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Ian Pace
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« Reply #105 on: 19:37:56, 10-09-2008 » |
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It's surely a sign of deep fear when the existence and expression of a simple opinion constitutes the 'Thought Police', unless one needs a sheltered environment in which to exist.
If you really believe that you must be more self-deluded than even I was aware. Perhaps once more you are mistaking me for someone who gives a flying damn about you or your opinions. So why not just ignore them? Why do you feel the need to keep invoking the 'Thought Police'? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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time_is_now
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« Reply #106 on: 19:39:55, 10-09-2008 » |
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I take your point, t-i-n, but suppose that one needs to filter into the equation the fact that many students might not see the results that you see as being so valuable from your own education as necessarily being the most important things, either in themselves or in terms of career prospects.
Yes, I can see that. (I can see Baz's perspective too, but I don't find it especially productive to hold up examples from an age with a different social situation in order to make invidious comparisons. And no one needs to be told to 'go and get a job in Tesco'.) [...] whether the ethereal, socially disengaged type of supposed 'learning' favoured especially in Oxbridge is really on a par with that which attempts to connect knowledge with wider concerns, or whether the former sometimes has a profoundly narcissistic quality about it  I'm not sure if this was supposed to relate to my earlier post, but the kind of Oxbridge teaching I had in mind was certainly not the sort you describe, and moreover I can't really say I recognise your description as being characteristic of even the bad teaching I received there (except perhaps of certain pronouncements by the egregious Prof Holloway, and even he wasn't like that on his better days). Richard, my 'perspective on the measurement issue' was rather closer to yours than to h-h's, wasn't it? Did you misread me? |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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richard barrett
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« Reply #107 on: 19:46:38, 10-09-2008 » |
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Richard, my 'perspective on the measurement issue' was rather closer to yours than to h-h's, wasn't it? Did you misread me?
Yes, I'm sorry if you thought I was lumping yours and hh's together, but I should be surprised if there weren't differences in attitude to these things as a result of going through the system at different times (well, going through different systems in fact). I don't think I really have any more to contribute to this discussion at present. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #108 on: 20:01:26, 10-09-2008 » |
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The Oxbridge thing I was mentioning was as much to do with what I gathered from the Oxford music department when I was studying there, especially in the early music field (whilst not studying music, a large number of my friends were); I remain to be convinced that Cambridge is much different. But certain varieties of jargon-ridden cultural theory, seemingly making a virtue out of mystifying obscurity and thus exclusivity, do not seem much different.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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ernani
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« Reply #109 on: 20:10:23, 10-09-2008 » |
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Funnily enough, I just found out today that the Music department in my University has decided to devolve the role of Director of Education to a non academic 'manager'. This in contradistinction to all other departments in the Faculty where this job is done by an academic. Couldn't help thinking of this thread  |
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Baz
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« Reply #110 on: 20:12:04, 10-09-2008 » |
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I take your point, t-i-n, but suppose that one needs to filter into the equation the fact that many students might not see the results that you see as being so valuable from your own education as necessarily being the most important things, either in themselves or in terms of career prospects.
Yes, I can see that. (I can see Baz's perspective too, but I don't find it especially productive to hold up examples from an age with a different social situation in order to make invidious comparisons. And no one needs to be told to 'go and get a job in Tesco'.) And with this further example of literalism mixed up with political correctness (both quite unconnected with education) I hereby belatedly take my leave of this truly depressing thread. Baz |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #111 on: 20:13:07, 10-09-2008 » |
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The Oxbridge thing I was mentioning was as much to do with what I gathered from the Oxford music department when I was studying there, especially in the early music field (whilst not studying music, a large number of my friends were) It's possible, isn't it, that even the notoriously old-fashioned Oxford music department has changed since the late 1980s, although from my few encounters with it I can well imagine it hasn't. Cambridge always seemed to me to be very different, but I can only vouch for my experience there, not for how it compares to Oxford or to anywhere else. But certain varieties of jargon-ridden cultural theory, seemingly making a virtue out of mystifying obscurity and thus exclusivity, do not seem much different. I'm not sure who you're arguing with here. My own interest in the kinds of theory I think you have in mind is primarily in how one might retain the theoretical interest but remove the jargon, but that's a separate argument anyway. My interest in cultural theory and in psychoanalysis came not from Cambridge but from a couple of ex-Marxists in the extra-mural film department at Manchester Met. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #112 on: 20:26:37, 10-09-2008 » |
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Baz, you are over-reacting. I think the point may have been that there are many other alternatives other than the immersion in pure learning you seem to advocate, or going into a low-skilled job. My sister also went to Oxford - it would be fair to say, I think, that she's not an intellectually curious person in any real sense, and probably say her degree in a functional manner. She's very successful, is on the board of directors of the company for which she works, and earns much more than I ever will. That wouldn't be my choice of work and life, but it is hers. And it's at least arguable that gaining certain skills from doing a degree helped her to get where she is. And I reckon that's what many students want, ultimately. It would be nice to think I inhabit a more exalted realm than hers, but I don't really believe it for a moment - especially considering the hideous snobbery and naked careerism to be found throughout the musical and academic worlds. Is it so terrible that today's students might have different aspirations from those we might wish - and indeed, were those who went through the older system really so different?
T-i-n, I'm not necessarily 'arguing' at all in making that point, just (as one who teacher cultural theory and is co-editing a book on it in the context of music) sounding a cautionary note about when it can start to disappear up it's own backside, as well it's laying claim to certain measures of truth that it has by no means earned. It can of course be a much easier option than wrestling with documentary evidence and working one's theories around that - something scientists have to do all the time.
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« Last Edit: 20:33:27, 10-09-2008 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Baz
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« Reply #113 on: 20:35:09, 10-09-2008 » |
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It's possible, isn't it, that even the notoriously old-fashioned Oxford music department has changed since the late 1980s, although from my few encounters with it I can well imagine it hasn't. psychoanalysis came not from Cambridge but from a couple of ex-Marxists in the extra-mural film department at Manchester Met.
BUT - since this message arrived after my last - I must comment once more before leaving this circuitous and wholly unhealthy thread. Having been an Oxford Music student well into the 1970s, I returned to that Department in 1992 for a 3-year stint as External for their Music BA course. Contrary to what t-i-n suggests, it certainly HAD changed and developed enormously. Riding on the back of its then very disappointing research rating of 3.1, it advanced and progressed quite noticeably over the following 3 years. It had undertaken considerable rationalisation and modernisation, not only in its courses but also in its teaching provision (which had previously also been adjudged by HEFCE only as "adequate"). After that its ratings have been generally in the higher categories, and its courses and provisions considerably more imaginative. Baz p.s. this is definitely my final appearance in this thread - no matter what provocation may ensue. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #114 on: 20:36:08, 10-09-2008 » |
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Is it so terrible that today's students might have different aspirations from those we might wish No, certainly not. and indeed, were those who went through the older system really so different? This is what I wonder too. But it does lead me to ask: if your sister's education gave her skills which she was subsequently able to make relevant to the kind of career you describe, why is it that you think students now need such a vastly different approach to their education? When I acknowledged your point in message #98 above, I certainly hadn't meant to suggest that other students with different priorities from my own were somehow less important; just that I don't see why it is necessary to streamline the approach I benefitted from out of the system in order to make the system work for students whose primary aim is to get a good job and salary. If, as you say, there are students from poorer backgrounds who have good reason to worry more about their future financial prospects, then surely the important thing is to concentrate on making sure they have equal access to the sort of education which already worked quite well in equipping their middle-class contemporaries for professional life. |
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« Last Edit: 21:30:11, 10-09-2008 by time_is_now »
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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time_is_now
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« Reply #115 on: 20:38:42, 10-09-2008 » |
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Contrary to what t-i-n suggests ... Baz, I said quite explicitly that I had no significant experience of the Oxford music department and that while I could imagine it hadn't improved very much, there was an equally good chance that it had. I'm grateful for your clarification, but I respectfully suggest that the atmosphere in this thread had become so heated that you assumed I was making a dogmatic assertion which I really had not made at all. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #116 on: 20:44:32, 10-09-2008 » |
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I don't really want to pursue the thing with my sister other than to say that her attitude to higher education was quite like that much criticised in today's students. And she could get an Oxford degree on that basis. It really wasn't about widening perspectives or the like - and more widely I knew plenty of students then who felt what they had to learn didn't really serve any purpose then or afterwards - it was just a necessary chore in order to get the qualification. Nowadays students are asking whether some of that could be cut out and they could learn more stuff more directly relevant to their interests.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #117 on: 21:10:32, 10-09-2008 » |
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But the curriculum did not react to your sister's attitude. She went through the hoops required to get her diploma or degree, and now she is doing well. This seems to be a piece of the proof that universities know best what a student needs. And I don't mean that they know best once and for all, but they have to adapt what they think is best to the realities of (a) the changing world around them and (b) their real budget constraints. But certainly not (c) what the students want, though student input is certainly a useful part of the picture. Students who don't trust the university to provide them with a good education should be permitted and encouraged and advised and if possible helped to go elsewhere. (Though not necessarily to Tesco ) Did anybody bother grappling with the Rorty theses I posted upthread? I wonder if they speak to y/our viewpoints? |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #118 on: 00:24:15, 01-10-2008 » |
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(reposted from GORR) While I have some considerable sympathy with a lot of what Baz has to say about the decline we must all agree has taken place in this system, I don't think there's any future in holding up the past as some kind of golden age either - it was also a time when there was much abuse of the system by both students and university staff and I know because I did it myself, having used my university years (wisely, I think, as it turned out!) to do everything I was interested in except coursework. However, as implied by hh's post, we who are in it now have to deal with this system as it is, rather than as we'd like it to be or as we rose-tintedly remember it as being, or not at all. It's a function of trends all over society and can't be localised to education, still less one sector of education. I've done enough complaining myself, but in a way I'm glad that the patrician language of the "privilege" of university education looks as archaic as it does in Baz's post. I would like to see everyone who is so inclined having the opportunity to attend higher education of some kind or another without having to pay for it. This however would involve a radical reorganisation of economic priorities on the part of our rulers, which is hardly likely to happen when those priorities depend on keeping the majority of the population only as educated as is necessary for surplus value to be extracted from them. |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #119 on: 00:33:20, 01-10-2008 » |
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Similarly reposted (should be read as if it precedes RB's post) Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, there used to be a great difference (before students had become "customers") between a University Lecturer and a Woolworths Shop Assistant. The result is that these days when Term begins - and the shop is "open for business" again - a lecturer's life (like that of a shop assistant) completely changes. While it used to be the case that students attended their place of education as a privilege in order to undertake for themselves a process of learning, calling upon the aid of specialized resources (both human and material), this no longer happens. They now turn up at opening time in order to be served the education that they expect actively to be given to them. So their learning experience is now entirely the "responsibility" of their teachers, just as the client experience of a Woolworths customer lies entirely at the door of the salesperson.
Baz, though we agree on a number of things, I have to say that your description of life as an academic is entirely foreign to my experience (so far). I would suggest that there are a number of things which, if they're put into place (like adequate feedback, clear and transparent criteria which are made available to the students, etc.) deal with a number of the complaints that can be laid at the lecturer's door. Once these are dealt with, many of the gripes that come out in, for example, the student satisfaction survey, just disappear. I've worked with colleagues in the past who have refused to put these things into place 'in protest' at 'what is wrong with education today' and it made the students as a whole unhappy. There are too many students coming into most universities to give the kind of feedback that was possible even for my generation, let alone further back. What do we do about it? Do we demand that we stop educating a proportion of the population? Do we devise (or resurrect) an older form of education? I don't think that there's an easy answer and to some extent, we're stuck with what we've got. It's a constant battle between taking more students and stopping retention rates falling, with the quality of teaching invariably taking the bullet. Not inevitably. I realise that there are plenty of people posting here with much more experience than me of education, and higher education (including you Baz) and that I may be speaking from a position of youthful inexperience, but your Grumpy Old Rant about Higher Education really stuck in my craw tonight. I've spent the day attempting to get the programme into shape (with the help of my colleagues) for next week. I'm having to miss the good bit of the programme induction because I've got to attend induction myself (the dreaded PGCert). The last part of the day involved proof-reading from a computer screen for an hour and a half, by which time I had a pain behind my left eye. It's spread to the side of my face now, which is better. I've already had a rant down the phone to my mum about some aspects of the job today, but I don't have a single thing to rant about in terms of bureaucracy. Every single thing that we've put into the programme handbook, into our module descriptors, into the timetable etc. I'm pleased to see going out to the students. In fact I don't think that we're going far enough. It's a privilege to teach even a handful of students who actually want to learn. |
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« Last Edit: 10:34:15, 06-10-2008 by harmonyharmony »
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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