Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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3.3 Defaults-genesis part II: a young lecturer <strong>on</strong> the move<br />
In 1982 I started to work as a lecturer in philosophy at an Academy of Social Work.<br />
From 1982 until 1998 with great pleasure I lectured <strong>on</strong> social philosophy and ethics for<br />
students in Social Work, Occupati<strong>on</strong>al Therapy and Human Resource Management.<br />
First six years<br />
I came to work in a department with in my view very unprofessi<strong>on</strong>al ways of cooperating<br />
and communicating, low quality standards and intensive ideological battles. I<br />
sometimes felt like Alice in W<strong>on</strong>derland. Although a junior lecturer within a year I<br />
became the substitute head of the department, because of showing a competence in<br />
leading meetings and sorting things out, and a kind of unusual directness for this<br />
envir<strong>on</strong>ment. I suppose that I had the support of majority of the members of the<br />
department, who l<strong>on</strong>ged for policy-making of the department. For a short while my<br />
nickname became “Johnny C<strong>on</strong>crete”. I was not afraid to enter into c<strong>on</strong>flicts with<br />
colleagues, students and the management of the Academy.<br />
If ever, there I learned to know the intricacy of communicati<strong>on</strong> and relati<strong>on</strong>s. Moreover<br />
I became disappointed in the professi<strong>on</strong>al competences of my colleagues. Differences<br />
in opini<strong>on</strong> were laid aside as a matter of ideology, thereby avoiding a critical<br />
professi<strong>on</strong>al debate. My expectati<strong>on</strong>s were probably high. I became aware of the fact<br />
that professi<strong>on</strong>al quality is depending <strong>on</strong> teamwork. Therefore I c<strong>on</strong>cluded you sometimes<br />
have to enforce cooperati<strong>on</strong> if taking time to clarify misunderstandings does not<br />
help.<br />
Although <strong>on</strong>ly from the midst of the eighties the Academy I worked was formally a<br />
UAS, its collegial culture was grafted in an academic traditi<strong>on</strong> of professi<strong>on</strong>al aut<strong>on</strong>omy.<br />
This traditi<strong>on</strong> implies that the individual academic makes choices about the<br />
courses, the way courses are taught, and reflects privately <strong>on</strong> the quality of teaching<br />
(M<strong>on</strong>aghan, 2007). With hindsight I see that the academic cult value of professi<strong>on</strong>al<br />
aut<strong>on</strong>omy was functi<strong>on</strong>alized in an extremely relativistic way (Mead, 1923)<br />
After six years of hot debates, often substituting the head of the department and<br />
being a chairman of all kinds of committees I made a switch towards more lecturing<br />
and reading. I was tired of all the discussi<strong>on</strong>s which were often an unparalleled mixture<br />
of prejudiced arguments in ideological or pers<strong>on</strong>al c<strong>on</strong>victi<strong>on</strong>s being used. They<br />
mismatched with my rather rati<strong>on</strong>alistic and analytical approach.<br />
However, if I qualify myself as a rather rati<strong>on</strong>alistic and analytical pers<strong>on</strong> I suppose at<br />
that time this also was a partial reacti<strong>on</strong> <strong>on</strong> the ascribed irrati<strong>on</strong>ality of my colleagues.<br />
To survive possibly I overdeveloped a kind of detachment. Moreover, I came to learn<br />
that I am above average sensitive for what is happening during social interacti<strong>on</strong>s.<br />
Rati<strong>on</strong>al detachment still offers me a provisi<strong>on</strong> to escape the cann<strong>on</strong>ade of impressi<strong>on</strong>s<br />
which submerges me in all kind of interactive situati<strong>on</strong>s.<br />
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