I have been thinking further on the content of my last post -- and need to stress that I am not seeking to go after students here. On the contrary, my whole point relates to the teachers who apparently show so little respect for the next generation of archaeologists that they think they cannot cope with disputes -- unless those disputes are of course "historical" and deemed worthy of distant and detached analysis.
Students may not want to bury their heads in the sand -- but if they are forced to, what is their room for manoevre?
I recently did a Facebook post in which I explained that when I was a student, I had a fantastic tutor called Ted Paget whose teaching philosophy was quite simple: "I know quite a lot, but not enough. It's my job to make sure you end up being smarter than me." I tried to carry that on into my own teaching career in Durham University.
Ted Paget, geography tutor and Fellow of Jesus College Oxford -- a man who published hardly anything, but a great teacher.......
Now, it appears, UCL students reading Archaeology are being told by certain senior academics that everything they are taught is "the truth" and that anybody who disputes the conclusions of their own research must simply be ignored. I thought that sort of thing went out over a century ago with the demise of powerful professors who looked on themselves as intellectual giants and "formers of opinion" -- but apparently that old style of thinking is still alive and kicking, in some remote backwaters......
I wonder how widespread this is? If it is, we as a society are in serious trouble.
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Is the UCL Department of Geography, based at Bloomsbury and in the top 5 Geography Departments in the U.K, and also claiming it is a world - leading Geography Department, consulted IN ANY WAY when Professor Mike Parker Pearson at the Department of Archaeology makes claims about alleged prehistoric quarries within the glaciated Preseli Hills of Northern Pembrokeshire?
UCL's website says the Geography Department's teaching is "innovative and INTERDISCIPLINARY"
.................hmmm!!!
Ha -- yes, I wonder? There used to be some excellent people in the UCL Geography Department. No doubt there are still good people there. I dare say they have zero contact with the archaeologists.....
You'll approve of the examples given here of Durham Geography Department's possible "elective modules" - The Arctic, Glaciers & Glaciation, and Ice Age Events!
www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/0/ten-best-uk-universities-study-geography/
You say TED PAGET was a fantastic tutor of yours at Oxford.
Talking of Pagets/ Padgetts, and as a cricketing parallel universe to Geography (!), Doug Padgett was a Yorkshire cricketer and a hero of mine as a youngster. Doug Padgett one day noticed a young boy called MICHAEL VAUGHAN playing cricket for fun, and recommended him to the Yorkshire CC. He persuaded Yorkshire CC to have a good look at him and to sign him later on, EVEN THOUGH Vaughan was born in Manchester and so technically not entitled to play for Yorkshire back then!! Also, Geoff Boycott valued Doug's counsel when Boycott was Yorkshire Captain.
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