confessions of a worried teacher
I tend to go to work relatively early – not out of any conscientiousness, simply because I wake early and get bored. While much of the day the corridors and stairways thong with students and faculty going about their ‘knowledge work’, the early morning presents a different kind of labour. I greet the cleaners, the silent bodies of our public buildings, clearing away the debris left by student and staff alike, making the place ready for another day of knowledge-intensive activity. There is a sense in which my articulated identity as a knowledge worker, of an academic identity construed in large part by identification with epistemic communities, is quite separate from that of the cleaners I say hello to. I am forced to contemplate the nature of this encounter, and in particular my privileged position. I encounter something more than just different functional roles – after all there is a…
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