An exact summation of why I blew out of the halls of academe, never to return: I don't dance. I said those words to the College President, then turned with a steely glare and marched out of his office.
Or maybe that was Harrison Ford.
At any rate, The reader responses to the post are illuminating, as well. There's just something iredeemably fake about the whole enterprise, and the more accounts I read from people within the institutions, the better I feel about derailing my academic career before it was too late.
Of course, maybe I could have stayed and been one of the young mavericks...bucking the system...reaching them, dammit! Standing on my desk! Making a difference.
Nah. I've always had a problem with jumping through hoops. I never would've survived intact.
If this is true (I was in school long enough ago to have missed this neue wave), it is an obscenity. I never thought the end-all, be-all of education was reading old tomes, but at least one should have a few tomes under one's belt before trying to "deconstruct" the bricks they're built out of. No wonder so few supposedly college-educated folks can write (or even reason) their way out of a paper bag anymore.
Posted by: Valencia | June 16, 2003 04:41 PM