> Some professorial rage comes from an almost metaphysical belief that
> university teaching should be in some profound way _different_ from any
> other job. It is, some, some of the time. But it is still essentially
> just a job. It's a more fun and less laborious job if one does find ways
> to like students, or most of them, and even the most recalcitrant
> student is more fun sitting in a chair in your office than staring
> resentfully from the back row in a class of 75. And the professor in
> such a situation may be a bit less resentful if (s)he doesn't feel
> obliged to be the angel with a flaming sword guarding the gates of
> civilization from the barbarian hordes without.
It took me a long time before I became confident in my own writing abilities. I find it ironic that currently I'm thinking that my profession is now that of a writer, artist and professional activist.
I was actually way ahead of my classmates in primary and secondary schools. I was reading adult level books by the end of third grade. I also learned in high school how to bullshit my way through essays and tests, so I got sloppy and brought those bad habits with me to college. It wasn't until I got to grad school where I had a professor that really
challenged me to improve my writing. After we had handed in the first writing project, the professor wrote four examples of bad writing that he had found while grading the papers. He didn't give any names, but I popped a vein when I realized that two of the four examples came from my own writing. I spoke up and managed to identify myself as one of the offending bad writers.
It's really sad that America has turned into such an anti-intellectual culture.
Chuck