Is Learning to Teach Well a Luxury If Time Allows?

As a practicing, card-carrying curmudgeon I was gratified by the many
objections to the reference to faculty no longer providing their
institutions
with a "revenue stream," as deadwood.
     As Lowman, Jarvis, and experience all tells us, the young
professsoriate
cannot expect to earn tenure on the basis of excellent teaching.
Research is
mandatory. But John Cardinal Newman noted long ago that discovery and
teaching are quite distinct activities requiring different talents, and
only
rarely are these found well developed in the same individual. It should
come
as no surprise, then, if many faculty-once tenured-do what they wanted
to do
in the first place, teach. Such people, in fact, should provide an
appealing
target group for program directors and T/L centers. Quoting TaTaL
(again) on
the subject, (p 149), "Disturbing...is the possibility that putting
effort into
planning and thinking about teaching well is a luxury that only older
tenured
faculty can afford. It might turn out that any overall improvement in
college
teaching may have to come from that quarter." Well, maybe it isn't all
that
disturbing???

Jarvis, Donald K. 1991. "Junior Faculty Development: A Handbook." (New
York:
Modern Language Association of America.)
Lowman, Joseph. 1995. ""Mastering the Techniques of Teaching." (San
Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.)
Bob

Bob Leamnson
rleamnson@umassd.edu

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Received on Thu Jul 8 10:08:38 2004