A Professor Complains Loudly

Generalization #1: Everyone likes to be listened to. Being a professor is being paid to be listened to. It's like being a restaurant reviewer or a professional athlete -- your job is doing what others do for fun. Generalization #2: American colleges are run more for the benefit of professors than for the benefit of students, as I have intimated earlier.

That's why this complaint is noteworthy:

This has been an excruciating term, because for the first time I had students who resented having to think, to work, to meet expectations, who seemed to really believe that showing up was all it took . . . As hard as I've tried, I haven't been able to salvage any time for my own research, so I feel as though -- in addition to wasting my efforts and care and concern on students who wouldn't even grasp that I was doing them some favors (yes, I'll teach extra evening sessions to help you understand the material that was a prerequisite for the course, but, um, yes, you need to do the reading) -- I made absolutely no progress toward tenure. . . . This term has taken too much out of me, and right now, the thought of teaching again -- ever -- makes me want to sob. So here's my secret: I don't want to go back. I never want to see these people again -- colleagues or students -- and I think I made a terrible mistake.

A comment was "AMEN!"

I'm sure we're genetically wired to teach and learn but that doesn't mean the process can't go badly wrong. We're genetically wired to eat, too, and lots of ways people eat are very unhealthy. I have compared formal education to agriculture. Sure, agriculture is more efficient than hunting and gathering but agriculture caused nutrient deficiencies that reduced human health for a very long time. (My weight-control research and omega-3 research suggest it is still doing so.) We barely know how to eat. This complaint suggests we know even less how to teach.