But how do you really feel about teaching?

I admit I have not found a lot of symptathy with my Lin quote in academia. But I wouldn't expect love poetry to fare well at a monastary either. Or perhaps the more apt comparison is reading the works of some atheist, say, David Hume, at a church. For I recognize what the quote implies is blasphemny, that the whole entrprise of advanced education as it currently stands is misguided. Be that as it may, I am standing by it.

I was going to try this experiment my last year, because I would sure it would get me kicked out. But it might have been worth it. Say to your class on the first day. You never have to show up and you will get an "A." Give them the final and your answers and your word and even a signed statement that this is the case and they will get an "A." If they are there for the knowledge, then it should not affect their attendance at all. But seriously, how many students would show up? Especially, say, after the first time you did it and word got around that you really did give "A"s to people who did not show up. I'm not saying none of them would, but you could probably hold your largest lecture class in your office.

I mean, when you are teaching something you are passionate about to people who could care less about it (or is it "could not care less") well, it wears away at your soul. Or it wore away at my soul. It's like making love to a corpse. I mean, if you like that sort of thing, fine. The whole enterprise strikes me as unnatural.

But I'm willing to take part of the blame. I will speak only for myself but I think many academics are not exactly constitutionally fit to teach. That is,we go into our discipline because we love are subject matter. But loving your subject matter and enjoying teaching (much less being good at it) are two different things. But in fact I wouldn't even say I am constitutionally unfit to teach. But I am unfit to do the sort of teaching we mostly do, or at least mostly do at a public university (though my evidence suggests things are not that different at more elite universities). The sort of teaching I think I can do is of the the only person who should be taught a subject (once a basic level of education has been achieved in a population), namely, those who really want to learn. Otherwise, the whole enterprise is wasted. There's a line in Buddhism about how one should be as desirous of hearing the teachings of the Buddha as a man who's head is on fire for a bucket of water. Now, you may say, well, that's easy teaching those sorts of students, except it really isn't, no more so than it is easy teaching an aspiring violinist or even an aspiring car mechanic because you need to have yourself accumulated a good amount of knowledge and skill and then be able to convey it. But mostly we're like piano teachers instructing reluctant children whose parents have visions of them in concert halls while they want to be outside playing.

You might ask, if you feel this way, why didn't you leave a while ago, and the truth is I should have left much sooner. But you know, you devote a good amount of your time and energy to studying and getting this Ph.D.,which has essentially made you unfit for any other employment. And then you find to make a living you have to do this thing which you are not exactly crazy about and have some real doubts about. But if you do it, you get to do this other stuff you like and overall have a pretty good life.Well, it seems like a good bargain, especially when they throw in tenure. But it is a Faustian bargain, I do believe.

That's all I'm going to say. Reading it over it doesn't strike me as cynical but true. At least by definition it cannot be sour grapes. But it is negative energy and there's no use and much harm, I think, in dwelling on it. It's a realm I've left and have no intention of returning to. Whereof one cannot speak--or at least not speak anythig positive--one should be silent.