BY AARON BARLOW
Ohio State Normal College faculty meeting. Snyder, Frank R. Flickr: Miami U. Libraries – Digital Collections [Public domain]
We were hired based on a demonstrated level of competence; we can build from that, all by ourselves. We can do even better than we can when we struggle to conform to standards written far from the classroom to meet the needs, among others, of accrediting bodies.
For fifty years, teachers have been ceding power to education ‘specialists’ and to administrators and outside bodies (accreditors and governmental entities)—not to mention donors and politicians themselves. Actual classroom experience counts for less and less, and many today dream of eliminating it altogether in favor of a ‘digital learning environment.’
The non-teachers have been telling teachers how to teach for so long that the teachers have stopped believing in themselves—and have even begun to blame themselves when the outlandish practices (Common Core, anyone?) created for the classroom–but not within it–crash and burn.
Today, ‘professional development’ has become the realm of specialists brought in to instruct the classroom teachers in whatever the fad of the moment might be. Even so, the fact remains that real professional development, now so rare, happens only when teachers get together without outside supervision or guidance in order to learn from each other. Through it, teachers can create better understandings of their common student populations and can built unified, flexible programs that focus on the students and not the syllabi or imposed expectations.
Since at least the time of Rudolf Flesch’s 1955 Why Johnny Can’t Read—And What You Can Do About It, teachers, as a group, have been less and less respected in American society—to the point where many have developed what amounts to an inferiority complex about their profession and their ability to reach their goals. This is as much true of college professors (especially adjuncts) as it is of K-12 teachers. The anger and sullenness pervading our profession today are a direct result, as is the pulling away from each other that can be felt in the resentful air of what we call ‘faculty meetings.’
It’s up to us to get over this and start coming together to rebuild American education. In the colleges and universities where most of use who read the Academe blog teach, we could start this among full-times who have a professional obligation to participate in professional development as part of their regular duties. Adjuncts need to be brought in, of course, but this requires money—and few of us, any longer, have any control over campus purse strings—so we do have to turn to administrators to provide the financial support making professional development that includes adjuncts possible.
As adjuncts do a huge part of university teaching these days, we shouldn’t start new professional-development projects without them, so money for them has to be conjured up from somewhere. That can be done, usually, for a pilot project but finding a permanent funding stream can be difficult. It is going to take real demand from departments, college councils and faculty senates for administrations to relent and fund something they will have no control over, but lack of university oversight is critical to such projects, for part of the purpose is for teachers to regain faith in themselves and their fellows.
Cynics call people like me naïve and unrealistic. Others react to a suggestion like this with an ‘it’s already been tried’ wave of dismissal. But it really is an example of shared governance at its best, rising from the group (even if at the suggestion of an outsider) and coordinated by a convener, not a leader. The rules and goals should be set by each group and may change as situations change.
One point of this, again, is the regaining of respect for each other as well as ourselves. Most of us do listen to our students. That’s part of effective teaching. But to each other? We could all do a lot more of that.
A very thoughtful post. It is not naive; it is constructive. However it may take a faculty protest against administrative corporatism that makes student protests look tame! There may be some relevance in the below essay I recently wrote for the graduate students at the University of Chicago in the context of their recent strike action and picketing. Regards.
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/6/7/university-goes-corporate/
Thanks for the link. I think you may be right about the struggle….
I thoroughly agree with Aaron Barlow’s assessment (sorry to use that word!), especially when he says that “For fifty years, teachers have been ceding power to education ‘specialists’ and to administrators and outside bodies (accreditors and governmental entities)—not to mention donors and politicians themselves.” At about that time, I was given the task — at three separate universities — to oversee the “new” policies, even though I fervently disagreed with them (as did almost all other professors).
My experience has been that these rubrics have come from K-12 schools of education, where they MAY have more validity and effectivity than they do for college work. However, I’ve never taught 3rd grade. These assessment methodologies are often inappropriate for higher ed., especially when the measurement of student learning is expected to NOT include grades.
In some states, parents were instrumental in mandating the “goals and objectives” paradigm, when they learned that their high school graduates could not balance a checkbook. As a result, the state legislature or Board of Education added “ability to balance a checkbook” is one of the assigned goals. 🙂
You are right: these things trickled up somehow. However, I don’t think they work even at lower levels. Common Core certainly doesn’t–I’m having to adjust how I teach First Year Composition to make up for its failure.
Aaron, I agree with you wholeheartedly! Here’s the thing–faculty seem to have only learned to compete with one another rather than to work collaboratively. So the tenure-line people (in my experience) don’t like the “adjuncts” (hate the word) that in some cases have more experience, better training, and a strong following among students. (The latter just didn’t get the brass ring). So then the “adjuncts” feel not necessarily an “inferiority complex,” but a sense that they are a large oppressed group, and by their own colleagues. I think we need massive group therapy. There is so much defensiveness and turf-protecting–it reminds me of middle school. You are absolutely right: “it is up to us to get over this.” By strengthening governance and opening up tenure for all faculty, we might be able to reform the profession, but that means rules and policies need to be revised and then enforced! Who better than AAUP has the clout to do that?!
Yeah. We seem to have given up vision and idealism for turf protection and cynicism. And I agree about the word “adjunct” but have yet to see a viable replacement!
I like “non-tenure-track” or NTT. It captures why we are treated badly, institutionally. “Adjunct” means “non-essential.”
“Contingent” instructors is another popular term used to describe adjuncts.
Non-tenure track is not fully appropriate because NTT would include full-time instructors on temporary or short-term contracts; in contrast, adjuncts are almost always part-timers.
Frank, I think if you want to separate out the NTT part-time contracts from the NTT full-time contracts, you get into a whole other set of problems, like the artificial control of hours and benefits that are applied to keep costs low, not recognizing the actual work that is done. In my institution, the NTTs (full and part-time) are all lumped together, and indeed, the NLRB confirmed us as a bargaining unit. The huge problem was that the TTs were not organized into the same unit. So it continues, us against them. (That lies at the feet of the union organizers).
Apparently this is a university by university designation. Even when NTTs and TTs are in the same bargaining unit, it is not always harmonious. For instance, at CUNY, the PSC union “bargains” for tenured senior faculty, untenured F/T profs, and adjuncts. Guess who is usually ignored? (Actually, everybody. CUNY faculty went without a contract for 5+ years, until someone suggested that the union threaten strike. Then, a (crummy) contract appeared as if by magic.
As an adjunct, I had NO rights to Academic Freedom, Freedom of Speech, or the protections of New York State labor laws. This was all engraved in stone in the PSC union contract!
The PSC was ZERO help to me during this situation:
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_–_Revised_and_Updated