![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Answer for question 4594.
Jan. 18th, 2016 12:47 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]Well, I can't talk publicly about my work troubles; safe to say that there are a number of sad and horrific things happening.
If I could change one thing about my job—and any job—it would be the idea of education as commodity and the increasing corporatization of schools. On a personal level, bureaucracy and hypercompetitiveness brought about by the idea that I must always, always fight to stay employed means that I have less time to plan innovative lessons, take risks, and so on. This doesn't benefit me, because I am an anxious wreck, and it doesn't benefit the students.
On a broader social level, academia—both K-12 and post-secondary—is about certification, not learning. I read a great cranky essay about this but nearly every educator I know admits that grades have become inflated, students are less engaged, there's a push to rely on bells and whistles rather than inquiry, and students just seem stupider than they used to. This is not because Millennials are self-absorbed and shallow; it's pure economics. Training was once the responsibility of the employer; now it's the young person (or their parents) entering the workforce who must fund the training at an inflated rate and pray that they've made the right gamble in choosing a program. Meanwhile, the idea of tenure has gone out the window, and you get contract faculty that's stressed, overworked, and underpaid. It's all a brilliant Ponzi scheme and that's why I encourage my students to become plumbers and electricians.
If I could change one thing about my job—and any job—it would be the idea of education as commodity and the increasing corporatization of schools. On a personal level, bureaucracy and hypercompetitiveness brought about by the idea that I must always, always fight to stay employed means that I have less time to plan innovative lessons, take risks, and so on. This doesn't benefit me, because I am an anxious wreck, and it doesn't benefit the students.
On a broader social level, academia—both K-12 and post-secondary—is about certification, not learning. I read a great cranky essay about this but nearly every educator I know admits that grades have become inflated, students are less engaged, there's a push to rely on bells and whistles rather than inquiry, and students just seem stupider than they used to. This is not because Millennials are self-absorbed and shallow; it's pure economics. Training was once the responsibility of the employer; now it's the young person (or their parents) entering the workforce who must fund the training at an inflated rate and pray that they've made the right gamble in choosing a program. Meanwhile, the idea of tenure has gone out the window, and you get contract faculty that's stressed, overworked, and underpaid. It's all a brilliant Ponzi scheme and that's why I encourage my students to become plumbers and electricians.
