. I can take any day off I want to take a day trip with the kids. I can go to conferences anywhere at any time without groveling to the department and rescheduling classes for dozens of knowledge-starved students. I just teach online from the hotel. But I can never take three days in a row off. Ever. I cannot - ever - leave the Internet. My university posts an automatic e-mail message to me, my department head, and the dean if I do not log in to class within 72 hours of my last log in. If I wait that long, the stack of e-mails and unanswered conference queries would be overwhelming anyway. Every month is grades month. Every month is "new syllabi" month. Every month is right in the middle of the term, with discussions to take part in, papers to grade and tests to do in several classes. To reach U.S. median income I need to have at least five or six going at any one time, enough to prevent any month or season from bringing significant differences in workload. July is just like January."