Helen DeWitt with an interesting addendum to the Massimo de Angelis and David Harvie paper I linked to recently.
'...the fact is, the instructor, no matter how brilliant, cannot specify what the learning outcomes of the course should be, because it is not in his or her power to assert that measuring up to his or her understanding of what is the case is the best outcome for the course.'
Absolutely true, this (not to mention the uncomfortably unclear tautology of 'aims and objectives' which DeWitt also highlights) - there is something both wearying and impossible about churning out endless 'aims and outcomes' for courses, as if writing prescriptions for the ether. Do students in week 12 go back to the list and check them off? Do they feel cheated if they feel they haven't achieved such-and-such an aim? I've never once seen or heard about this happening. Who are they for? Some benchmark big other, no doubt, whose opaque desires the external validation committee must internalise when pronouncing on the continued survival of the degree programme...
Meetings oscillate wildly between boundless enthusiasm for new projects and total despair - collaborations! (could we not please think of another word? It's very difficult not to think of French Nazis) interdisciplinarity! (like people from different subjects smacking each other on the arse with a paddle) international recognition! (like the world looking in a mirror...aargh! The face of Hegel!). This for a while then the 'but staffing issues...funding...' claw of cynical realism starts its inevitable throttling...
Although it currently looks like a good idea to be a public servant of one kind or another (as the spivs in shiny shoes run off to teacher training college), it won't be long before the financial crisis hits universities hard (funny how the 'trickle-down' is so much more effective when it's the redistribution of loss). Small departments are in big trouble. Any good will extended towards the future ('give us five years to prove how good we could be!') will be retracted in the name of short-term savings. Informed once again the other day that our department was not in the strongest position because we had no 'stars', it was hard not to imagine senior management pitting small programmes against one another in a kind of X-factor head-to-head (But she once had a piece in the Guardian! But he appeared on Newsnight! Isn't he friends with Martin Amis? Doesn't she have contacts in the city?).
The management solution, of course, is to cut the time allowed for research (while at the same time push for constant publication) and demand cuts in teaching ('why can't you run seminars with 20?') in favour of the churning out of grant applications. Sod the students! Once they're here we've got their money, who cares if they repeatedly tell us they want more teaching and more seminars and more intellectual engagement? And PhD students! Get lots of them! They bring in tons of cash! Too bad you don't have enough time to write anything on a topic that someone might want to come and work with you on.
'...the fact is, the instructor, no matter how brilliant, cannot specify what the learning outcomes of the course should be, because it is not in his or her power to assert that measuring up to his or her understanding of what is the case is the best outcome for the course.'
Absolutely true, this (not to mention the uncomfortably unclear tautology of 'aims and objectives' which DeWitt also highlights) - there is something both wearying and impossible about churning out endless 'aims and outcomes' for courses, as if writing prescriptions for the ether. Do students in week 12 go back to the list and check them off? Do they feel cheated if they feel they haven't achieved such-and-such an aim? I've never once seen or heard about this happening. Who are they for? Some benchmark big other, no doubt, whose opaque desires the external validation committee must internalise when pronouncing on the continued survival of the degree programme...
Meetings oscillate wildly between boundless enthusiasm for new projects and total despair - collaborations! (could we not please think of another word? It's very difficult not to think of French Nazis) interdisciplinarity! (like people from different subjects smacking each other on the arse with a paddle) international recognition! (like the world looking in a mirror...aargh! The face of Hegel!). This for a while then the 'but staffing issues...funding...' claw of cynical realism starts its inevitable throttling...
Although it currently looks like a good idea to be a public servant of one kind or another (as the spivs in shiny shoes run off to teacher training college), it won't be long before the financial crisis hits universities hard (funny how the 'trickle-down' is so much more effective when it's the redistribution of loss). Small departments are in big trouble. Any good will extended towards the future ('give us five years to prove how good we could be!') will be retracted in the name of short-term savings. Informed once again the other day that our department was not in the strongest position because we had no 'stars', it was hard not to imagine senior management pitting small programmes against one another in a kind of X-factor head-to-head (But she once had a piece in the Guardian! But he appeared on Newsnight! Isn't he friends with Martin Amis? Doesn't she have contacts in the city?).
The management solution, of course, is to cut the time allowed for research (while at the same time push for constant publication) and demand cuts in teaching ('why can't you run seminars with 20?') in favour of the churning out of grant applications. Sod the students! Once they're here we've got their money, who cares if they repeatedly tell us they want more teaching and more seminars and more intellectual engagement? And PhD students! Get lots of them! They bring in tons of cash! Too bad you don't have enough time to write anything on a topic that someone might want to come and work with you on.
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