Issue50 反对观点~球拍

sunflower_irisUID: 2720580

50. In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach.


Education, as the most significant method to maintain the culture and knowledge, calls for an effective way to instruct. I disagree with that requiring all faculty to spend time working outside will truly contribute to promote instruction. Moreover, the feasibility of this suggest is disputed.

To begin with, when it comes to the question how many effects will have in advancing the quality of instruction if they spend time working outside, in my point of view, the effects are very few. Some people may claim that the faculty work outside bring personal experiences and opinions to their classes to attract the students. However, how distinctive or attractive their personal experiences are while the students may easily find the same or much better examples in their books. For example, the experiences of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett are probably more attractive than the professors’ for the students who take the courses of economy.

Moreover, students who study in colleges and universities desire for getting more knowledge about their majors rather than knowing about the experiences of the professors. For example, the students who take literature courses for learning more on theories of literature, skills of writing and truly understanding about the great works written by famous writers as Shakespeare, William Faulkner. The teachers’ experiences of outside work can hardly benefit to them.

Furthermore, working outside even may decline the level of instruction. The time is limited, so if the professors spend time working outside, the time spending on their studies and researches will be reduced. As a result, the level of their specialities will lower than they spend more time studying and researching. Grounding on the level of specialites, how can they make progress in instruction? Therefore, working outside is an ineffective way for improving the level of instruction.

Finally, considering about the feasibility of requiring all faculty to work outside, we will find it is disputed. For example, professors in the practical fields as economy, architecture, may find their jobs in companies while professors in some theoretical fields as history, philosophy hardly find the suitable jobs outside relevant to their subjects. In addition, what is the job for a professor of education? Obviously, the answer is to be a teacher. In fact, we can not figure out the difference between to be a teacher outside and being a teacher in his or her college. What’s more, some professors may not want to work outside because they are willing to pursue their goals in their fields. They are very likely to oppose this requiring. In light of this, requiring all faculty to work outside is unfeasible to some extent.

In sum, this way of requiring all faculty working outside is hard to achieve a higher level of instruction, and even difficult to take into practice.