Worst Professor Ever

I didn’t become a fan of alternative education until I was a practicing professor (those high school ‘alternative kids’ were scary, man!)  And my version of alternative isn’t about communicating with the students. It’s about the peer group I’d secretly deeemed ‘alternative profs’. You’d find us huddled miserably in darkest corner of the convention hotel. If you got past the ‘real prof’ facade (the secret password was ‘cheez whiz’) you’d find people middle-class enough to talk about money (or lack thereof), Midwestern enough to be uncomfortable with self-importance, or state-educated enough not to buy into the prestige of our own institutions.

(If you want ‘official’ documentation on this, you can read some Chronic columns on why these traits don’t do aspiring academics any favors. I’m pretty sure at least one of those columns is by Thomas Benton, the same guy who bluntly and rightly tells people not to got to grad school.)

Even before I left,  job wikis emerged as a glimmer of online resistance; suddenly, thousands of applicants could share information in the wake of institutional stonewalling. I wish you could have felt my child-like glee when I got to explain the wikis to some old-school profs, exactly the sort who positively reveled in their petty power. ‘Applicants can get unauthorized information?!’ they sputtered, furious that their Sauronian grip was being threatened. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Now Twitter is the place to be, allowing an anonymous forum for teachers to say what they’re really thinking while modeling succinct writing. @ProfSnarky live blogs their grading (something every student should be forced to read) while other profs and grad students report on their not-so-Dead-Poets lives, daringly admitting to having hot students or (gasp!) drinking while grading — which students should only ever be happy about, as it’s bound to give the grader a rosier outlook on trite intros and dangling participles.

The subversive element is everywhere. Over at Post Academic, they did a fine investigative report on the student who Rickrolled a paper (see illustration below). Now that I’m not teaching, I can admit that I think it’s freaking hilarious. I wish more students would take such creative — yet harmless — revenge on their impassive, research-driven teachers. (For more on Rickrolling, see the Wikipedia article; for the entire Rickrolled paper, check out the GeekOSystem post.)

I’m also eagerly awaiting the results of the PhD Challenge, a contest that requires entrants to slip the phrase ‘I smoke crack rocks’ into an actual academic publication. Entering has been called ‘academic suicide’ by some academics, which is why I love it so hard. The competition was founded by Ivy League scholars who think academia has gotten too boring. Who could possibly disagree with that?

Blogs allow more and more true tales of grad school and adjunct life to emerge — finally. So we’ve got the Hundred Reasons NOT To Go To Grad School giving realistic advice to those who want it, and backing up Thomas Benton’s initial attack with a deadly, step-by-step demolition of many idealistic misperceptions. As do videos like this one:

And Post Secret‘s founder is doing us all a service when he posts the top-secret thoughts of students, grad students, teachers, and PhDs:

I used to think I hated 99% of people in academia because they were boring. Now I know that’s not true. A lot of them are interesting — but they’re also interested in keeping their jobs in a way I’ve never been. Still, it was a revelation to find out how much they hate acting boring and pretentious. And how many teachers, at every level, want to make pop culture jokes and laugh at students and have sex lives and basically be normal, non-Victorian entities. But somehow, this doesn’t jive with what everyone else expects.

So this the horrible secret? That profs and teachers are underpaid, overworked human beings, not bone-dry effigies or martyred saints? No wonder  Alice Fenton’s confession that it felt good to fail certain horrible students produced such outrage. Many holier-than-thou types accused her of being petty, but I know who I’d trust to tell the truth — seriously, ‘smart’ people, you really think you’re immune from that thing called bias? Good luck with it, and if you’re interested I think there might be some quotes about that in, like, Sophocles or something.

Anyway. Approaching my hundredth post (may even be there already, lost count of the guest posts), I’m happy to say I’ve found an enormous online community of ‘alternative’ educators and scholars. When I was in the Tower, all I ever wanted was a little rebellion — from the students, from the teachers, from anyone being squashed by the dictates of unreasonable authority. It was hard to see while I was inside. But now that I’m out, by Jove, I think I’ve found it.

Those of you who are telling the truth, keep on keepin’ on. Beauty isn’t far behind.

And to those who’ve called the PhD Challenge ‘academic suicide’? I can’t believe I have to remind you of this, but here goes: academic suicide always beats real suicide — which is what happens when you stop having any fun in life.

Tags: alice fenton, expectations of teachers, k-12, phd challenge, post secret, privacy, secondary education, social pressure, the chronicle of higher education, thomas benton, tweeting, twitter, venting on the web