A Cattle Stampede

Professors were no different when I was an undergraduate during the McCarthy era: it was like a cattle stampede as they rushed to cop out. And in more recent years, I found that my being arrested at demonstrations brought from my colleagues not so much approval or condemnation as open-mouthed astonishment "You could lose your job!"

Now of course, there's the Vietnamese war. It gets some op posit ion from a few teachers. Some support it. But a vast number of professors who know perfectly well what's happening, are copping out again. And in the high schools you can forget it. Stillness reigns. I'm not sure why teachers are so chikenshit. It could be that academic training itself forces a split between thought and action. It might also be that the tenured security of a teaching job attracts timid persons and, furthermore that teaching, like police work, pulls in persons who are unsure of themselves and need weapons and other external trappings of authority.

As Judy Eisenstein has eloquently pointed out, the classroom offers an artificial and protected environment in which teachers can exercise their will to power. You neighbours might drive a better car; gas staion attendants may intimidate you; your wife may dominate your, the State Legislature may shit on you; but in the classroom, by God, students do what you say - or else. The grade is a hell of a weapon. It may not rest on your hip, potent and rigid like a cop's gun, but in the long run it's more powerful. At your personal whim - anytime you choose - you can keep 35 students up for nights and have the pleasure of seeing them walk into the classroom pasty-faced and red-eyed carrying a sheaf of typewritten pages, with title page, footnotes and margins set at 15 and 91,