I am so pissed off about this Churchill affair and all the leftists on our University campuses I'm ready to go back to teaching, when I retire. Hell, I'm 57, great private practice, I'll be retirable at 60 (mandatory retirement at 65, only 8 years). I have half a notion to go back and teach at a local University. The best choice would be near our cabin in Wisconsin (western).
Short story: I was an associate professor of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. It used to be the Harvard of the Midwest, that was years ago. My standard opening lecture of all my classes was as follows: I'm going to stand up here and tell you what you will need to know to be a doctor, you are going to listen and remember. You are in charge of learning, I'm in charge of teaching. One day we are going to unleash you on real sick people, they will trust you to make them well. You will be responsible to learn how to do that, I will be responsible to teach you how to do that. The equation goes thusly...you learn, I teach, patient gets well. If you can't take this treasure that has been given to your heart and soul, get out of your seat and leave this room. What you are about to embark on is an all consuming profession. If you are the least bit scared you need to go and find something else to do with the rest of your life. If you want lots of money, be a plastic surgeon, but don't darken my door. We learn to save lives here, and we are humble doing it.
I used to love to get into some very difficult aspects of my profession. You see your students with that DUH look on there face. That's when I went in high gear. The jacket came off, the tie got pulled down and I started to try anything. Preach, comedy, go back to the chalk board, always looking at those eyes. Then I hit on something, something that hit a nerve. I could see the light in their eyes. Some times one at a time, sometimes all at once. I would say to myself...I got you, you understand. Then I would go home and celebrate. They know, I taught them and they learned.
It's exhausting, but there is nothing else in the world (not even sex) that compares to that feeling.
If you think this was a worthless effort, consider this: I see my former students on a regular basis..medical meetings. They tell me that I gave them a passion for medicine and a passion that burns, and makes them a better doctor.
Ward Churchill is a charlatan and a communist propagandist, he is not, I repeat NOT, a professor. Fire him now.
A real professor teaches, and he teaches hard and long, and he leaves himself out of it. He gives knowledge, he doesn't inject his own ideology. That is against the rules. Churchill has violated that trust with reckless abandon. He's crossed the line. By crossing that line he has brought upon himself the wrath of the people that pay his salary, thus getting fired would be the least of his worries.
Excellent post .As a teacher I know JUST what you mean ..Thanx
Excellent post.
I hope you do go back to teaching, at least part time. I am sure you made a difference for many of your students,and helped them become better doctors, than they would have otherwise.