The "Education" Thread

[Talos of Atmora]

the feeling when so many of your students answered incorrectly that you start to question if you yourself answered correctly

That's one of the reasons I could never be a professor.

 

[Phylactery]

the feeling when so many of your students answered incorrectly that you start to question if you yourself answered correctly

Haha. this happens to me on occasion. Especially when it's one of the brighter students in the class. I start questioning myself even though I know I'm correct!

 

[viewerfromnihil]

the feeling when so many of your students answered incorrectly that you start to question if you yourself answered correctly

Or when they take something you said in class and use it in their paper, but have obviously completely misunderstood your point.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

One of my favorite things is a question that stumps 80% of the lab but not the smart kids so I finally get an opportunity to get ruthless.

 

[rms]

One of my favorite things is a question that stumps 80% of the lab but not the smart kids so I finally get an opportunity to get ruthless.

this is me 25% of the time in my comp sci class

 

[Dak]

One of my favorite things is a question that stumps 80% of the lab but not the smart kids so I finally get an opportunity to get ruthless.

I think contraindicators are a much more interesting phenomenon. You have a question where the bottom n% get it right but that same top n% get it wrong.

 

[Dak]

Had my year-end review, was pretty brief. My mentor was very complimentary and we spent about as much time talking about what was coming up in the fall. Had a visiting notable milpsych person last week and the talk and personal visit went well. Also had some other different developments occur which were generally positive in nature. I'm at piece with the fact that I'm an odd person and I don't know how much my oddities are due to nature, nurture, or an interaction, but when they align for a positive situation it's so refreshing. I'm at the point where I've been so conditioned to expect so little that what I assume is baseline interaction for the average person is cause for an emotional high in myself. I think that's why I enjoy music that I enjoy so much: It doesn't disappoint. Maybe that goes for all the things I enjoy and why I am so risk averse. I heavily select for shit that doesn't disappoint because my normal experience is disappointment.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

My field supervisor from my college came for the last time, yesterday. I love that woman. We'd talk on the phone for hours about the education system doing a disservice throwing kids with disabilities into inclusion classrooms when they really just won't be able to do what is expected of them and how they should be learning life skills. My students are adorable. They were flossing extra fucking hard telling her, "Thank you for giving us Ms. Simpson!" Now I hope they keep this up for today's observation. We are reading the book Wonder, which is about a boy with a severe disability who goes to school for the first time at ten years old and i have a station activity. Two videos (one with a girl who has progeria and another about conjoined twins), three stories about people with rare disabilities with questions they have to respond to, and a chart paper response to "the elephant man's" life. I think it will be fun! And I hope they continue the flossing.

 

[CF87]

When I was in school was in ISS pretty much everyday, in school suspension, if I was not kicked out, school made me sit in a room at a desk all day and I did not have to do anything, then I would just go home.

 

[Dak]

Goddamn. Every semester since my wife has been an art major I've had to interpret a bunch of Marxist &/or Freudian psychobabble for her, and since she had to declare an English major this shit has only increased and it's pissed us both off. No wonder Bernie is so popular around campuses - you have a bunch of ignorant professors steeped in this shit just regurgitating it. Not saying every professor teaching this is simply regurgitating, but the ones she has are either straight out of their program reciting tumblresque talking points or the stereotypical scatter brained old art dipshit ranting about privileges and the id/ego/urges while being an unaware racist. And people wonder why conservative leaning persons don't care for the arts. It isn't because of the fucking Chartres Cathedral, Statue of David, or the Sistine Chapel ceiling, I can tell you that much. It's this shit, justified by marxian/freudian/Lacanian bullshit. Here's my art perspective: Art critiques itself.

 

[Einherjar86]

If she's hearing critical theory "psychobabble" then I'm betting she's not learning about the Statue of David or Chartres. It sounds like she's learning about modern art, i.e. early-twentieth century if not later. If that's the case, then it makes sense that she's being exposed to psychoanalytic discourse because, wouldn't you know, that's what artists in the early-twentieth century were reading. It's not just academia imposing interpretations onto modern art; these artists were actually reading Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. And I'm also willing to bet that there's a lot of Nietzsche in these art classes, but you're focusing overwhelmingly on Marx and Freud because they're your sworn nemeses.

You call these instructors ignorant, racist, etc. but I'm skeptical about almost everything you say, and I would ask for examples of what the profs are saying.

The only thing I'm not skeptical of is your comment that art critiques itself. That much is true.

EDIT: also, every time I visit this page my virus software is telling me that the image you posted contains a virus and won't download it.

 

[rms]

you don't want to see it. i was mid breakfast and am very mad @ dak

 

[Einherjar86]

Ah. I just finished breakfast, so I'll count myself lucky.

 

[Dak]

If she's hearing critical theory "psychobabble" then I'm betting she's not learning about the Statue of David or Chartres. It sounds like she's learning about modern art, i.e. early-twentieth century if not later. If that's the case, then it makes sense that she's being exposed to psychoanalytic discourse because, wouldn't you know, that's what artists in the early-twentieth century were reading. It's not just academia imposing interpretations onto modern art; these artists were actually reading Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. And I'm also willing to bet that there's a lot of Nietzsche in these art classes, but you're focusing overwhelmingly on Marx and Freud because they're your sworn nemeses.

I only hear about the stuff when she either needs help with or is complaining about instructor monologues. None of the professors are Nietzschian, I can tell you that much. And obviously she isn't learning about what I would consider actual art. The picture I posted was of a modern artist who uses her own vomit to craft images. The art provided its own critique.

I consider Marx partially responsible for a monumental amount of human misery, and as still the primary figure in a field which cannot learn from its own mistakes (but rather insists the mistakes were due to not being true enough). Freud was attempting to help, and provided a foundation for the advancement of the field to eventually eclipse him almost entirely. Artists using Freud as justifications are taking an outdated theory entirely outside of the appropriate context of its application. It's utterly misinformed and a complete misuse.

You call these instructors ignorant, racist, etc. but I'm skeptical about almost everything you say, and I would ask for examples of what the profs are saying.

Not selecting minority students for events/programs, picking the handful of admitted minority students to do the more expensive/time consuming work - both courserelated and extracurricular, and grading them more harshly, is generally considered racist behavior. Ignorant for a variety of reasons, but just as much behavioral as intellectual (such as not recognizing the disconnect between their behavior and their odes to something like "intersectional" philosophy.

 

[Einherjar86]

I only hear about the stuff when she either needs help with or is complaining about instructor monologues. None of the professors are Nietzschian, I can tell you that much.

They may not be Marxists or Freudians either, that's what I'm saying. Twentieth-century art is inextricable from the discourses that produce it and that comment on it. Especially postwar art, when many artists are familiar with critical theory and other philosophical traditions. So if you want to study art then you need to study the "psychobabble" that goes along with it.

Maybe the professors do identify with one theoretical variant or another, that's beside the point. I'm saying that in a course on art history, or literature, Marx and Freud will come up. They have to. I've spent a good amount of time in past classes discussing Marx and Freud with my students, but not because I'm trying to force certain values on my students. I discuss them because these figures are more important for the development of the humanities in the West than Bastiat or Mises were.

The picture I posted was of a modern artist who uses her own vomit to craft images. The art provided its own critique.

So you chose a caricature of amateurish contemporary art to straw-man the entire enterprise? Sounds fair. Didn't bother to talk about Kerry James Marshall or Michael Heizer?

I consider Marx partially responsible for a monumental amount of human misery, and as still the primary figure in a field which cannot learn from its own mistakes (but rather insists the mistakes were due to not being true enough). Freud was attempting to help, and provided a foundation for the advancement of the field to eventually eclipse him almost entirely. Artists using Freud as justifications are taking an outdated theory entirely outside of the appropriate context of its application. It's utterly misinformed and a complete misuse.

Two points:

1. Study Picasso, or Matisse, or the Dadaists or other Surrealists, and it's not misinformed because Freud hadn't been discredited at that point. In order to study art historically and contextually, you need to address the cultural discourses popular at that time, and Freud was popular well into the mid-twentieth century.

2. Obsolescence in contemporary psychology =/= obsolescence in contemporary practices involving questions of representation and expression. The reason why Freud took off in the humanities was because he was making perceptive claims about representation; his mistake was in applying this kind of representational framework to human beings, whose brains work on other levels, in addition to representation. In short, Freud was a powerful critic of the expressive/representational impulse. He just imposed his model into places it didn't belong. So yes, psychology had to move beyond him; but that doesn't mean art needs to (and one more note, since the '60s or so, many artists appeal to Freud in order to say he was wrong--feminists, for example; so you should be on board with the anti-Freudian feminist art).

As far as Marx goes, I won't have that discussion. Many of his ideas are still applicable today no matter how much you think otherwise. We just disagree here. If people keep getting pissed at the fact that he inspired generations of artists and writers, then I don't know what to say. Suck it up, I guess.

Not selecting minority students for events/programs, picking the handful of admitted minority students to do the more expensive/time consuming work - both courserelated and extracurricular, and grading them more harshly, is generally considered racist behavior. Ignorant for a variety of reasons, but just as much behavioral as intellectual (such as not recognizing the disconnect between their behavior and their odes to something like "intersectional" philosophy.

Well, that all sounds unfortunate. Do these students not volunteer for events/programs? This is college, isn't it? Shouldn't students be volunteering for things outside of class, not waiting to be picked by the professor? And how do you know their grades?

 

[Dak]

They may not be Marxists or Freudians either, that's what I'm saying. Twentieth-century art is inextricable from the discourses that produce it and that comment on it. Especially postwar art, when many artists are familiar with critical theory and other philosophical traditions. So if you want to study art then you need to study the "psychobabble" that goes along with it.

Maybe the professors do identify with one theoretical variant or another, that's beside the point. I'm saying that in a course on art history, or literature, Marx and Freud will come up. They have to. I've spent a good amount of time in past classes discussing Marx and Freud with my students, but not because I'm trying to force certain values on my students. I discuss them because these figures are more important for the development of the humanities in the West than Bastiat or Mises were.

There's a difference between bringing something up and pushing it/requiring it for explanations or interpretations of new art. Apparently at some point technique is less important than concocting some story or more importantly "proposing a question". My wife's pretty drawings and paintings don't "propose a question" etc. So she has had to learn to skirt the line between making something that looks decent and making up some bullshit the teacher will eat up. Of course, the aesthetics suffer as it has to be choked off to fit the agenda. Learning this process second hand has provided a new appreciation for why "art" is so often repulsive.

So you chose a caricature of amateurish contemporary art to straw-man the entire enterprise? Sounds fair. Didn't bother to talk about Kerry James Marshall or Michael Heizer?

When you can find decent popular contemporary art let me know. Why did you choose these other amateurish caricatures? Marshall's art is mostly spastic (certainly not refined) and Heizer mostly just makes massive holes in the ground or bland yet useless concrete structures. So: Vomit. Bland. Useless. Contemporary Art TM. Of course, that isn't to say that there aren't plenty of artists doing good work. But they certainly aren't getting anything more than local accolades, and they often are self-trained in the techniques, and so lacking the proper indoctrination into how to render their work more shitty.

Two points:

1. Study Picasso, or Matisse, or the Dadaists or other Surrealists, and it's not misinformed because Freud hadn't been discredited at that point. In order to study art historically and contextually, you need to address the cultural discourses popular at that time, and Freud was popular well into the mid-twentieth century.

2. Obsolescence in contemporary psychology =/= obsolescence in contemporary practices involving questions of representation and expression. The reason why Freud took off in the humanities was because he was making perceptive claims about representation; his mistake was in applying this kind of representational framework to human beings, whose brains work on other levels, in addition to representation. In short, Freud was a powerful critic of the expressive/representational impulse. He just imposed his model into places it didn't belong. So yes, psychology had to move beyond him; but that doesn't mean art needs to (and one more note, since the '60s or so, many artists appeal to Freud in order to say he was wrong--feminists, for example; so you should be on board with the anti-Freudian feminist art).

I can understand the direct link between discussions of dreams and surrealism, and incidentally the it's the only somewhat respectable product group out of the post-Victorian "art" you listed. But I disagree with the posturing of Freud as having much, if any, "perceptiveness" about representation. One of the benefits to being the first into a field which isn't operating scientifically is you can just make up things based on inherently unobservable, unquantifiable phenomena (it may be that this is always an unavoidable first step in human inquisitiveness). In that sense, we might retrospectively call what Freud was doing "art". But of course these "discourses" which invoke Freud are treating him as science or philosophy, when he is neither. That the influence of Marx and Freud on the art world coincided with a significant decline in aesthetic quality and aspiration is both telling and unsurprising. Naturally, this perspective would be rejected as valuing art is a subjective enterprise. Of course, it is the subjective value theory which completely cut the legs out from under Marx's economic treatise. The irony is thicker than the Berlin Wall.

Well, that all sounds unfortunate. Do these students not volunteer for events/programs? This is college, isn't it? Shouldn't students be volunteering for things outside of class, not waiting to be picked by the professor? And how do you know their grades?

Not everything is done on a volunteer basis, and I know about the grades because critiques are done with the whole class and my wife tells me about the differences in grading. Of course, there could be a slight confound to charges of racism - maybe the minorities are the only ones not "proposing the right questions" (which would be interesting in its own right if that's the case).

 

[Einherjar86]

You're wrong about so many things, as usual; but I do not have the time or patience to have this discussion. It's a good thing you avoided the humanities--now you can just complain about them to yourself. Sorry to be blunt and elitist.

 

[Dak]

It's a good thing you avoided the humanities

This comment makes zero sense.

 

[Einherjar86]

You're in psychology. That's a social science.

Your previous comment, on the other hand, makes close to zero sense. Freud did write perceptive things about representation, you just don't think anything about representation is very perceptive or necessary. He was also a decent philosopher, so I'm not sure where you get that from.

And finally, Victorian art isn't the pinnacle of Western artistic sensibilities and efforts. You just like it because it conforms to your notion of reality, and of what good old-fashioned, value-reaffirming art should look like. It's the same reason you think Cormac McCarthy is a bad writer, for example. Your opinions are based purely in your subjective responses to these things, which isn't an intellectual way to go about judging them or evaluating their cultural relevance.

 

[Dak]

You're in psychology. That's a social science.

I also have a BA in Philosophy and I'm vicariously exposed to what a Fine Arts degree requires and produces.

Your previous comment, on the other hand, makes close to zero sense. Freud did write perceptive things about representation, you just don't think anything about representation is very perceptive or necessary. He was also a decent philosopher, so I'm not sure where you get that from.

How can you state that Freud was perceptive unless we can test the thing perceived? I'm not saying it's not possible that there is"latent content" to dreams, but there's currently no way to empirically access it. Furthermore, there's little difference between "latent content from the subconscious" and "divine origin" theories other than the supplanting of the divine with an equally unfalsifiable base (a predictable development as per Nietzsche).

And finally, Victorian art isn't the pinnacle of Western artistic sensibilities and efforts. You just like it because it conforms to your notion of reality, and of what good old-fashioned, value-reaffirming art should look like.

I didn't say Victorian art was a pinnacle, but juxtaposed to most of what came after it, it is far superior to the amateurish spatterings of paint or grotesque amalgams of various materials that pass for skilled products. It's as if artists decided to reset to the equivalent of etching on the inside of caves or dancing around a fire (performance art!). It doesn't have to be "life affirming" though. John Martin is one of my favorite artists if not favorite and his artwork was far more tragic than affirming. But it captured broadly human condition, with all its concomitant fears, awe, tragedy, and occasional tranquility. It's arguable that Victorian Art was regression from the more classically inspired predecessors in terms of content if not technique as the scope of human experience represented was reduced. Acclaimed modern art appears to represent nothing but the nihilistic emptiness of both the individual producer and the small echo chamber of admirers. Nietzsche predicted, but did not condone.

It's the same reason you think Cormac McCarthy is a bad writer, for example. Your opinions are based purely in your subjective responses to these things, which isn't an intellectual way to go about judging them or evaluating their cultural relevance.

I've never read McCarthy but I assume his ability to craft a story is decent based on the movie adaptation of No Country for Old Men. I'm sympathetic to deontology but Kant was a bad writer .