What do parents want from Professors?

[ChuoShinkansen]

<p>@collegehelp‌ </p>

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I don’t think the comparisons between higher education and the business world are entirely apt. In higher ed the goal is to get knowledge and skills into students’ heads. That input process is different from the output process in business where you are interested in productivity. In higher ed you have to deal with all the intellectual, emotional, and behavioral factors that impact learning. Learning is much more complex than production. In higher ed, there should be a desire to instill a love of learning. If the experience is too painful, students will not acquire a lifelong love of learning nor a curiosity about a particular discipline. Furthermore, a school that makes the experience too painful is not going to produce happy alumni.</p>

<p>Students need some level of motivation or else they won’t work very hard. But, different kinds of tasks require different levels of motivation and different kinds of “psych”. If you are laying bricks, then high levels of emotion, motivation, even fear work alright. On the other hand, learning is a very complex task and the optimal level of “nervousness” is much lower than for, say, laying bricks. Students learn best when they have some peace of mind. Too much stress interferes with learning.

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<p>I think this is where you go wrong. I’m a professor, and I don’t see it as more than an incidental part of my job to ‘instill a love of learning’ or give them a ‘lifetime curiosity’ about my discipline. These are not schoolchildren: they are adults who are paying to be there/</p>

<p>It’s no more my responsibility to instill a love of learning in the adults than it is a film academy’s job to instill a lifetime love of film in their adult students.</p>

<p>Frankly, if they don’t like it, they can get lost.</p>