My tone in my previous post was intemperate and inflammatory.
You'll have to forgive me for that. Or not. I don't really
care.
I'd just come from the house of a friend with four or five
published novels who can't get a job teaching writing because
he has but a BA. Then I saw this plea for a reading list from
someone who obviously doesn't know what he is supposed to
teach and is asking perfect strangers to give him ideas.
Probably a PhD.
Get this.
One guy (my friend) has already proved both his expertise,
capability and marketability, and can't get a U job passing
that knowledge along. The other doesn't know enough about his
subject area to limp along on his own hoof without asking the
opinion of people whose credentials are a total mystery to
him.
Am I the only one who thinks there's something wrong here? Or
does PC override honesty on R-A?
I am, happily and without apology, the product of a
traditional education
(private school and private university -- yes, I know that I
am fortunate, perhaps even blessed; I make no apologies for
that, either). My professors were actually proficient, and
often expert, in their disciplines. Several close friends who
attended public universities at the same time possess
intellects that frighten me with their acuity. So this ain't
a private/public thing. It's a teaching thing. We got taught.
So many today do not.
This nonsense about "the professor learning along with his
students" is just that. Nonsense. No, let's be honest. It's
bullshit. That's a study group, not an education. You want to
pay 25K per semester to play around in a study group, that's
cool. It's your money and you can waste it any way you like.
Just don't try to sell me the idea that it's education. It
isn't. It's a circle jerk.
"Higher" education in the US these days is turning ever more
into nothing more than a refuge for graduate students who
lack either the will or the skills to take their act into the
streets, i.e. make an honest living. It's easier to ride the
degree into tenure with classroom longevity and the
occasional article in such cutting-edge and relevant mags as
PMLA. Chardonnay & chitchat. Life without relevance,
focus or value, I calls it.
Now, maybe I'm wrong. It's happened before. But when I read
an article in the NY Times (it was 3 or 4 years ago - try a
web search) that nearly 50% of the English teachers in the NY
public school system are functionally illiterate, I got to
wonder about the quality of their instruction. Like the guys
teaching them all that stuff? Like maybe a class on noir?
Rather than on, maybe, remedial reading?
I wonder how many of THEIR teachers gathered their course
materials from strangers.
Rather than work, research and genuine scholarship.
I have grandchildren. The battle against despair is constant.
PB
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