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Professor - Blog Posts
Petroleua my beloved clown baby
i have a teacher kinda like this and i feel like she’s under appreciated
To the hero professors
So, I’m taking U.S. History one and two over the summer at my community college, and the professor is this older white man. Naturally, this is history, and my first assumption walking in to the class is that I’m gonna be stuck listening to this guy drone on for two months of boredom. Great.
Within the first five minutes I knew I was wrong. So, so wrong.
“I don’t want you to be stuck memorizing dates,” he says. “I want you to know the story, the people, the conditions and reactions so that maybe we can all learn from past mistakes.” I was baffled. A history class that doesn’t require you to be able to rattle off dates? Not only that, there’s no homework and we don’t have to read the text book. The only things that are going to be on the test are things that come straight out of his mouth during class. He introduces himself, and proceeds to go around the room and greets every person one at a time. He will do this every day for the rest of the summer one and two semesters.
Then the lecture begins. I say lecture, but it feels more like story time in kindergarten. He begins to speak with such prose and personality that I forget this is a college course. He’s taken something that has so much potential to be mundane and turned it in to a book that I can’t put down. You bibliophiles know what I’m talking about. And then this glorious fucker ends the class in a mid-sentence cliffhanger.
Every class he carries on this way. It feels as if I’m there. Signing the Declaration, fighting against brothers in the Civil War, listening to FDR’s fireside chats, storming the beaches of Normandy… And he remains unbiased. He wants to make sure we see there’s two sides to every story; understand the conditions that lead to those reactions.
We took a test today, a week from our final exam. He goes around the room in his usual affable fashion, but rather than just ask how we’re doing, today he asks if there’s anything he can do for us. Most folks like myself say something along the lines of nothing, or I’m good. This girl next to me jokingly says, “You can buy me a coffee.”
“How much is it?” He asks.
“About five dollars.” She answers.
And without hesitation, this professor, this wonderful man with a love of teaching, and a love of his students, pulls out a fucking twenty dollar bill, hands it to her and just says “Go get your coffee, and bring me the change.” Then continues on his way like it’s nothing.
And it may be nothing. Maybe I’m blowing something small out of proportion. But in a world where it feels as if every class is just dragging you along in the gravel behind it, and the professors seem to just be going through the motions; to see someone actually do something kind and ask nothing in return is so refreshing and uplifting.
I don’t know. Maybe this is just a boring shit post, but I really needed to share my appreciation for this hero of a teacher. A teacher who after over 30 years of teaching is still happy with what he does.
tl;dr: Some teachers leave a long lasting impact on your life; change the way you think, the way you see the world. Appreciate them for what they are. The unsung heroes of a failing education system.
Voxman is CANON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chaos is order yet undeciphered.
Enemy (2013)
A New Meaning of the Ivory Tower
This kind of turn can begin anywhere, anytime — like right this moment, here and now — wearing the mask of pragmatism and accommodation: let’s not make waves, let’s not use words or make speeches that draw attention, let’s make friendly connections to state legislators, let’s rename that program, let’s quietly defund that one center. Let’s not grant tenure to that person. Let’s encourage that professor to retire. Let’s look for a leader who is acceptable to interests that really hate the university and its values. Let’s take the money for an independent institute that pushes far-right economic philosophy. Let’s take away some governance from faculty, because they tend to provoke our enemies too much. Let’s compromise. Let’s be realistic.
Burke, T. (2022, Juni 30). Academia: Waiting for Heideggers. Eight by Seven. https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-waiting-for-heideggers
We think it's necessary, that not much can be done, that it's just this one little thing, that it's not that important, that we're just protecting our people, at least most of them, forgetting that it won't stop there. We are gradually eroding our freedom one tiny step at a time. We are leaving people behind one tiny step at a time.
To understand what happens from the perspective of those we leave behind through compromise, we should consider the concept of slow violence.
By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all. [...] a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales.
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194
So what can we actually do? Well.
Watch for those who will come forward with the aim of making us easier to deliver on a platter to some future monstrosity, and block their path whenever they step forward. Start building the foundations for a maze, a moat, a fortress, a barricade, for becoming as hard to seize as possible. Time for the ivory tower to take on new meaning.
Burke, T. (2022, Juni 30). Academia: Waiting for Heideggers. Eight by Seven. https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-waiting-for-heideggers
What and how we research
I know it's constantly stated that science is objective. I constantly emphasise that researchers are human beings and that their backgrounds, experiences and lives influence not only what they research, but also how they do it. That's why diversity in science is important. Yes, science is based on good scientific practice, transparency and reproducibility, but the what and how have degrees of freedom and are shaped by those who do the research.
’[...] But most of the research I do is more focused on sapphics, which would make sense, considering I am one.’ Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever had an openly queer teacher before. ‘That’s so cool,’ I say [...]. ‘Do a lot of professors end up researching things that, uh, also apply to them?’ ‘It depends,’ Fineman says. ‘In some fields, yes; a lot of my colleagues have a personal connection to their work. But not always. In any case, we’re very passionate about what we do.’
Zhao, A. (2024). Dear Wendy. Macmillan USA.
I don't know if I would do research on queer perspectives in library and information science if I wasn't queer myself. I don't know if I would choose a transformative research design if I didn't see inequalities and a need for change. Who we are shapes what we do and how we do it, whether it's in research or anywhere else.
The slow professor
Academic work is by its nature never done; while flexibility of hours is one of the privileges of our work, it can easily translate into working all the time or feeling that one should.
This is just too true.
We need to take the time to read things that we don’t "have to" read. Just because reading cannot be easily quantified does not undermine its worth. In response to "what did you work on today?" many of us adopt an apologetic tone when we reply, "just some reading."
That pretty much sums up why I've started reading again, what I find personally interesting, and not just what is related to a paper I need to write or a lecture I need to prepare. That's why I'm sharing such a wide range of quotes and literature here.
We do need time to think. We do need time to digest.
Some of the things you read take time to sink in, to become relevant at some point in the future. Or not.
Connected to the imposition of neoliberal ideology on research culture is a dramatic decrease in collegial culture [...]. As academics become more isolated from each other, we are also becoming more compliant as resistance to the corporatization of the academy seems futile.
Both loneliness and belonging are contagious.
Resistance is not futile.
Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. University of Toronto Press.
Children who dream #01 I'm working on a series of watercolor illustrations about the dreams we have when we are children but the ones we never follow when we grow - it could be because of monetary needs or peer pressure or parents' forcing us or maybe we just forgot. I'm trying to capture the joys of children, dreaming of what to be and happy in their own world 😊 #art #watercolor #illustration #artistforhire #children #book #inspiration #dream #goal #archaeology #dig #cat #girl #plant #archaeologist #excavation #joy #site #professor #history #artistOnInsta #artistontumblr #love #green #mud #mummy
Futurama on SHOWFER.COM!
It's #TVtuesday again! Not sure if I wanna binge-watch all seven seasons of this or get a good night's sleep 🤔
Watch now on SHOWFER.COM: https://goo.gl/m7Tcz3
4/9/24
inspired by a guy walking by on the street. no, he was not surrounded by balloons. but ai thought he was and i think that's nice.
Severus didn’t need to come in that hot like damn Snaddy 🥵
Found these amazing pieces of art on the internet. The iconic trio of professors of Hogwarts. The bravest Slytherin with two of the best Gryffindor teachers!
Images taken from Google. Cred go to original creator.