I Think I'm a Leader

William Deresiewicz and Mark Edmundson have a conversation about that on there Blogginheads.tv interview. The way the two professors talk is a very relaxed social way. They both have a very friendly at ease sort of tone and its just a simple conversation between the two professors.

They talk about many things, they start off talking about how teachers can't be cool they have to be teachers in order for people to truly take them seriously. They discuss a particular case where someone someone was not making people in her class upset with her and she got fired. They, being professors, don't like that because you can't have everyone like you. They then get into a very interesting debate over being a leader or a thinker.

A leader is someone who sets and example and leads other people. They have a management job and they see over other people. The university really wants to make these because they bring in more money. Think about it if the University makes leaders and those leaders go out and get high paying jobs so they can donate a bunch of their money to the university. William Deresiwicz says "its the job of the university to make alumni". The leader follows the crowd and is the model student. They have to say good things about what ever is going on around them to motivate those around them.

A thinker however is different in most cases he is the opposite of the thinker. During the speech they say a thinker is someone who questions society, questions how things are done and tries to make them better. They don't "roll" with the crowd they do things because they want to not because a bunch of people are doing it. These people are usually very intelligent. These people even question their own university. And thus the university doesn't have a strong interest in "keeping those people around" because they question what they are told they reach out and try to change what is being done and not many people like change.

They also talk about how when a student comes to the school the dean talks and tells them they need to think about the big questions and then when they graduate the president says you should think about these big questions. In the middle nothing is being asked about it. Now colleges have changed over the last one hundred years. For instances the students went to chapel where the "big" questions where asked for them to think about. And now obviously the universities are becoming secularized. So now there is nothing in the middle that questions the students. The two proffesors try to think up ways that they can teach students to think about the "big" questions so they can help themselves.

After defining what a thinker and a leader was Deresiwicz and Edmundson go on to talk about how they can help make more thinkers. One way that they can do this is by allowing their students to come in after class during the teachers own hours and help the students out. However that is at the expense of their own future because they are teaching so that they can study something in their field. I know from going and visiting alldifferent universities around where I live that many of the smaller universities are making it so that professors have to devote a few hours of their day to let students come in and ask them questions. However most of the tour guides said the teachers just sit there and fiddle their thumbs because studentsrarely stoped by. How does this make the University well rounded? You need different types of people to make a university better. You need thinkers and leaders. But providing a place where both of them can grow is essential. The heart of teaching is one on one moments and to make the university well rounded you need that it promotes thinkers

One other thing they talk about is how much of a tragedy that people who are specialized in only one thing is. A lot of people are very smart and they come to work at an university and then they can only really study one specific thing. The model that we use for an university isobsolete and the liberal arts model is a bit better. They also talked about how basically all that the university is doing is selling skills, they are teaching people to do specific things, instead of self knowledge and to learn what skills make them happy on their own.

Overall from the conversation on blogging heads TV that William Deresiewicz and Mark Edmundson have titled The Academic-Industrial Complex the two talk about the institution as a whole and how they can make it better. They discus the two types of students that come out of the universities, thinkers and leaders. They also discuss how they can help their students become thinkers and not just mindless drones who do what the crowd does.