I realized on Saturday afternoon, listening to a professor in the Frontiers of Science public lecture series that professors are quite skilled rhetors.
The topic was "The Future of Infectious Diseases in a Pharmaceutical Age."In other words, how drugs that have been developed to kill nasty bugs like malaria may actually backfire when the bugs evolve to an even stronger form. Hearing horror stories about antibiotic resistant bacteria and what the pharmaceutical industry is doing right or wrong with respect to them, I came to the conclusion that the problem, the exigence that all professors are called to change, is ignorance.
Lack of knowledge is an opening for any academic in any situation to latch onto and remedy. The audience is composed of students, college students, adult learners, other professors. The lecturer’s purpose is to fill a knowledge void with information in the hopes that maybe the students will be influenced to spread the information to others, or even act on their new-found expertise.
For example, a professor lecturing about global warming hopes that her students will be moved to tell others all the scientific facts they learned to support the existence of global warming. Maybe they will even take it to the government by joining an environmental group or writing a letter.
Or she may be talking about solving quadratic equations, which her pupils can later use to design a rocket for NASA or develop a more efficient means of energy. The professor is a rhetor who has then influenced her audience.
In the case of the pharmaceutics lecture, the professor's goal was simply to educate. To make the audience aware that life-saving drugs are not all-powerful, and may in some cases be harmful. He emphasized that in some cases taking the full course of drugs the doctor orders, even if you feel better before you finish the prescription, may actually be promoting antibiotic resistance. And vaccinations may be counterproductive, saving one life but causing a death somewhere else because the virus is given a chance to spread. We just don't know enough. But I was influenced to spread the message here, and will certainly be thinking about it the next time I get antibiotics.
In the case of the pharmaceutics lecture, the professor's goal was simply to educate. To make the audience aware that life-saving drugs are not all-powerful, and may in some cases be harmful. He emphasized that in some cases taking the full course of drugs the doctor orders, even if you feel better before you finish the prescription, may actually be promoting antibiotic resistance. And vaccinations may be counterproductive, saving one life but causing a death somewhere else because the virus is given a chance to spread. We just don't know enough. But I was influenced to spread the message here, and will certainly be thinking about it the next time I get antibiotics.
So next time you sit in lecture, think about this: what influence will your professor have on you?
Good call! I think we get so bogged down in studies and stress that we forget to look up in lecture hall and smell the intellectual roses. Imparting knowledge shouldn't be a grudging task for all or any, you know?
ReplyDeleteA lot of times when medicine is prescribed, I refuse to take it. There is a reason for this, because I agree with the argument you have presented and I would rather let my body fight the sickness alone. I look at it as giving my immune system a "work out" and making it stonger so that it can fight sickness without the help of medicine. Great post!
ReplyDeleteVery very very good observation. This idea literally has not crossed my mind until now. I agree that professors can be good rhetors but also, bad ones. I realized that there are specific professors I have encountered that I thought poorly of, and it was because they were bad rhetors. It's interesting that when people ask "so why didn't you like that professor" we tend to respond with "I don't know they just suck" when really it was a problem with rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteProfessors really are quite skilled rhetors! When I think of it almost all of my educators throughout my life have had influence on me because their goal each day is to fill their students with their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting post here, Sarah. I especially like your take on their exigence -- they're striving to respond to ignorance and replace it with knowledge. (And, as the above comments indicate, delivery plays a large role in how successful this "imparting" goes!)
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