On the right amount of teaching...

Establishing a faculty member's teaching load and responsibilities is a delicate balancing act. During my 25 years as a teacher, I've witnessed scenarios that ranged from one end of the spectrum (making teaching appear as a burden or obstacle on the way to excellence in research and scholarship) to the opposite (where -- for one reason or another -- the teaching load is excessive and leaves very little room for anything else). 

About the latter, here is another quote from chapter 13 in "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance":
The school was what could euphemistically be called a "teaching college." At a teaching college you teach and you teach and you teach with no time for research, no time for contemplation, no time for participation in outside affairs. Just teach and teach and teach until your mind grows dull and your creativity vanishes and you become an automaton saying the same dull things over and over to endless waves of innocent students who cannot understand why you are so dull, lose respect and fan this disrespect out into the community. The reason you teach and you teach and you teach is that this is a very clever way of running a college on the cheap while giving a false appearance of genuine education.


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