Guys want to win. It is part of their psychology and sex drive, to stand out, to be heroic. In academic circles, he (or now, she) who discovers and publishes is clearly at the head of the pack. Meanwhile, imparting clear understanding is not easily measured or even observed. Good explanations might not be seen to be such, until years or even decades later. For the person in a hurry to be a hero, that is too long and too indistinct. So, over time, the researcher who can be traced to a fine idea or discovery gets the laurels, the praise, the raise and tenure. That is the person who gets the grant funds.
This trajectory leads to a general disdain for teaching. Teaching is not only difficult, it is worse in that it is indistinct. There is no clear goal line. You can’t tell when the little red-headed girl in the back understands derivatives and when she doesn’t.
Reading “Starman” by Rebecca Mead, in the current New Yorker, I come across her statement that Starman (astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson) is a public figure - a no-no in many “high” circles. I suspect that getting into academic science is an activity biased because of its nature toward the person who can concentrate and read and understand complex theory. Such a person is not likely to be at ease before crowds. So, it is natural to shy away from those who are stars in the public recognition sense. It is natural to look down on what such figures do, what they can do, on warming into a subject with a crowd, warming with the crowd.
Along the same lines, the author of a textbook, used by thousands, is not looked up as is the author of the journal article, filled with equations and understood by very few. Again, disdain for the person who gets ideas across, for the clear explainer and honors for the one who did something that may lead to new insights, eventually.
Seems weird, silly and wasteful to offer Nobel prizes for discoveries while they are still new and nothing for the people who gets hundreds of students to understand and further those discoveries.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
