大学教師にとっての研究と教育
大学では,教育に最も意を用いる教師と,研究に最も意を用いる教師との間に,ある一定の対立が見られる。この対立は,ほとんど全てといってよいほど,(大学)教育についての誤った観念と,勤勉も能力も大学在学の条件として要求される水準を下回っている学生が多数いるせいである。旧式の学校教師の観念が,大学にもまだある程度生き残っている。学生たちによい道徳的な影響を与えたいという欲求と,旧式な無価値な知識 -そういう知識は,大半は誤りだとわかっていても,道徳向上にはためになると考えられている。- を学生たちにたたき込みたいという願望があるのである。学生たちに勉強をするように説き勧めるべきではない(注;自主性が大事ということ)。しかし,怠けるためか,能力不足のためか,いずれにせよ時間を浪費していることがわかった時には,大学に留まることを許して(認めては)はならない。強要しても益のあるただ一つの道徳は,勉強するという道徳である。その他の道徳は,それ以前の時期(注:それ以前に教育が終了しているべきもの)に属している。そして,勉強するという道徳は,それを身につけていない学生たちを追放する(退学させる)することによって,厳しく要求するのがよい。なぜなら,そういう学生は,明らかに,就職したほうがよいからである。教師は,長時間授業をすることを期待されるべきではない。また,研究のための十分な時間を持つぺきである。だが,その余暇を賢明に使うことを期待される。 |
Pt. 3: Intellectual education - Chap.18 The UniversityThere is, however, one point of great importance. Every university teacher should be himself engaged in research, and should have sufficient leisure and energy to know what is being done in his subject in all countries. In university teaching, skill in pedagogy is no longer important ; what is important is knowledge of one's subject and keenness about what is being done in it. This is impossible for a man who is overworked and nervously exhausted by teaching. His subject is likely to become distasteful to him, and his knowledge is almost sure to be confined to what he learnt in youth. Every university teacher ought to have a sabbatical year (one in every seven) to be spent in foreign universities or in otherwise acquiring knowledge of what is being done abroad. This is common in America, but European countries have too much intellectual pride to admit that it is necessary. In this they are quite mistaken. The men who taught me mathematics at Cambridge were almost wholly untouched by the Continental mathematics of the previous twenty or thirty years ; throughout my undergraduate time, I never heard the name of Weierstrass. It was only by subsequent travel that I came in contact with modern mathematics. This was no rare or exceptional circumstance. Of many universities at many periods similar things could be said.There is in universities a certain opposition between those who care most for teaching and those who care most for research. This is almost entirely due to a wrong conception of teaching, and to the presence of a number of students whose industry and capacity are below the level which ought to be exacted as a condition of residence. The idea of the old-fashioned schoolmaster persists to some extent at universities. There is a desire to have a good moral effect on students, and a wish to drill them in old-fashioned, worthless information, largely known to be false, but supposed to be morally elevating. Students ought not to be exhorted to work, but they should not be allowed to remain if they are found to be wasting their time, whether from idleness or from lack of ability. The only morality which can be profitably exacted is that of work ; the rest belongs to earlier years. And the morality of work should be exacted by sending away those who do not possess it, since evidently they had better be otherwise employed. A teacher should not be expected to work long hours at teaching, and should have abundant leisure for research ; but he should be expected to employ this leisure wisely. |
(掲載日:2015.08.04/更新日: )