This is very much the state of play in the new education economy I now found myself in as an agent of change. Absolutely discontented by the apathy of some I encountered in the degree factory industry, I'd always sought contact with those wanting to learn and develop their lives as I had done.
I was therefore astonished & disappointed to witness what I considered to be a phenomenal waste of goodness and potential for me to make the world a better place in these new faculty teaching hires.
You may have heard the story about the guy that interviews for heaven then when he is appointed, the devil says that since he's no longer a hopeful applicant but a lowly employee, he gets to work in hell. Well in universities, it's not the scene setting that suddenly changes, but the staff attitude.
The sense that they've made it is by definition the pride preceding the fall of every university lecturer. As I was reminded, you're only as good as your last lecture. The problem is, if it all comes too easy, it's easy to fall into completely unjustifiable & destructive complacency.
This is what managers like Schmeagel never understood - giving a "lecture" was simple, maintaining a long term, consistent and useful academic career presented a host of challenges, evidently unfathomable to the uninitiated.
Young Regina Street wandered in with similar, glaring shortage of vision and abilities, commonly residing in those members of the college who had deigned to put the hard work in.
2 comments:
Sorry to read of such tragic disillusion but I've lived with it for most of my life.
In the words of the song
'It's the same the whole world over, It's the poor
wot gets the blame, It's the rich that get the pleasure, Ain't it all a feckin shame'
If you substitute 'rich' for feckless, shallow lazy so called man managers and 'poor' for diligent, hard working, conscientious folk like Mrs Flogass at no. 26 you'll get my drift
There are wholesome endeavours just the same my friend, from basic creature comforts to what's important in life. Once we extricate ourselves from societal capitalist consciousness conditioning & much of its drugging influence, start to live responsibly according to need & see the meaninglessness of plastic consumerism, then we begin to be touched by the simplest of happinesses.
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