I feel myself sliding inside myself. I feel myself slowly getting
contemplative.
An introspective mood is enveloping me. The ten "Days of Awe," Jewish High
Holy Days
beginning with Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur, are upon me. I
actually get
an additional dose of deep reflection because the Lilly North conference on
teaching is
wedge between them. So, beginning at sundown today until sundown ten days from
now, I
will face unrelentingly the demand that I get out of my head and into my heart
and soul.
Things are starting to slow down. Things are starting to get profound., To
light that
way, I am ask to ponder a simple, but profound question. It's purpose is to
make my
vision clearer, make who I am more purposeful, and what I do more meaningful:
How did I
not realize my potential this year, and what do I need to do to correct that
shortcoming
and make sure that I am better able to follow by vision and to fulfill the
purpose for
which I am in this world? I think that is a question we in academia should ask
about
ourselves and what is it we do. So, here goes:
We are told in the First Commandment, "you shall have no other gods
before me."
Yet, so much of academia seems so polytheistic. So many of us are constantly
fashioning
our own enslaving academic golden calves. We worship idols of information. We
throw
ourselves prostrate before the graven images test scores, grades, and GPAs. We
pay homage
to the deity of resume. We race after research, grants, publication, renown,
promotion,
and tenure in adoration of the divine rat. We grovel before the false god of
edu-technology. We perform the ceremonies of lectures, tests, quizzes, grades,
GPAs, and
"standardized assessment instruments." And, then, having blindly performed
these rituals,
having drawn up a magnificent syllabus, having written a brilliant set of
mini-conference
papers we call lectures, we convince ourselves how great we are as devoted
educators. The
real issue here is mindless idolatrous worship ritual performance in which all
too many
academics have replaced the living of educational life with empty lip service
and lifeless
institutionalization. We have substituted the process itself for the spirit of
education,
and have begun worshipping something other than education: the rituals and
ceremonies
themselves. Where's the purpose, the vision, the meaning? Oh, the prophet
Micah would
have a field day with us.
In a subtle, but very real sense, by adopting this attitude those
academics have
slipped away from educating towards schooling and credentialing. Everyone
listens and so
many put on a long face and/or nod their heads to show that they, too, are
gravely
concerned. Everybody agrees abstractly that something really must be done. But
when the
conversation is over, when the meetings have concluded, when the Monday after
the weekend
conference comes, nothing is really done, and most academics are relieved to
slip back
into the adoration of or safe submission to the current system. Ritual piles
upon
ceremony, reinforced by all these accreditation processes, until all education
is turned
upside down. These habits infect everything they touch, for we become more
concerned with
"how do you grade that" than "did they deeply learn," more with "what" and
"how" than with
"why," more with statistics than vision and purpose, more with producing
grade-getters and
test takers or transcript primpers or at best merely informed people rather than
innovative thinkers and better people. We produce few students who appreciate
that the
collegiate academic experience as worthwhile in its own right. The idea that we
can help a
student become a whole person, a better person, begins to disappear as the
definition of
education focuses on classroom structure, job-getting content, and
credentialing as the
only things that matters. As my good friend, Don Fraser, told me, most of us
academics
see the wrong "C word." Instead of seeing the "C word" of caring and
compassion and
community, we have a barrel vision and only see the "C word" of curriculum
content.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of
History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/
\ /\
//\/\/ /\
\__/__/_/\_\ \_/__\
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" -
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