01 October 2008
the very best thing(s) and the very worst
- My second year students, who have collectively decided to be the most engaged Philosophy class in the history of pedagogy. They make preparation a sheer, exciting endeavour, rather than the anxious, hasty mess it can (sometimes) be.
- My new first year mature student who, after a decade of selling expensive luggage to rich folk in Harrods, gave up her job to study Philosophy after seeing Chomsky on television late one night talking about human nature.
Numbers are up dramatically on last year, despite (or perhaps because of) the current economic climate. I wonder whether a certain kind of vocational despair (study business? What for?) increases the intake for 'useless' subjects like my own. Burdened by loan repayments for decades to come, you might as well take the opportunity to read books you actually want to know something about, and study subjects that quicken the pulse rather than merely please your parents or some future business big other.
Working on student reception for a short time while the secretary mercifully escaped to the toilet after a six hour stint, students would buy their £1.50 module readers with 5ps and less, in a high state of generalised penury and anxiety. Students of mine don't appear on the register as the university fails to include them for failure to pay their fees. They wonder whether they should be there. I assure them they should be, and that we can sort something for reading by getting groups to share books, and photocopying all the secondary material. Whatever the real effects of the economic crisis are and will be, I can already see the sacrifices students will be forced to make, are making, as they struggle to fit jobs around lectures, reading around complicated living arrangements, paying for childcare, rent, food. If a single one of my students is forced to quit their course for financial reasons, I will personally blow up the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills.
- My new first year mature student who, after a decade of selling expensive luggage to rich folk in Harrods, gave up her job to study Philosophy after seeing Chomsky on television late one night talking about human nature.
Numbers are up dramatically on last year, despite (or perhaps because of) the current economic climate. I wonder whether a certain kind of vocational despair (study business? What for?) increases the intake for 'useless' subjects like my own. Burdened by loan repayments for decades to come, you might as well take the opportunity to read books you actually want to know something about, and study subjects that quicken the pulse rather than merely please your parents or some future business big other.
Working on student reception for a short time while the secretary mercifully escaped to the toilet after a six hour stint, students would buy their £1.50 module readers with 5ps and less, in a high state of generalised penury and anxiety. Students of mine don't appear on the register as the university fails to include them for failure to pay their fees. They wonder whether they should be there. I assure them they should be, and that we can sort something for reading by getting groups to share books, and photocopying all the secondary material. Whatever the real effects of the economic crisis are and will be, I can already see the sacrifices students will be forced to make, are making, as they struggle to fit jobs around lectures, reading around complicated living arrangements, paying for childcare, rent, food. If a single one of my students is forced to quit their course for financial reasons, I will personally blow up the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills.
