LY #56 Another Reason I'm retiring

Plato and Aristotle from Scuola di Atene by Raphael

I received a request to take a survey today.  The focus of the survey was on what new technology I used to teach public speaking.

I wanted to scream, "None! None! None!  We walk through the Agora and I show them all the techniques required to display ethos, pathos, and logos."  Sadly, this is neither true nor a good analogy, as I would either have been a housewife or hetaira in ancient Greece  "where burning Sappho loved and sang and stroked the wine-dark sea, in the temple by the moonlight, wa da doo dah..."

And I am not averse to new technologies.  I use Blackboard for grading, Turnitin for assessing originality in outlines and Youtube for examples of student speeches.  But I personally don't think that a lot of digital materials are necessary to people learning how to construct and deliver public presentations.  Sincerity, clarity, commitment, and grit are what's necessary, none of which require an Ipod.  This Pearson Higher Education fact-finding survey, of course, contains a persuasive component -- it's supposed to convince the taker that he or she should be thinking about getting an "online homework, tutorial, and assessment system." 

Which brings me to something I heard at a faculty meeting a short time back.  A senior faculty member (not senior to me but certainly old) said that we need to "innovate all the time."

I beg to differ.  If coursework is functioning well in helping a reasonable number of students to meet the course outcomes, there is no need to "innovate."  New for the sake of new isn't a value I support.  But it seems to be the zeitgeist.

And, of course, our students' brains may actually be changing as young people adapt more and more to screens.  Perhaps the virtues of public speaking will disappear as screens develop more ethos than the human face.  The Singularity approaches.  Thank goodness I'll be retired and perhaps even gone gone gone.