And I adored teaching from the first scared moment I went into the classroom with no training. Honest to God, I love the law, but the thing I miss is teaching. I loved teaching as TA, and it and my own scholarship was what sustained me through the dark days when I was being fired. And I taught all kinds of students, from smart rich kids at Kalamazoo to uninterested working class kids in 500 person large lectures at Ohio State. I had bad days and bad classes, hell, every love affair has its ups and downs. But like Ol Blue Eyes, I surely do miss "the conversation with the flying plates"; I'd do it again. I was (and am) a super teacher, maybe because I love it so much. When I go back to Ohio, total strangers, former students, still come up to me in streets and say, Professor Schwartz? "You won't remember me [true enough], but I took your ethics class in 1990 and it changed my life." This happens a decade later. Talk about a rush! You can't buy a compliment like that, except with currency that's real gold. As to being a ratebuster, I worked at it, but I didn't mind it (usually); it was too much fun.
As to the joys of dentistry, I must be really twisted. I really liked law school too. But then I was lucky enough to go to Ohio State rather than Yale (well, Michigan Law, which is where I was going to go before I came to my financial senses; I didn't get into Yale.)
I can't say I wasn't told abiut the job situation. Michigan philosophy and political science were upfront about the grim prospects. And of course the Ohio State philosophy students knew too. I will say that my first diss advisor wrongly told me that I shouldn't go to law school when I was originally planning to go (back in 1982), "You're too good," he said, "You'll be OK." And I did get a job. I guess it was my fault for not keeping it because I was a red. He couldn't or failed to factor that into hsi equations.
--jks
>
>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
> >
> > Whine, whine. Teaching is fun. If you don't think so, you should quit
>grad
> > school. After all, teaching as a prof isn't that different from
>teaching as
> > a TA, just better paid. It's part of what the job entails, even if
>promotion
> > isn't based on teaching except at research schools. I loved teaching,
>except
> > for baby logic, both as a TA and as a prof. Not that it helped me in the
> > end.
> >
>
>This is flamebait, right? Sometiems threads on these lists kinda work
>like some mad puppy chasing and chomping on its own tail damn sure that
>the pain it's feeling can't be worse than the pain it's inflicting.
>
>Whine? Teaching is work. Work and fun only go together in say a
>sentence like, "Golly its fun watching them work." If you thought
>teaching was all fun, you weren't doing it correctly. Either that
>or you were perhaps some highly skilled and motivated ratebuster.
>No wonder you were pushing
>differential rewards.
>
>Now I'd prefer to avoid a Yates farewell redux, but I've been
>teaching for 15 years and have yet to experience it as fun.
>There's lots of positives and pleasures that I might theoretically
>on a good day enjoy from teaching, but I don't find fun fitting in
>there. Had we the time, I might inquire into your views
>about the joys of dentistry.
>
>At least fun was something grad school was upfront about. There'd
>be none.
>
>While you would think that folks entering graduate school would know
>very well that 1) the unemployment rate for their discipline has
>remained stuck at the historical high it achieved during the great
>depression so that the chances of getting a full-time job in that
>discipline has you more likely being hit by a falling space station
>while you are crumbling from the lightning that just struck you first,
>and 2) regardless of what XXXXist you want to be in order to do
>research and get invited to all the cool parties because you're one
>neat expert, the global career translator has you simply listed as
>"teacher," but you'd be wrong.
>
>Career prospects and the precise way in which one acutally labors
>in that career are surprisingly not well communicated.
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