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skumar's picture

Personal versus Professional

Sitting in (read: class name will not be disclosed) lab last week, I thought of the forum discussions about pedagogy, particularly professional and personal lives of professors/teachers/instructors etc. So a friend and I were talking about our TA. Below is a snipet of our conversation:

 

Me: I like (name). She is a really nice person, but I hate the way she grades.

Friend: Nice? TA's are only effective or ineffective in my book.

 

So this got me thinking about the professional and the personal in academia. Generally, when I say I like a professor it means I like the professor as a professional (areas of study, course, pedagogy) and as a person. Otherwise, one outweighs the other. For some reason, Julia's comment really stuck with me--I've been thinking about it ever since! I am wondering how professors regard students....as professionas (students) or as people? as both? as one and not the other? The idea fascinates me...

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