[Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

Thanks a lot, Michael, I really appreciate your words. Yes, there is life outside academia, thankfully! And there are inspiring and motivating success stories like yours, and there are even great examples of authors who have found better careers as independent researchers. And there is indeed something common in the professions that you just mentioned that has to do with cultivating oneself to the extreme, like painters and musicians; not just that you've been doing it for long time (like the men and women who had been working at a factory for many years and suddenly loose their work), but also that you've tried hard to go beyond yourself at it. Yet, I think teaching and researching are different in that the training itself, all the formation one goes through, has a lot to do with a complex institutional arrangement that, without it, all that expertise no longer seems recognisable, that what you do no longer is. I play guitar, and I sometimes regret not to have tried to pursue a career playing guitar. But I still play guitar, and try to get better at it, and can enjoy myself and make others around me enjoy my playing. I can not be, or at least I cannot yet imagine from here, what would I do with all the techniques (like the video-analysis techniques I've cultivated with you) without an affiliation to an institution to which the performing of such analysis, the reporting about them, etc. matters. But yes, if I (or anyone in my position) falls outside academia, there always is somewhere else to go (like your story nicely shows), and you always move with you all you are, even if you don't yet know what that might mean in whatever context you will come to be next (to continue speaking of contexts!). 
Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Wolff-Michael Roth <wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>
Sent: 18 February 2018 01:21
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship

Alfredo,
the article is interesting, and so is your story. As it is with all jobs,
in any one field there are only so many in academia. And sometimes, even if
we have one, it may be better to leave---you remember I told you the story
of how at one "Big 10" U.S. university, I was told that I wasn't smart
enough to make tenure. So rather than hanging around and trying, I returned
to teach at the high school level and directed a science department,
something I knew I was good at (as told by previous principals and
superintendents). When I left, I swore never to return.

And yet, after a few years, and doing research on learning in my own
classrooms to improve opportunities for the students in my care, I had
turned things around----and when I did decide to return to academia, I have
had a wonderful career, ultimately picking up a job that provided me with a
lot of freedom. I was LUCKY to get it because those who were ahead in the
listing also wanted spousal hire, and my university wasn't ready for it.
When it was my turn, I happily took the job.

Academia is not all there is. There are lots of other jobs where good
people with PhD (like you) work and are happy. I think in Germany, there
are lots of PhDs working in the media or industry (like my MA physics
colleagues, some of whom went on to get PhDs).

When I left the "Big 10" university, I never looked back; and I never wept,
even though only a year earlier it had looked like a dream job.

And many have dreams that they never achieve: look at all the artists, the
musicians and the likes who never make as much as a teacher, a decent
income for a decent living. There are many dreaming of a medal in the
olympics, and never get selected into their national teams.... Examples are
galore.

Perhaps there are not enough mentors. And sometimes mentors may not have
the appropriate advice, because what they might tell you is not workable
for you.

I wish you all the best to fall into a position where a hiring committee
will find you to be the best fit, and where you find that the place is the
best fit for you. I wish that to everyone on the list who is in your
position.

Michael

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 3:45 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:

> I have not been able to contribute to this list as much as I'd like to
> lately, among other things, because I need to find a job, and I need to
> make sure that I have checked all those boxes that selection committees
> will check (enough first-authored publications? in good enough journals?
> enough leadership in projects? teaching? supervising? acquiring funds? more
> than all others candidates? and more than favoured-for-whatever-other-reasons
> candidates?). So I have been doing all I can these weeks to fill up a
> competitive CV, for my contract is about to expire.
>
>
> And, although I did not think that it was particularly well written, it
> was both relieving and discouraging to read this article (see link below,
> which I take from the facebook wall of a colleague who I think also
> subscribes this list). The article makes visible the pain scholars go
> through when, after so many years of digging and digging and digging a
> little (but deep!) hole, may after all have to leave it and find some other
> thing to do. In Canada, I met a French astronomer who was moving through
> the world with his lovely family, short-term project after short-term
> project, getting better and better at what he worked on (apparently he was
> among the few who had expertise in computer modeling simulating some
> astronomic events) , and finally having to step out academia last year to
> find something else to do, for his family no longer could stand the
> constant uncertainty and travelling. It could be me soon. And that may not
> be a bad thing, or even a thing in itself, but the story seems to be quite
> endemic to academia and may be interesting to some of you:
>
>
> https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Everybody-Loses-When/242560
>
> Alfredo
>
>
>