academia

[Pavel Samsonov]

>
> How about this scenario. While signing up for a seminar (where every
member
> is approved by the professor), every student must sign a contract or else
> the student cannot participate in it. The contract stipulates that
anything
> the student says or writes for the course the professor can use in his/her
> work. For the duration of the seminar each student is assigned a work on
> the subject weekly, and at the end of the seminar the students have to
turn
> in diskettes with this literature review. There also papers to write, of
> course. The students are later thanked in a forward of the professor's
> book.

Actually, when a teacher hands out the syllabus - it is already an
agreement, a contract if you will.
The above described course would be OK in Science, Math, maybe some
Humanities.
However, with language teaching... I don't know.
It is still unclear, what is meant by the goal of studying a foreign
language at school or college.
Oral proficiency? Knowledge of grammar? Knowledge of culture?
It is unrealistic to expect fluency from a student who has taken Russian for
one or two semesters.
Then we have to teach "about" Russian. In this case your scenario can be
acceptable.

>
> >There is poor teaching and there is good teaching.
>
> This method teaches something, certainly about some adversities of
academic
> life, maybe some research skill. The list of what it does not teach would
> be longer.
>
> I think we should discuss what's wrong with (some of) us, ethics of our
> profession, not just what wrong with them (students).

Are we and students separable?

With compliments,

Pavel (Paul) Samsonov
EDAD, College of Education,
Texas A&M University
tel. (409) 862-7771 (lab)
      (409) 862-9152 (home)
fax (409) 862-4347
e-mail p0s5658 at acs.tamu.edu

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