【kaleidoscope】第九次作业 ISSUE50 by wdassfm

wdassfmUID: 2542447

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."

The quality of high level education is of vital significance to the further and faster development of society, thus the need recommended by the speaker to require outsider working experience of university faculty is desirable. However, the unconditional request including all faculty without consideration about difference/discrepancy among colleges, professions and duties of faculties in different position seems too arbitrary.

Obviously, participating in social endeavors relevant to one's profession, rather than merely engaged in books and improvements of teaching skill can motivate professors' enthusiasm for institution of students, which will in turn spark the students’ passion for pursuing a meaningful and lasting education. Take the speech given by personages for example, these successful figures, regardless of their professions, tend to have urgent willingness to step into universities and share with students their working experience and the passion gained from, as well as poured into their job; and, the phenomena of the crowd present at the speech illustrates the point well---students long and busy engaged in their studying of knowledge are longing to know how could these staff actually be used in society.

As for many professors, by practicing the knowledge learned in society and cooperating with experts in other fields, they are provides the chance to see their own fields from a general and higher position. In fact, no one is intelligent and broadminded enough to gain an overall understanding of notions and information merely from the books, in other words, we all have our limits of understanding, which is no exception for experts. Only when they endeavor to put their knowledge into practice, especially working with great minds of other professions, can a better understanding of their own fields and even beyond their scopes be gained. And in this way, their roles of tutors could be optimized to stress properly to the students the extent to which should each sections be mastered, as well as what else from other fields is needed to know about so as to gain a all-around understanding.

However, the assertion unfairly generalized by including all faculties without considering the existence of distinction, whether in colleges, professions and duties of people in different positions. Firstly, since research situations---the degree of connection to outside society----differ among different universities and even in different colleges within the same university, whether the need to step out of universities remain to be considered. Secondly, many professions, such as art, mathematics and theoretical physics, are seldom linked to the pragmatic use in society, there's no necessity for professors within these fields go into society; Still, some other fields, such as astronomy, biology and physiology, have little to do with everyday life, thus it might be difficult for these professors to find suitable working places outside universities. Thirdly, duties vary among different kinds of faculty, thus different emphasis should be paid to accomplish their mission. For example, the presidents should show solicitude to program of visits to other universities and enterprises to learn more experiences for guiding well; while the counselors should attempt to collect information concerning the current climate of job markets and care more about the development of students as well as their career choosing. To this extent, the way to improve the quality of high level education should be properly searched according to the unique characteristic of the colleges and faculty.

As discussed above, the benefits for college faculty to step out of academic limits and gain a global sense should not be emphasized too much, while the difference of situations among individuals should also be considered. No ameliorative approach serves to all conditions. In fact, to optimize the effect of a method we should always keep an eye for the exceptions.