Today’s Pat Thomson inspired post revolves around “Risks I will and won’t take”
Writing about the last paper that I read really brought home to me the fact that I’m looking at and engaging with the world of academia as an outsider, while simultaneously doing an apprenticeship to maybe join it.
I honestly don’t know where I want to end up after I finish my research, I’m rather hoping that the things that I learn and the experiences that I have offer me some signposts. The world of the mind and ideas is clearly appealing and I do feel that education is a noble cause but there are more options out there than universities and I might even be a little old to make a career here now.
But I’m certainly keen to better understand how Higher Ed works and it is a place where I do feel some sense of belonging. Which perhaps gives a lie to the title of this post but we’ll get to that.
So bearing these things in mind and considering that I’m investigating and examining the sector that I work in (and by extension, if not literally, the people I work with), I’m conscious of the impact that my words can have professionally. (I’m certainly more conscious of this now that I realise that this isn’t simply a digital diary but some people actually read it – thanks, by the way, I hope it’s of some value to you). One thing that I’ve been seeing in my research and in wider conversations is that words have significant impact in this world – if you’ve ever killed an hour or two of a meeting in an ongoing debate about which term to use and which term is completely inappropriate I think you’ll know what I mean. Which places me in the invidious position of trying to critically analyse the teaching practices of people that I work with or that I might one day work with. In a utopian world, this would be recognised as scholarship and a respectable pursuit of knowledge, whatever the findings are. Or, at this stage, whatever my half-baked opinions are. The pragmatic reality though is that there will probably be things that I have to say that people won’t want to hear and they could have a concrete impact on future employment prospects.
I have no doubt that many academics would genuinely believe themselves when they say – ‘if you construct a robust enough argument supported with sufficient evidence, I’m happy to have that conversation’ but we’re all human and even if it is only on a subconscious level, saying the wrong thing might leave a mark. As a professional staff member and not ‘part of the tribe’, this applies doubly I suspect, again, regardless of the best intentions.
So what risks will I and won’t I take? I’m not sure yet but I know that I did some significant modifying of some of the language that I used in my last post to tone it down – though I think it actually reads better as a result. One thing I’m noticing more and more in the papers that I’m reading is there is very little written that is directly critical of the teaching practices of other academics – maybe I just haven’t read enough yet, maybe this is simply good, objective research practice or maybe there is similarly an element of professional caution.