On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, pakindle wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, Louis Schmier wrote:
>
> > She works for a lot of scattered peanuts. She reminds me of the pigeons I
> > used to feed at a kid on the sidewalks of NYC: runing helter-skelter
> > pecking a peanut here, another there, still another over there.
>
> She does not give this impression in person. She does what she prefers to
> do - teach. Few of my tenured professors have her enthusiasm.
I'm not questioning her devotion or her enthusiasm. What would have been
her choice if she could have gotten an appointment to a tenure track?
Just as the pigeons of my youth probably would not have been as attracted
to my meager offerings and flocked in numbers that blocked out the sun had
they be sated by a continued and reliable source of nourishment
>
> > Not sure
> > her form of personal freedom is as free and nourishing as it seems. What
> > happens to those not in the situation where the peanuts are scattered
> > about in close proximity or where there is only one peanut on which to
> > nibble?
> She addresses this issue in her "How to Survive . . . " and admits that one
> must be in an urban area where there are adequate peanuts to go around.
So, what she is on to is of value limited to where adequate amounts of
peanuts are falling.
>
> There are few secure jobs anywhere in America today. Every business person
> knows that the only way to have job security is to continually provide value
> to their employer.
I'm not sure that is correct. It's the bottom line, and the first to go
are the labor costs, usually according to seniority rather than quality of
work. Her job security per se is totally dependent on both student
enrollment and budgetary circumstances which put her in a very insecure
position. She is but a leaf helplessly blown about in the wind by these
"market" forces that can make her far less independent than you argue.
> Carroll has embraced the contemporary business climate
> and applied it to education.
Yeah, lots of part-time jobs as meager pay that border on exploitive slave
wages helpless at the beckoning of an employer. Free maybe to teach, but
not to speak out in the course of that teaching or being on campus. No
wonder we need unions.
> That she has done so successfully, with a
> strong focus on limiting her work to that which she most enjoys, is
> commendable.
I wonder. Does her situation have a silencing effect? Do it hold her
back, conscously or otherwise, from addresssing controverial issues and
discomforting topics, from being a gadfly and goading students into
thinking. I wonder.
> Her proactive approach seems preferable to lamentations.
With your last sentence, I fully agree without reservation. But, don't
make it seem to be an idyllic situation. Having a job is still different
from being a true educator. Then again, you can't survive on food for
thought.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
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