Taking the Joy out of Teaching

Without a doubt, most global Higher Education rankings are dominated by the US universities. This is largely because of the cutting edge research that takes place in these institutions. However, teaching is also an important component of this success. Comparatively speaking, universities in the US place much higher emphasis on teaching than other countries. Otherwise, why would thousands of international students flock into the US for undergraduate education?

My university is no exception. Even though we are told, time and again, that the university aspires to become a research institute, this semester we have only ONE workshop scheduled on research (grant writing). However, there has been orientations, workshops, training sessions, brown bag lunches, and you name it meetings on teaching every almost EVERY DAY!

I attended one last Friday, scheduled between ungodly hours of 4 pm & 6pm! But there was booze, which always helps..:)  

Here are some observations:

*Please tailor these workshops a bit!

-How you teach a massive Intro level course is vastly different from teaching an upper level, specialized course, or a colloquium. Yet, most of these workshops assume “teaching” is one big monolith! Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet teaching technique that would work in all circumstances.

-Please pay attention to the great variation across disciplines. When a presenter from critical pedagogy was preaching us on “reflecting subaltern perspectives in teaching” all of Pharmacy and Genetics faculty on my table kept rolling their eyes…. 

*Please stop pushing us towards adopting more technology!

            -We don’t know whether the latest expensive software or hi-tech gimmick is actually increasing student learning. There is no conclusive research??

            -If I LOVED technology so much, I would’ve studied computer sciences, not political science!

            -Stop alienating us even more, by adopting incentives that diminish face-to-face, human-to-human interaction. We stare at screens all day long! Let us look at fellow human beings for 50 minutes in a day for a change…

*On-line teaching is NOT a substitute for REAL university education!

            -Do you think someone who got an on-line degree from Harvard or Oxford would have the exact same experience as someone who actually studied in their campuses in Boston & Oxford?

            -University is not just about taking some exams and filling up credit requirements.

            -University is also about socialization: with your peers, with faculty, etc. You learn not only during class times, but also in the cafeterias, dorms & libraries as you watch your peers and negotiate your way. You get exposed to a million different campus activities. It’s a unique atmosphere, different from the “real world”. And that is a good thing!

            -You won’t have the same experience, if you’ve never been to a real campus, and just completed an on-line degree in your underwear from your bedroom.

            -I concede that under limited circumstances, on-line teaching is OK. (vocational/professional training, non-traditional/working students, etc) But a virtual degree is a significantly diluted version of higher education. Let’s not forget that.

*Finally, my favorite comment in that long and tiring meeting came from an anatomy professor. Here I quote:

            “All these powerpoints and hi-tech stuff, they are killing the spontaneity in classrooms! If you want to help me improve my teaching, offer some acting lessons. That would really help!”

Wishing you all REAL Universities with Fantastic Professors,

On-line weary Academic Mommy

Where Do the Bright Minds Go? An Epiphany…

This semester I am teaching a course for the Honors College. It is an introductory course on International Relations. For my non-American readers, Honors College is where they pool the bright students with high scores. In general, they have a separate dormitory, a lot of tailored support and a whole separate Dean to cater to the students’ needs.

My students mostly have pharmacy, biological & agricultural sciences, and engineering backgrounds. And did I mention, they are very bright.

In the last few years, I have been working at universities that had strong science and engineering departments. For the longest time, I thought this was a great thing!

The last university that I worked in Turkey was very strong in engineering, for which I was proud of. I still don’t know what exactly nano-technology means, but they were nice folks up there making cool graphics.

Here in the US, my university has strong pharmacy and Ag-Bio sciences programs. They go out of their way to attract students into STEM disciplines –basically, science and engineering programs. 

 

In the US, the economic recession is still hammering the job market. Therefore, there is a concerted effort to channel students into areas where they would have guaranteed employment. Nursing, engineering and other technical departments are having their heyday! Music and art history, not so much…

For the longest time, I though this would be a great thing: that we should encourage ‘good’ students to go into these ‘hard’ disciplines. That’s what the society needs, right?

However lately, I am beginning to question this approach.

So what are we doing at the moment? We are railroading all the bright minds into pre-med, biology, nursing and engineering. Essentially, we are skimming the top and placing these kids into technical fields. As overachievers, they take their responsibility very seriously and spend significant time and energy on math, biology, anatomy, chemistry and other such ‘hard’ courses.

I teach International Relations and Comparative Politics, which for these students mean ‘stuff that happens outside the US’. They are so solidly geared towards their professional careers that any such class in social sciences becomes a ‘distraction’ for them.

STEM'pede...

So what do we have in our equation: We have a pool of best and bright minds. We sort them into these technical, professional disciplines. We pump them up with the importance of STEM disciplines night and day, so they dedicate themselves and excel in their particular fields.

Yet, is this what higher education is all about? Is university just a bigger vocational school??

I think the academia and society in general are doing a huge disservice, by creating these seasonal fads in higher ed. For a while, it was finance. You had the best and brightest going into economics and business schools. Supposedly, they would graduate and instantly take up jobs with six figure salaries at Wall Street. Subprime crisis and the disgraceful collapse of the finance sector hopefully put the brakes on this a bit.

Similarly, there was the Law School fetishism. The best and the brightest would go to law school, pay an arm and a leg for tuition, and graduate with thousands of $s of student loans. But it was all worth it! Because they were going to land on six figure salaries in prestigious law firms.

Unfortunately, students soon realized that not all law graduates could become Ally McBeals. The job market for the law graduates saturated rather fast, and many students ended up saddled with huge student loans, doing clerical work for pitiful hourly wages.

Let me wrap up: I think the current hype about STEM areas will do us harm in the long run for at least three reasons:

1.     Eventually, we’ll have an over-supply problem in these technical areas. Hence, in the lung-run, this will be another self-defeating mission, much like the cases of finance and law.

2.     By treating the disciplines other than science and engineering as ‘second class’, we are undermining the principles of a liberal arts education. It was this liberal arts aspect of the US higher education that made it superior, compared to other countries, such as Germany, which is rather advanced in engineering and technical fields. We cannot have well-rounded, sharp and worldly citizens with critical thinking skills, by having them write lab reports only. A university degree should be much more than just a ticket to employment.

3.     Lastly, there might be significant opportunity costs for channeling all our best and the brightest into these technical areas. Speaking for my discipline, we still don’t have clear answers to some of the most critical questions in political science. What is the relationship between income distribution and democracy? How can political systems address the issues of justice, equity and efficiency simultaneously?  Is democracy exportable to the rest of the world? Maybe some of these students who are so eagerly channeled into STEM disciplines might have the answer, but we would never know…

I am not arguing that we should terminate the efforts to recruit more students into STEM disciplines. As long as the short fall in those areas continues, this is certainly a noble mission, especially when it encourages the recruitment of women and minority students.

But I think STEM support should not come at the expense of other areas, particularly the social sciences. We should not build structural barricades for good students that effectively steer them away from social sciences.

Skimming the top students and placing them into technical fields might give us top-notch nurses, doctors and civil engineers. But it would deprive us of top-notch writers, diplomats, and political leaders.

Given the way world affairs is unfolding lately (Syria about to explode, Iran brewing nukes, Arab Spring spinning out of control, Europeans agonizing over self-inflicted wounds, China being a Pandora’s box, etc, etc) we do need the best and the brightest as leaders and diplomats.

Wishing you all brilliant veterinarians and political leaders,

The STEM-wary Academic Mommy

Disneyland, Family Fun, and the Latest Stage of Advanced Capitalism

During the Spring Break, we took our son to Disneyland in California. It was my first visit, as well as his. We were equally thrilled by the experience.

I am not a huge fan of artificial environments created for mass entertainment. Years ago when I first visited Las Vegas, the place utterly depressed me.

Maybe all the training towards a PhD makes us academics ill-disposed to the idea of popular entertainment. It’s as if the PhD diploma condemns us to watching boring artsy movies and pretending to get the deep dark meaning behind the strawberry scene… anyways, this entry is not about anti-intellectualism…

When in Vegas, I remember finding the place extremely tacky and fake. The air of over-the-top commodification bothered me so much!... It seemed like anything and everything was for sale. Especially the human beings! The amount of in-you-face human flesh became so unbearable for me that in order to tolerate those few days in Vegas, I decide to have a split personality disorder. Here is how it worked:

I imagined myself as an anthropologist doing fieldwork amongst this “weird” clan that was discovered in the deep Nevada desert. They slept during the day, stayed up all night. They lured and tricked the weaker members of their community into loosing their assets in labyrinths called the “casinos”. They liked to display bodies of the good-looking members of their clan in shows called “Crazy Horse”. They also liked to make pathetic models of the objects they liked from the civilized world, like the Eiffel Tower, Venice canals and the pyramids of Egypt. It felt like an extended nightmare with lots of glittery lights, dancing fountains and bouncing boobies…

Because of the rather bad taste on my palate from the Vegas trip, I was hesitant to go to the Disneyland, a.k.a “the happiest place on earth!” However, as guilty liberal parents, we didn’t want to deprive our only son of this experience, because of our moral and intellectual reservations. So, we went. And I’m glad we did!

Aside from spending some wonderful 10 hours, this visit churned the little political economist in me!

The moment we approached the parking lot, we were shepherded by a small army of “crew members”. These employees were all dressed up in the cutest uniforms. They would handle the crowds in the most efficient way, without making them feel rushed at all.

I swear thousands would pass through the main gates at every few minutes, yet the park displayed no signs of overcrowding, chaos or disrepair. Everything looked in great shape, despite the fact that the park was opened in 1955! The conditions and safety measures all around seemed impeccable!

I remember in Ankara, we took our son to a public recreational area in Golbasi once.  He still has a scar on his forehead from the playground there.

I imagine any place in the world with this many children and their overbearing parents would easily turn into a “Lord of the Flies” scene. But not in Disneyland!

The pricey ticket gives you access to all the rides, but the lines are long. People do wait their turns in a patient and orderly manner. Again, the “crew” works magic when it comes to shepherding the crowds in and out of the rides.

And the rides: They are amazing! The first one we went was “It’s a Small World” in the Mickey’s Toontown. It had little dolls from all around the world dressed in the most stereotypical fashion (i.e. geishas from Japan, belly dancers from some magic Arab lands, tulip holding, clog wearing dolls from Holland, etc…). Not much creativity, one might say. But, as we were gliding on a small sandal from one scene to the next, these dancing little dolls just mesmerized us.

I was amazed by the amount of craftsmanship needed to built and program these little dolls to dance and sing in such harmony. Contrary to Vegas, this constructed space of entertainment felt so real! And this sense of a “magic reality” followed us everywhere. It felt as if we were inside a three dimensional cartoon!

So, where is political economy in this?

If you’ve read thus far, bear with me a bit more. Here it comes:

When Disneyland opened in 1955, it had about 1 million visitors. Last year, it had almost 16 million! Tickets are around $80 a piece.  That makes $1.28 billion in revenues just from the entrance fees! Aside from that, you spend quite a bit of money inside on food, drinks, silly hats and other memorabilia.  We spent about $150.

I could not find the numbers but it must take armies of carpenters, puppet makers, gardeners, genitors, mechanics, engineers and maintenance people to keep that place up and running. From 8 am till midnight!

Seeing Disneyland consolidated my opinions about the dominance of the US in service sector. Essentially, Disneyland is all about selling a fictitious reality, a dream. And 16 million visitors each year are willing to pay for it!

California itself is the capital of this huge service sector. It is also the heart of the global entertainment sector. The studios –big and small- the artists –big and small- are the bastions of this empire. Tourism is completely catering towards the entertainment industry, feeding into the magical image of California and the America it creates.

After seeing Disneyland and California, I thought the US need not worry about the demise of its manufacturing sector. Let the Mexicans build the cars and the refrigerators. The Americans would do just fine, by creating magical realities and marketing it across the world.

Unfortunately, all this glitter of the service sector hides a rather dark side. For every actor or producer that makes millions and lives in giant mansions, there are tens of thousands of low-wage stagehands, stunts, waitresses and cleaners that earn pitiful wages with little or no benefits.

Lucky me, I just came across some data that back up my observations. According to OECD statistics, the US had the highest share of low-wage jobs among advanced economies.

This is not surprising, given the increasing predominance of the service sector in the US and its extremely inequitable wage structure. There is an astronomically wide gap between the leading artists and the stagehands. Similarly in banking, finance and insurance sectors, the wage gaps between the top and bottom are outrageous. Whereas in the manufacturing sector, the gap between engineers or administrators and the shop-floor workers had never been that wide.

Moral of this story: Take you kid to Disneyland, if you have the chance. It is a worthy experience, and the happiness and gratitude in your child’s eyes is priceless.

However, keep an eye on the grinding wheels of the service sector as well. Your happiness comes at the expense armies of low-wage workers.

Hopefully, we will be lucky enough to see another Great Transformation and labor mobilization in our lifetimes, like the early decades of Industrial Revolution. Similar to the 8-hour workdays and the child labor bans of the olden times, we need a new set of labor laws. These should provide a fair distribution of wealth that is generated by this new, post-modern economic sector.

The service sector might be the new locomotive of national economies, but it should take care of its constitutive components in a just, fair and equitable manner.

Wishing you all fun and pleasant lives as in Disney cartoons,

The California-enamored Academic Mommy

Visiting the Brazilian Ambassador:

Photo: Ministry of External Relations (The Itamaraty Palace) in Brasilia, Brazil

  Today, I had a nice long visit with the Brazilian Ambassador. As usual, we covered many topics ranging from PetroBras to black labs... But my entry is not about the content of our conversation. Rather, I’d like to talk about political cultures.

  Throughout my academic career, I had the opportunity to encounter and work for some high profile individuals. At my Alma Mater, Bogazici University, for instance, I was the assistant for the then vice-rector, who got degrees from Yale and Stanford.

  When working at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, I had the chance to meet with the ex-president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo. We had a nice chat about my dissertation with Dr. Zedillo, who incidentally has PhD in Economics from Yale.

  My last rector in Turkey, who was recently promoted to be the head of the highest scientific research institute of the country, received his PhD from Georgia Tech. He was both the sharpest and most accessible administrator that I ever worked with.

Here is where I am trying to get at:

  When I look at the high profile people that I interact with, the ones that I communicate with utmost ease all have some education experience in the US. Therefore, it wasn't a great surprise for me when the Ambassador said he too had studied in the US. 

  I think the higher education system in the US, particularly the Liberal Arts tradition, is the best form of soft power that the US could ever achieve. It breeds a unique blend of cosmopolitan individuals, who acquire the pragmatic, laid-back, no-nonsense attitude that is emblematic of the American political culture.

Let me put this in a comparative perspective, so that the contrast would pop out more:

  In my home country, which is not much different from the other members of the developing word, protocol and hierarchy are strongly entrenched qualities in political culture. The higher up in the ranks you go, the more stiff you get. Consequently, it is really hard to have a genuinely open, productive communication with these people…

  Unfortunately, the Europeans are not immune to this stiffness virus either. Their strong adherence to bureaucracy (see the colossus they’ve created called the EU), the meandering way they talk, which involves so many subtle connotations that you need a decoder to capture them all, make it really hard to get to the nuts and bolts of an issue. 

  There has been a growing literature on the American decline since the 1980s. Yet, most of these were coming from the left-leaning IR scholars, hence were not taken too seriously by the mainstream. Recently however, even the centrist, mainstream scholars are talking about the “US decline”. (Here is a great piece by Stephen Walt of Harvard)

  Hard power (military and economy) is a whole other issue. But if it wants to maintain its soft power, the US cannot afford to lose its global edge in higher education.

My humble suggestion: 

 Get the  public university budgets off the butcher block, and stop the intimidating visa procedures for international scholars and students. What all these end up doing is undermining the precious US soft power in the long run... 

  Happy Thanksgiving!

The Liberal Arts loving Academic Mommy 

News and Noteworthy Events, Part 2

Esteemed Readers,

Not very pleasant things are taking place around us. Buckle up, hang in there, it's going to be a tough winter. Here we go:

• My parents hit a WOLF while driving this evening. They're OK, the wolf is dead, serious damage on the bumper, headlights and the radiator of the car. 

• There was a major earthquake in Turkey again, in the Eastern city of Van. 7.2 in richter's scale. Over 600 dead, thousands injured. It demonstrated once again that:
• contractors in Turkey are either too greedy, or too ignorant or both
• state is still as incompetent and unorganized as it was in the 1999 quake
• people are generous
• civil society is in slightly better shape than it was in 1999

• NATO ended its Libya mission, probably making Colin Powell really proud! For once, the US has made a clear exit in one of its military missions in the last decades! Here the numbers since Nato took charge of Libya mission on April 1st: 

•  26,000 sorties flown 
• 9,600 strike sorties
• 5,900 targets destroyed
• 600 tanks or armoured vehicles destroyed
• 400 artillery/rocket launchers destroyed
• 16 countries have provided air assets         

                   (Source: NATO)

The "slaughter-a-ram-for-your-God" holiday (also called Kurban in Turkish or Eid in Arabic) is coming up soon. 

I wish Happy Holidays to all my readers from all over the world. 

Be merry, healthy, and try to protect yourselves from earthquakes, wolves and NATO sorties...

The bad news-weary Academic Mommy

Willie's Kindergarten Days!

Esteemed Readers,

August 18th was a very important day for our family. Not only was it Willie's birthday, but also it was his first day of school!

Willie is attending a real school now. Here is how a typical day goes by:

He lines up outside with his class at 8:30. With the bell, they walk into the classroom. Then, they take out the folders from their backpacks and hang the backpacks in the coatroom. There is this folder ritual every morning. Their teacher, the ever-smiling lovely Mrs. Banks, checks the folders for homework and notes for the teacher. Afterwards, they go and take their places on the carpet. Subsequent to morning greetings, they stand up for the pledge of allegiance.

Below are the words of the original pledge. I included this for my international readers, since like myself, they may not be too familiar with this interesting American ritual...

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Today, with gradual additions, it reads like this:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

So, as we can see, nation-state is alive and well, wherever we go...

After the pledge, the real stuff begins! They do a lot of reading exercises, sing along with the teacher, do writing and coloring. After each project, they pack up and put away their supplies behind their chairs in a very orderly fashion.

There are 23 kids in class. As I spent all morning with them today, I was amazed at how Mrs. Banks keeps on top of them all. She does this in a sweet but firm way. It's been only 4 days since the school started, but they all seemed to have internalized the rules and routines in the classroom. Kudos for Mrs. Banks! And she accomplished all this, despite the fact that her house flooded! I couldn't believe how she still could maintain such a positive spirit despite the $30,000 damage in her basement and an uphill battle with her insurance company. More kudos for Mrs. Banks!

Here are some lessons that I took from Willie's class today:

• In America, they really try to cultivate the kids as independent individuals very early on.

(There was one little girl in Willie's class, who cried for her parents during recess. No one paid attention to her, or tried to cuddle her. Eventually, I went by and tried to calm her down...)

• In America, rules are very important.

(Even when things seem disorderly, there is always an order and logic behind. The kids know where to sit on the carpet, how to sit, where to put their folders, how to browse books and read the pictures. In the end, good behavior yields pennies! The teacher gives a penny to good kids for saving in their penny jar.)

• In America, you need to eat your lunch fast!

(They have only 20 minutes for lunch. And this includes lining up, filling your tray, finding a seat, and opening your milk and other goodie bags. I was so impressed when I saw Willie filling up his tray and opening his of carton of milk all by himself!... And they give no straws!! (See the entry about independent individuals above) No babying around and drinking from straws in the lunch room. Today, Willie could eat just half of his meal (hamburger + baby potatoes) but finished all of his fruit (pineapple) and milk.)

• In America, elementary schools are run by women!

(Today, I barely saw 1 or 2 men around the school premises. The teachers were almost all women, the assisting staff were women, the involved parents (PTA folks) were women and the Principal is a really nice lady... In short, the elementary school is women's turf!)

Wishing you all a great Fall semester, and brilliant, independent students,

Academic Mommy