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Chomsky as Teacher
As he tackled the enormous job of fending off his attackers, Chomsky refused to put aside any of his scientific, political, and libertarian projects: he gave conferences, wrote letters, completed his books, and taught his classes. He was, and is, for generations of dissenters a figure of enlightenment and inspiration; for students of linguistics he was, and is, a leader in the field. Chomsky has spoken about the role of the teacher, and his remarks offer insight into the style he has developed over the years a style grounded in his own experience as a student: |
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The Chorus and Cassandra: Hitchens writing on Chomsky, freedom of speech, and media representation |
Most problems of teaching are not problems of growth but helping cultivate growth. As far as I know, and this is only from personal experience in teaching, I think about ninety percent of the problem in teaching, or maybe ninety-eight percent, is just to help the students get interested. Or what it usually amounts to is to not prevent them from being interested. Typically they come in interested, and the process of education is a way of driving that defect out of their minds. But if children['s] . . . normal interest is maintained or even aroused, they can do all kinds of things in ways we don't understand. ("Creation" ) There is a wide range of opinion about Chomsky's abilities as a teacher, but certain observations do recur in the recollections of students he has taught in the course of his long career. Many, for example, report that Chomsky answers all questions carefully and thoughtfully, no matter what the intellectual level of his interrogator. His classes are sometimes attended by upwards of one hundred people, and within any given audience one is likely to find leading scholars from the fields of linguistics, philosophy, psychology, or mathematics sitting arm-to-arm with interested individuals from all walks of life. There are people who have not missed more than a handful of Chomsky's lectures in twenty years; some travel great distances to hear what he has to say. As one might imagine, this makes for a classroom atmosphere that can be intimidating for his own graduate students. Following his open seminars, he spends an hour alone with his graduate students and offers prolific and penetrating comments on each student submission. Former Chomsky student Lisa Travis, now a professor of linguistics at McGill University, says, "Though it's hard to describe, he generates an atmosphere of intense rationality, a sense of discovery. Whatever he's thinking about is the leading edge of his discipline" (qtd. in Parini 39). Others claim, however, that towards those who pursue research that doesn't interest him Chomsky displays little enthusiasm. Robin Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California, remarks that "he thinks he's in possession of the Truth, and that everybody should listen when he speaks. But not everyone goes along with him nowadays" (qtd. in Parini 39).
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MIT's Linguistics Department today |
There have, as well, been complaints of traditionalism in the MIT linguistics department, and these led to strife in
1983. A student who was present in the department at that time says,
"Chomsky thinks he is a feminist, but at heart He's an
old-fashioned patriarch. Of course, he's a very good person. He just
has never really understood what the feminist movement is about"
(qtd. in Parini 39). Chomsky disagrees:
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