2008 Woodie Awards
Professors want to teach, but they don't want to learn
Orion Palomar
Issue date: 9/5/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 2 next >
This is the time of year ("back-to-school") when I think most about all of the academics I have met in my life who pretend to value the learning process. Many of them suffer from a unique form of dissociation.
They want to believe that they value learning, and they become educators because they want to teach. But they themselves don't want to learn. They only "learn" for the purpose of becoming educators. But when it comes to learning new things, they are resistant, and they are not aware of their own resistance.
And that unawareness is why they are actually dissociated. Part of them values learning; part of them doesn't want to learn. Or maybe it is just a simple matter of fear; they fear the unknown. And that is why some academics become researchers while other become teachers at universities.
Three-to-four years ago I wrote several letters in The Lumberjack inviting the students and professors at HSU to learn things about victims of child abuse and how they (we) have been affected by abuse.
I offered to do two presentations. One was titled "Survivor Myth, Survivor Image, Survivor Reality: Seeking the Truth About Victims and Survivors of Child Abuse" and the other was titled "How I Became a Semantic Wild Child and a Victim Without a Culture." I provided my e-mail address in the letters. But not a single student or professor responded.
I have to wonder what Dr. Bruce Perry would say about this lack of response from university students and professors who claim to value science and learning. This past year he published a cutting-edge book with the long title "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, And Other Stories From A Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing." I wouldn't be surprised if he supported my theory of academics suffering from a form of dissociation.
Surely, there is a reason why Perry used the words "what traumatized children can teach us" in his subtitle.
They want to believe that they value learning, and they become educators because they want to teach. But they themselves don't want to learn. They only "learn" for the purpose of becoming educators. But when it comes to learning new things, they are resistant, and they are not aware of their own resistance.
And that unawareness is why they are actually dissociated. Part of them values learning; part of them doesn't want to learn. Or maybe it is just a simple matter of fear; they fear the unknown. And that is why some academics become researchers while other become teachers at universities.
Three-to-four years ago I wrote several letters in The Lumberjack inviting the students and professors at HSU to learn things about victims of child abuse and how they (we) have been affected by abuse.
I offered to do two presentations. One was titled "Survivor Myth, Survivor Image, Survivor Reality: Seeking the Truth About Victims and Survivors of Child Abuse" and the other was titled "How I Became a Semantic Wild Child and a Victim Without a Culture." I provided my e-mail address in the letters. But not a single student or professor responded.
I have to wonder what Dr. Bruce Perry would say about this lack of response from university students and professors who claim to value science and learning. This past year he published a cutting-edge book with the long title "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, And Other Stories From A Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing." I wouldn't be surprised if he supported my theory of academics suffering from a form of dissociation.
Surely, there is a reason why Perry used the words "what traumatized children can teach us" in his subtitle.
Be the first to comment on this story