Future Tense

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About 15 years ago those of us interested in using computers to teach– we were teaching composition or literature classes– saw ourselves as fighting against academic Luddites who refused to understand that these new communication technologies were both beneficial and inevitable. This is the future, we would say, and we should welcome it and use it to our advantage. That wasn’t the only development in our field, however.

Alongside this technology we also saw the rise of a higher education system in which the ordinary standards of professional life– established over decades– had been eroded. The tenure track academic was being replaced with the poorly paid itinerant adjunct without health care, a pension, or any job security. I’ve long believed that our technological optimism was used as a kind of trojan horse to help destroy the profession.

Times have changed. I don’t mean to suggest that there we have lost our technological optimism. We have not. I think, though, that the technological emperor has begun to seem more and more naked. Multitasking is dead. There’s been a conference on “The Dark Side of the Digital” and more and more faculty– not surprisingly, in California (see here and here)– are resisting the online dystopias. We’ve come full circle.

As I’ve said, we were overly optimistic and this new-found realism is a helpful sign; I am hoping it does not presage a new form of academic Luddite. Resisting ineffective or immature online technologies, however, is only one-half of the picture. We also need a political movement dedicated to re-professionalizing academia. If that is ever going to happen it’ll have to include a savvy understanding of online technologies.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Professional, Writing

Back to the Future

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I saw this television show once–“How Star Trek Made the Future” or something similar– that showed how all sorts of things, from cell phones to talking computers, were first popularized on the science fiction television show. Science fiction had written about these sorts of things before, but seeing them on television made them seem so possible and real that they inspired a generation of software developers and engineers.

I loved the space program in the 1960’s and I stayed up all night to listen to the moon landing. We love technology. (I say that knowing that I am not sure who is in that “we.” Americans? Men in their 50? Women? Teenagers?) The problem, or one problem anyway, is that this technology is all wrapped up in consumer capitalist culture, which is often an ugly mess, especially here in the U.S. where discarded electronics fill dump sites.

That’s what I was thinking when I read this:

Young people think they can perform two challenging tasks at once, Meyer acknowledges, but “they are deluded,” he declares. It’s difficult for anyone to properly evaluate how well his or her own mental processes are operating, he points out, because most of these processes are unconscious. And, Meyer adds, “there’s nothing magical about the brains of so-called ‘digital natives’ that keeps them from suffering the inefficiencies of multitasking. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish.”

“You’ll Never Learn!” Annie Murphy Paul

The article does a good job of summarizing recent research– ongoing research– showing that the human brain is not built for multitasking. It’s dangerous to talk on the phone while driving; if you try to do two things at once– or three– you end up doing neither as well as you think. It’s especially dramatic when it comes to activities that require sustained concentration, such as learning in general or writing in particular.

I think a lot of us took that same sort of technological optimism into the classroom and promoted the idea that these kids, our students– digital natives we called them– would be capable of miraculous feats made possible by new communication technologies. As it turns out, things are more difficult than we at first imagined. I’m hoping that the next stage of change in educational technology will be more realistic.

Posted in: Writing

Mayday Manifesto

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The Mayday Manifesto, published by the Student/Labor Collation at SUNY, begins with a long list of historical grievances about the use of adjunct and contingent labor in U.S. Higher Education. It’ll be familiar fare to anyone who reads this blog. It concludes with a list of demands that is worth reproducing as wildly as possible:

The conditions under which contingent teachers are forced to work undermine the quality of higher education. Their miserable working conditions adversely affect student learning conditions, thus short-changing our students and threatening the future of our nation. This is no way to prepare the next generation for an increasingly competitive global economy! Funding education on the cheap has resulted in most American students no longer being competitive with those in dozens of other countries.

To reverse this disastrous trend, the undersigned urge that the following steps be adopted on a priority basis:

1. Increase the starting salary for a three-credit semester course to a minimum of $5,000 for all instructors in higher education.
2. Ensure academic freedom by providing progressively longer contracts for all contingent instructors who have proven themselves during an initial probationary period.
3. Provide health insurance for all instructors, either through their college’s health insurance system or through the Affordable Care Act.
4. Support the quality education of our students by providing their instructors with necessary office space, individual development support, telephones, email accounts and mail boxes.
5. Guarantee fair and equitable access to unemployment benefits when college instructors are not working.
6. Guarantee eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to all college instructors who have taught for ten years, during which they were repaying their student loans.
7. With or without a time-in service requirement, allow all college teachers to vote and hold office in institutional governance, including faculty senates and academic departments.

It’s not complete– I think class sizes ought to be capped as well– and in many ways it sets a very low bar. An adjunct teaching 8 classes a year, for example (assuming a workload of only 2 courses in the summary) would, after taxes, be working just above the poverty level for a family of 4. I think the rate ought to be high enough to make loads higher than 8 courses per year unnecessary. This is one way to improve education in every sort of institution. If we were to take into account the amount of experience and skill needed to teach at the college level, $10,000 per course would probably be a reasonable baseline. Still, the list is a great start. If you have a Gmail account you can sign the manifesto here.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Professional, Writing

Think Positive

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“We’re not allowed to go over 29 hours, and that includes time spent prepping, grading, e-mailing, meeting with students, attending required meetings,” she says. “What is happening—and I’m finding this even with just two classes—because of the grading load, I’ve been put in a position twice this semester where I’ve just had to lie about the number of hours I actually worked. I don’t want to have to make a choice between having a job or not.”

“Colleges Are Slashing Adjuncts’ Hours to Skirt New Rules on Health-Insurance Eligibility” Sydni Dunn

Some weeks you wake up and you want to write about wildcat strikes, or about the possibility of organizing adjuncts in Pittsburgh (ironically, it’s easier in Pittsburgh because it is illegal for faculty at private schools to unionize). Then you read this piece about administrators planning new ways to make our professional lives even less professional, and you want to give up.

Posted in: Professional, Writing