A Question for Idiots

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A Question for Idiots

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Clarissa

May 11, 2015

And here is a question to the brain-dead losers who keep saying that college professors shouldn’t do research.

Please look at this list of books on the Spanish Civil War.

Concentrate. Concentrate some more. Now really concentrate.

And now answer this: is it or is it not beneficial to my students that I’m reading these books?

An additional question for those who are not entirely stupid: what would I be teaching about if I weren’t reading these books? The last time I took a course in graduate school was 10 years ago. Should I just repeat the same outdated material like a stupid drone for the next 40 years? Is that effective teaching, in your opinion?

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10 responses to “A Question for Idiots”

valter07

May 11, 2015

You are incorrectly assuming someone (besides your colleagues, hopefully) want you to teach anything to anybody. Except probably some very practical skills directly translatable into earning power. So the folks would not need any state assistance. The powers that be want to make profit out of education, not educate anyone, but unfortunately the customers are not willing to pay for universities without real professors, with some credentials. Yet. Another problem – some young people are idealists and want to make a difference… One has to take into account that some customers are idealistic… Show them some idealistic professors so they feel better parting with their (loaned) money. So in the eyes of the system you (and me) are necessary overpriced evil. Already without any silly research.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 12, 2015
  
  None of these clowns are saying (even to themselves) that they want to scam students out of money without teaching them anything. So these questions produce intense existential anxiety in them. And I like to see them squirm. 🙂
  
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cliff arroyo

May 12, 2015

Expand knowledge? Why the very idea is madness, woman! Knowledge is fixed and does not expand or contract and more than do birds swim with the whales or dolphins perch in the treetops! Your duty as a teacher is to drill facts (facts!) which exist outside of time and space into your students’ tiny little heads.

This is not a job for the fainthearted and those who follow this demanding profession should be expected to labor (for labor it is!) for no less than 60 hours a week (40 hours a week? what a flimsy excuse for a work schedule).

Take the facts that are outside your feeble minded students’ heads and place them inside those heads so firmly that they will never escape! THAT is the duty of the teacher!

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 12, 2015
  
  This is the thing, though: new facts keep surfacing. We recently discussed the lost children of Francoism here on the blog. I learned about that much, much later than I took any grad courses.
  
  No single discipline stands still for decades.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    May 12, 2015
    
    “new facts keep surfacing”
    
    HERESY! WITCH! BURN THE WITCH! (cups hands over ears and runs screaming into the night)
    
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    1. valter07
      
      May 12, 2015
      
      Witch is so old-fashioned… Come on, Cliff… We are a progressive society… (Why the heck a marketing prop behaves as if she has free will??? As if she knows what education is? Why doesn’t she know her place???)
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        May 12, 2015
        
        Let’s not demonize the opposition unnecessarily. 🙂
        
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        valter07
        
        May 12, 2015
        
        But I am a demonizer. I demonize everybody, this is who I am. 🙂 🙂
        
        Look, you have to understand some basic economic reality: the business that is actually teaching people to service themselves instead of purchasing the services of that business (teaching students how to go on the journey of the lifetime of learning) is an oxymoron. You should not undermine your own business. You should ensure increasing demand for your services, if you want to be successful. You have to create new demand. And where is your professional solidarity with the fellow employees of your company?
        
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cliff arroyo

May 12, 2015

OT: Very good article on the recent British elections and the problem with Labour (it hurts to spell it that way, but it’s a proper noun, so…..)

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/05/11/eds-dead-where-the-british-left-went-so-horribly-wrong/

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Shakti

May 12, 2015

And here is a question to the brain-dead losers who keep saying that college professors shouldn’t do research.
They say that because they believe professors should be out of touch as possible which helps reify the idea that whole fields of knowledge are useless because they aren’t being updated and increasing in complexity.

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