|
|
Secrets are secrets only if known by a few people. It’s not true if that a secret is know by all too then be a secret at all. In Robin Lakoff’s essay “The Grooves of Academe” she discusses the secret knowledge that isn’t explained to most college students. Such things as what it takes to get a PhD, and the hidden knowledge that students should know but are not taught. Robin Lakoff begins her essay debating as to whether there should be a class that teaches students how to learn these hidden secrets or should students be left in the dark and have to try to uncover these secrets themselves. This hidden knowledge is similar to a situation I once went through when I was becoming a third grade student. I will address this latter in the paper. “The Grooves of Academe” is an essay written by Robin Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California Berkley. At the beginning of the essay Lakoff is in a meeting which is her fellow department personnel. The department is discussing about “revamping the department’s graduate program: how many courses, and which, and in what order, are to be required for the PhD”. A new course was announced to the department. This class would teach students about the hidden knowledge of acquiring a PhD. The class would cover things like “how to get articles published; how to write abstracts”, and most importantly “how power is allocated in the field of linguistics, who has it, why, and how to get it”.
|
