S. Worthen | Weblog

And I didn't qualify my statements enough. That final "grad school" line should have been just about dissertating.

The social elements are, I suspect, why most people who've responded to this enjoyed their MAs more unadulteratedly than their PhDs.

It's such a pity that teaching ends up being rated as a second-class activity when it's so important. This week's mediev-l discussion on accountability is indirectly relevant here: how to rate and account for adequacy of teaching? It's easier to run down list of what publications have been accomplished.

Your comment has left me with incoherent thoughts on the changing status of various professions. Low-class surgeons in antiquity. Teachers/people-who-know-things-and-pass-them-on as keepers of tradition, preservers of community knowledge and their differing importance among communities over time. I wonder if there's any correlation at all between the widespread "we are all individuals" concept and the "new research is better than old teaching" presumption. How was the teaching/research status balance before the '60s?