Issue 50【超越自我小组】第2次作业

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TOPIC: ISSUE50 - "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."

Whether college faculty should walk out of campus and hit on pratical work related to their academic field? While I agree with the speaker's broad assertion that by complementing academic duties with faculty's real-world experience, quality of instruction can be enhanced---I take exception with the claim when it comes to some certain disciplines as history or philosophy.
As I see it, it's worthwhile for college faculty to work outside academia in professional positions related to their field, as there are three clear benefits as follows:

Firstly, to keep abreast with the pace of technological advancement and  social changes. Recent years has witnessed an accelerated developement of both technology and economics and  the knowledge contained in textbooks often lag current developments. Take the subject statistics for example, many of our domestic textbooks in China still teach students how to calculate or estimate statistic figures using pens and papers while this complex process can be done by computers when applying in modern industry. So the related working experienced obtained by faculty can keep school instruction on the edge of industrial development.

Secondly, a teacher's working experience in relevant professions can enhance their teaching ability, allow it to be more practical and real-world based. By assimilating the pratical value with the theoretical value, teachers actually get an more impressive understanding of the subjects they involve in and thus lead to more suitable designs of courses, taking both the teaching needs and practical uses into consideration. The advantage of working while teaching is particularly appatently obvious in the business or management courses since most of the job in this domin involves managers, analyst, execuate officers, whose success largely rely on the business acumen, or we can say gut feeling s which accumulated with experience. Thus, on one hand, practical course design benefits the students as it better preparing them for future employment. On the other, professional experience of teachers can inform students more about the career path and aspiration of certain fields, with teachers' own stories.

Thirdly, the teachers themselves benefit from working in relevant fields.They will be able to foster skills that are most directly useful in a career and thus become more popular in students. As long as students can learn more in tune with their professional goals, they'll be more attached to school education.

However, despite the advantages mentioned above for faculty working part-time in course related fields, the claim amounts to an overstatement when it comes to some stagnant fields that are purely theoretical or academia. This is especially true in history and philosophy; after all, what work outside academia can professsors do? Even with this kind of job existed, what significant meaning can it assert to classroom teaching? The answer will surely be no.

In sum, with respect to fields in which outside work is appropriate, I agree that students and faculty all stand to gain in a variety of respects from real-world based expertise.