On Mar 7, 2012 2:36 AM, "Jim Bowring" <bowr...@gmail.com
Why the closed-minded vitriol about the academy? Positive actions
are required!
Jim -- I can see how this might not have come through in my original
message on this thread, but I've found that I'm a harsh critic of the
things I love the most. If I didn't have such high regard for the
academy and its power to affect the world, and had no hope or intention
of changing it for the better, I would not be sitting in the ivory tower
right now. :)
As Seb pointed out, identifying the problems in anything is the first
step to improving them; positive actions tend to stem from visions of
how something could be better than it currently is. Since this mailing
list tends to have a lot of academics on it, my writing here tends to be
skewed more towards the "here's what FOSS does right and academia does
wrong; let's transfer goodness in that direction!" theme (perhaps
sometimes unfairly so).
Conversely, when I'm in a group of mostly-hackers, I tend to talk more
about the things that FOSS is doing wrong and academia is doing right,
and argue that FOSS should adopt those practices. For instance, FOSS
projects tend to have ridiculously high failure-and-dropout rates due to
poorly designed scaffolding (or a lack thereof), and schools are more
proactive about identifying and aiding newcomers who are struggling. I
guess I should say these sorts of things here more as well -- thanks for
inadvertently pointing that out.
Either way, the first step to change is understanding -- and I think
what Seb and I are trying to do, as relative newcomers to the academic
world (and experienced denizens of the FOSS world) is to understand and
make sense of our new environment -- and part of that is fumbling around
and saying (seemingly) stupid things and learning from how folks respond
to them. The comments on my blog post
(http://blog.melchua.com/2012/03/07/foss-thinking-vs-academic-thinking/#comments)
have likewise been illuminating food for thought -- I totally didn't
expect this big a reaction, but hey... that's how we learn.
Ideas for specific positive actions to take are welcome. I mean, I do
need a dissertation someday. :)
--Mel
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