Thursday, January 12, 2006

Sometimes I Just Hate Teaching, Pt. 2

You know what? I was wrong. Dead wrong. I taught my class of business students for the second time, last night. They're going to be a fun bunch. Yes, they are getting business degrees, sure. They also seem like they're genuinely interested in the class, did well on their first presentations, and seem like a bunch of nice folks. I guess I'm just a dick sometimes. But where does that come from?

I guess most of my anger/hatred of the business community comes from the assholes that run it. Not the middle managers. Not the peons. Not the folks who are just trying to get by. It comes from the business executives who want to make over education in the guise of late-modern capitalism. Sink or swim, Bobby and Cindy! Pass the test or fail America! It comes from the self-satisfaction of people who claim to be self-made because they turned their inheritance, and their families' connections into a successful life. It comes from being on too many campuses where the business departments, because they are the business departments, have more resources, more status, and better facilities. I do not like, nor do I trust, America's hereditary plutocracy. People like the Bushes don't know how things are for most folks, nor does it seem that they really care to any great extent. They don't have to. But that's them.

Students at my university are the have-nots. They are the kids (and grown-ups) who want to have a chance to make something of themselves. They believe that a business degree will help them achieve that goal. I sincerely hope it does. It will probably be a long slog for a lot of them, given that they are barely able to afford school, many of them are parents, they don't have friends and connections in high places, and they don't have rich parents and grandparents to bail them out when things go sour.

That's why I'll do my very best to make sure they learn something useful in my class.

Did I mention I was wrong?

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