i'm done with being owned

Another academic year looms and info days are swarming with fresh faced enthusiastic new students. I feel like Mr Bean in the department store perfumery skit, holding my nose and warning them not to enter! I'm feeling quite disheartened with higher ed. Would I pay $30k + for a degree? NO - yet its a hurdle imposed en route to career. As consumers we need to start demanding value for money but instead we meekly accept the tripe.

I've been re-reading my FLL paper from 2003. 7 years is a long time and I blush at it's naivety but there are important connections there I want to revisit. What I found then was that the most successful, innovative and engaging programs were happening in small community-based media, youth projects and community development areas. I suspect its still the case.

I grieve to hear stories of educators being told that research is top priority and that teaching should/must be compromised if necessary. Academics are told to walk into lectures unprepared if necessary, young innovators are told that their careers will go nowhere unless they stop focusing on learning and instead churn out papers and bring in dollars. It's all about status and income; a factory line of knowledge. Good teachers who toe the line end up working 14 hour days; doing 2 jobs as researcher AND educator, and as a result get sick and burn out.

I've been feeling like the past two years were wasted but a flow of messages are giving me heart that I have made some difference. But I'm sick of battling from within the constraining shackles of being an employee; there's only so much that can be pushed uphill. I'm hoping to skirt around the edges for a bit and find some new avenues to engage and affect change. For a start I'm heading on down to the Transmedia conference at ACMI in Melbourne and we'll see if openings appear.

[ CC cartoon by gapingvoid ]