Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Oh, yes, I know "liberals" like this.
This Onion "opinion" column is hillarious.
I'll try to write something more substantial soon. The dissertation is close to being finished, but moving time is fast upon me. Excuses, excuses, I know.
I'll try to write something more substantial soon. The dissertation is close to being finished, but moving time is fast upon me. Excuses, excuses, I know.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Being Forced to Teach Ehrenreich: A Plea for Help
First, my apologies for not having blogged since the end of May. Finishing the dissertation is providing me with just about all of the writing practice I need, and since my dissertation is so far afield of the things I write about as "Winston" (since I am engaging in traditional literary criticism), most of what I am reading does not feed into blog entries that the general public would necessarily find interesting.
But, as the summer fades away, I am being forced more and more to think about the job I have taken for the 2004-2005 academic year, the poorly paid adjunct position I mentioned a couple of months back.
While I object strongly to the fact that I will be making about twenty cents on the dollar to an assistant professor, I object even more strongly to the fact that I am being required to teach this university's version of the infamous freshman indoctrination course, and that I have absolutely no freedom to choose what texts I will be teaching in my own class--it is all decided by committee.
As you may imagine, the reading list is chock full of left-wing favorites. Much of it is multicultural (a good 1/3 of the works are by African-Americans, about the concerns of African-Americans), some of it good, much of it further evidence of affirmative action in the canon.
One book really bothers me, though, and that is Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed. First, I am bothered because of Ehrenreich's blantant socialism and the fact that having students read this book--particularly since there is nothing else on the reading list to balance it out--may constitute an endorsement of Ehrenreich's position. Second I am bothered because she is really no kinder to the working class than their employers are, and has indeed profited from them to an even greater extent than their employers; she is, in all respects, a limousine liberal, and as someone who comes from a working class family, I find the attitude of the limousine liberal extremely abhorrent. Finally, I am bothered by the fact that her book contains glaring inaccuracies as well as simply solutions that do not take into account the complexity of the problem she wishes to solve; the institution at which I am employed and other institutions which use this book as part of their initial indoctrination efforts generally fail to address these concerns in their lesson plans.
So what has been keeping me up nights as of late (and God bless Ambien) is a deep concern with how I'm going to go about "teaching" this book.
Beyond the social, political, and economic concerns I have with the book is the simple fact that this university has assigned one arm-chair economist to teach a book by another arm-chair economist. This fact alone gives me ethical hives. Ehrenreich is an investigative reporter, and her book reveals her knowledge of economics to be both impoverish and ideologically conditioned. I took micro- and macro-economics as an undergrad, but that was at least fifteen years ago; since then, my exposure to economics has been a daily reading of The Wall Street Journal and that's about it. And even in the Journal, it's not like I'm reading it cover-to-cover.
Ethically, I'm required to give myself a crash-course in economics--which I'm going to try to do--but that's really no substitute for actual training in the field, and I do have a lot of other things on my plate right now.
So I want to ask you all for help, and I'd appreciate if other bloggers would mention my plea on their own blogs, to try and attract as much advice as possible. If you've taught this book before (and you've taught it critically--lockstep leftists needn't reply), I'd like to hear about it. If you have suggestions as to how I might make myself more knowledgeable before teaching this book--including reading recommendations--please let me know. And if you just want to tell me how you think you'd handle this situation, I'd love to hear that as well.
One last thing--it had occured to me that I might use my own situation as a teaching tool. While I'm not getting paid hourly, my yearly "salary" is at the minimum wage level, and I'm obviously helping the university and the department to balance their budgets. And I have no benefits. Yet here I am teaching a book about how evil the business world is, and how underpaid its employees are, as if the ivory tower is somehow better and in a position to pass judgment. I find that a little ironic.
But, as the summer fades away, I am being forced more and more to think about the job I have taken for the 2004-2005 academic year, the poorly paid adjunct position I mentioned a couple of months back.
While I object strongly to the fact that I will be making about twenty cents on the dollar to an assistant professor, I object even more strongly to the fact that I am being required to teach this university's version of the infamous freshman indoctrination course, and that I have absolutely no freedom to choose what texts I will be teaching in my own class--it is all decided by committee.
As you may imagine, the reading list is chock full of left-wing favorites. Much of it is multicultural (a good 1/3 of the works are by African-Americans, about the concerns of African-Americans), some of it good, much of it further evidence of affirmative action in the canon.
One book really bothers me, though, and that is Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed. First, I am bothered because of Ehrenreich's blantant socialism and the fact that having students read this book--particularly since there is nothing else on the reading list to balance it out--may constitute an endorsement of Ehrenreich's position. Second I am bothered because she is really no kinder to the working class than their employers are, and has indeed profited from them to an even greater extent than their employers; she is, in all respects, a limousine liberal, and as someone who comes from a working class family, I find the attitude of the limousine liberal extremely abhorrent. Finally, I am bothered by the fact that her book contains glaring inaccuracies as well as simply solutions that do not take into account the complexity of the problem she wishes to solve; the institution at which I am employed and other institutions which use this book as part of their initial indoctrination efforts generally fail to address these concerns in their lesson plans.
So what has been keeping me up nights as of late (and God bless Ambien) is a deep concern with how I'm going to go about "teaching" this book.
Beyond the social, political, and economic concerns I have with the book is the simple fact that this university has assigned one arm-chair economist to teach a book by another arm-chair economist. This fact alone gives me ethical hives. Ehrenreich is an investigative reporter, and her book reveals her knowledge of economics to be both impoverish and ideologically conditioned. I took micro- and macro-economics as an undergrad, but that was at least fifteen years ago; since then, my exposure to economics has been a daily reading of The Wall Street Journal and that's about it. And even in the Journal, it's not like I'm reading it cover-to-cover.
Ethically, I'm required to give myself a crash-course in economics--which I'm going to try to do--but that's really no substitute for actual training in the field, and I do have a lot of other things on my plate right now.
So I want to ask you all for help, and I'd appreciate if other bloggers would mention my plea on their own blogs, to try and attract as much advice as possible. If you've taught this book before (and you've taught it critically--lockstep leftists needn't reply), I'd like to hear about it. If you have suggestions as to how I might make myself more knowledgeable before teaching this book--including reading recommendations--please let me know. And if you just want to tell me how you think you'd handle this situation, I'd love to hear that as well.
One last thing--it had occured to me that I might use my own situation as a teaching tool. While I'm not getting paid hourly, my yearly "salary" is at the minimum wage level, and I'm obviously helping the university and the department to balance their budgets. And I have no benefits. Yet here I am teaching a book about how evil the business world is, and how underpaid its employees are, as if the ivory tower is somehow better and in a position to pass judgment. I find that a little ironic.
