The Laziest People on Earth
January, 2005
College perfessers have the easiest gig on this or any other known
planet. Yet, to hear their whining, you'd think they are worked to
death. The worst are perfessers in Departments
of Anguish and in Schools of Education.
At the
"school" of "education" currently infested by Professor
Plum there is recurring (and nauseating) complaining about "course
loads."
Course
"loads"??
"Hey, at U. Blewit they only teach two and two. [Two courses per
semester] And WE teach have to teach three and three. This is
unfair!!!" [Yeah, that's about 9 hours a week with maybe 30
minutes prep before class. Meanwhile they don't notice the guys in
green outside mowing a million acres in the blazing sun--all day every day.]
"Unjust."
"Exploitation!" [Oh,
yes, a real proletariat!]
"We need
unions!" [You need a high colonic.]
"Yeah,
and after ALL we DO. All our contributions to public
schools."
"Uh
HUH! And our INITIATIVES!"
"And don't forget
all our matrices! We fill out fifty matrices a year."
"High
level work."
"I'm still in recovery."
Permit me, Dear Readers,
to tell you what this perfesser scam really is.
You get tenure.
And you cannot imAgine the kinds of imbeciles who get
tenure in ed schools.
** Here's a
"scholar" who has published 11 pages in seven years--all in first rank
journals such as Mel and Ned's Journal of Literacy and Live Bait.
** And there's a
"distinguished" perfesser who is STILL
cashing in on a film he made in 1415, about the time Henry V's English long
bowmen were giving the finger to the French at Agincourt.
[Did you know that was the origin of "the finger."
The French threatened to cut off the long bowmen's middle fingers--hard to use
a bow without it. The archers responded with a merry hoisting of the
bird, and 50,000 bodkin-tipped arrows.]
If you have drive,
desire to do some good, and the intelligence to tell the difference between
making a real contribution and merely filling out a matrix, you work hard.
But if you DON'T, then
your "scholarly career" is best described as %$#@ing
around for the next 30 years. The university makes it possible to run a
scam for those 30 years by asking you to fill out a Professional Development
Plan in the fall and a Professional Development Report in the spring.
This is reeallll hard to do. You include...
** Every stupid
little workshop attended--put on by OTHER perfessers
who are padding THEIR reports. "
** Every lame thesis
"supervised" (you spoke with the student for 30 minutes four or
five times in a year). "The postmodern superintendent
revisited." [How do YOU spell demented?] "A new theory of
learning" [Just what we need. Like
the old ones were so useful.]
** Every minor change
made in a course (such changes are called "significant
revisions"). "I infused my courses with web
resources." [Meaning, the perfesser added
two urls.]
** Every spongy
"idea" for a "project." "To incorporate ALL
learning styles, how about having little kids bend themselves into the shapes
of letters? W may present a problem.] These flatulent eructations are called "proposed research."
...all of these are
counted as "professional development" and "scholarly
activity." Everyone wins. The university bean counters
add them up and ship them off to the board of trustees in annual reports.
"Our faculty are continuously and actively engaged in the highest
scholarly pursuits." [Sure. In the
sciences. For the rest?....Someone open a
window, please!]
And faculty go home for
the summer to recuperate from another year's back-breaking labor--all the while
celebrating themselves for being so socially progressive, so intuned to the
masses, so passionate about solving the "deep, structural inequities"
in our society of which, were there any, these drones would be THE exemplar.
Consider the resources
ed schools have, and how much NOTHING they actually do--given their narrow and
all-consuming focus on self-interest, their intellectual poverty, and their lack of imagination for
anything other than creating a self-aggrandizing pageant of reports, conferences, matrices, and "outreach."
10,000 bucks (at least!)
for the annual round of celebrations. Not one penny to start early
reading programs in inner cities--based in churches or in "the
projects"--teaching parents and other elders to teach kids to read using "Teach your
child to read in 100 easy lessons."
Labs full of the latest
computers--used maybe 5 hours a day. Not one minute spent training
citizens who need training in computers so they can get better jobs.
A dozen faculty in
special ed and empty classrooms at night and on
weekends. Not one minute providing (and not one minute even thinking
about providing) resources (telephone consultations, home visits, training
programs) to families of children with disabilities.
Closets full of
computers that are two years old ("obsolete") and books to get rid
of, but not one package sent to
Over the years,
Professor Plum has suggested all of the above kinds of service, that would cost
the ed school almost nothing. And, if an
organization cared how it looked to outsiders--and really wanted to make a
difference--these would be terrific.
Following is the
response from "higher administration" and colleagues...