A few years ago, a colleague and I were going to write a book about teaching.
It was his philosophy that a teacher was nothing more that a “site,” a sort of empty space in the classroom. In fact, his idea that teachers are about as worthless as space seems to be a predominant ethic on campus, where professors, learning and the University appear to be about as deserving of respect as chunks of beetle dung.
That’s sure not the case in Japan, where students bow to their teachers. The students even prepare meals for their instructors, and they clean up and take care of the school buildings.
Japan spends slightly more than 3 percent of GDP on education, while, in contrast, the U.S. spends 5 percent. Yet the Japanese continue to outrank us by far in terms of educational achievement.
I’m not so sure about the bowing business, but just traveling around our campus shows a lot about what many students think of teachers and the school where higher learning takes place. Hoards of skateboarders and trick bicyclists stalk pedestrians on their way to class, heedless of the danger they pose others and the terrifying effect they have on hapless walkers who cringe as they zip in and out of the crowds.
Graffiti, costing the University tens of thousands of dollars to remove, appears every day on the walls, in the bathrooms, even on the ceilings, in the stairways, the windows and elevators. Smokers willfully disobey the tobacco-free policy that limits them to designated areas on campus. And who is responsible for politely informing these folks to please go to their assigned areas? Professors, of course, and how do many of these smokers respond?
“F**k you, -sshole. Mind your own G-damn business,” one said to me recently, as I reminded him that he needed to go to a designated area to smoke.
I am one of the few who bothers enforcing this nonexistent rule, a rule that asks teachers to enforce it, but offers no authority to make the policy stick. Most professors never bother to call the attention of these folks to this toothless but crucial policy — I guess because they have become too intimidated by these rude and even threatening students who defy the tobacco-free rule and every other campus guideline that seem now just laughing stocks held up to contempt and ridicule.
What is behind such behavior that so disrespects the campus and those who teach and who learn here?
I would argue that these are examples of what I call “Enron ethics,” a kind of overwhelming narcissism, a self-centeredness that bristles with imaginary rights and privileges and that threatens to subsume us in this extremely challenging time. Yet it’s not really these irritating students who are the focus of my musings: The students learn from adults.
When the University is viewed as just another state institution to be exploited by rampant cronyism, when successive waves of budget rescissions and financial “harvesting” are visited on our academic departments, then we see how compromised the mission of our public University has become.
When those with huge salaries sacrifice nothing, and a coach who makes more money than even the president is accused of physically and emotionally abusing his colleague, a staff member and a student, when our resources are siphoned away for reasons that have nothing to do with teaching, learning or research, then we see how cheapened education and teaching have become.
It is egocentrism gone wild, the kind of ethics that led to Enron’s downfall and really to the precipitous downturn in our economic fortunes. It’s the narcissistic ethics of a Jeff Skilling or a Bernard Madoff that have come to dominate our campus, our state’s affairs and the affairs of a nation. How is it that this nation financially bails out powerful banks, yet refrains from taxing the big guy, as millions lose homes, jobs, security and their peace of mind?
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America was founded on respect — respectful disagreement perhaps, but respect nonetheless. It is what separates us from places where the rule of force dominates instead of government by consent. Respect is a trait we need to engage if we are to survive as a nation, and it can begin here on this campus.
Maybe not with bows, but in the way we regard one another, how we respect learning, teaching and this place where these great and important activities take place.
James Burbank is a faculty of the English Department and vice president of the American Association of University Professors.
