petulant publicity

Music: Red Lorry Yellow Lorry: Talk About the Weather One of my best friends has become another target of the petulant demand, but this time in an unfortunately public way. Like many of us, from time to time he complained about his students in his blog (unlike my blog, however, his was fairly anonymous), although never by name and always in terms of generalities. He has the story here, but the short of it is this: a student was unhappy with her grade, and approached him after class. When he did not respond to her demand, she mentioned that she had discovered his blog and was upset about the way he talked about his students. She mentioned that she was working on a newspaper column about professorial blogging and how unprofessional it was for a professor to post about his or her students. Upon reflection, my friend emailed the student and the newspaper editors and warned that publishing such a story would compromise the student/teacher relationship in the classroom. If the student wanted to out him, this is fine, but not while she is a student in his class.

Upon reflection, the newspaper decided not to run the story by the student. Instead, one of the editors wrote and ran a column that accused my friend of academic blackmail, publishing private email exchanges between the student and my friend (out of context, of course), basically putting the teacher/student relation in the class in jeopardy. Unlike the garden variety blog, the circulation of the student paper is in the thousands (this blog receives about 75-100 hits a day). The column is vindictive and malicious (not to mention contradictory), and since its publication yesterday it has really put my friend on the defensive. Today he is supposed to have a consultation with the student and his chair. Had the student waited until the course was over, or had she dropped the class, this drama could have been avoided. What started out as a misguided quest for the cherished "A" has turned into a skirmish between a clique that edits the student newspaper and my friend, a token representative of an out-of-control professoriate who—gasp—gripes about freshman note taking skills! Thank you, Mr. Horowitz.

In the past two years there has been no shortage of stories in the blogosphere about the complexities of on-line self-disclosure and venting by professors, and as someone who has groused about students in a public blog, of course, I'm personally invested in the issue (as are many others; check out the "rate my students" link on the blogroll). Unlike the demanding and righteous emails from students, however, the tactic of publicity is something that I hadn't really thought about in this context: the rhetoric of the misguided columnist who wrote the expose clearly evinces an investment in the drama of the occult. The grand secret—that teachers bitch about students just as much as students bitch about teachers—is laughable. Of course secrecy is never about the "content" anyway. What is intriguing is the obvious, formal enjoyment of the gesture, "take this Black Wizard: I've told your secret!"--which has become the central generic gesture of anti-academic rhetoric in the past decade--and, in the case of my friend, the stupidity of its surfacing in this case. Of course, revelation has been the primary form of journalism for over a hundred years, so I guess my point is no great revelation either. Regardless, knowing that this rhetoric is goaded by the drama of secrecy, we know that it is therefore about the relation—a class conflict, if you want: you are supposed to be my parent; but you are not my parent. Aside from what they need, children want love from their parents—even if it is delivered in the form of hate. The whole fiasco reeks of the longing for recognition (I mean, why now?), and I suspect, consequently, my friend's engagement with the newspaper will drag on and on and on. It's like the rebellious students have hijacked the catchphrase of the cellular entreaty, "can you hate me now?"