Audience Profile:
A psychology professor is going to have the characteristics
of both someone interested in psychology and someone who enjoys teaching in a
formal setting. Usually a psychology major or career would involve a lot of
interpersonal communication and the ability to talk to disturbed people about
their problems and concerns but since the target audience is interested in
teaching psychology, their communication skills will need to be focused more on
instructed a large class and not on therapy. For students majoring in
psychology, they will take classes like any other field of psychology until
they are working on their PhD, at which time they will start focusing on the
teaching aspects of their field. The biggest training step that these students
will go through is their graduate student teaching, where they will teach lower
level psychology courses while working on their own higher education.
Context:
A college professor has a much different job than that of a
normal teacher. Professors have a different audience, have to publish, and have
a lot more freedom about what they talk about and test on than a teacher of a
different educational level. A professor has to be ready for criticism and
feedback from students, from publishing companies, and from the university at
which they work. Without proper communication and an understanding of the
controversies of their field, a psychology professor could be in real trouble.
Rhetoric:
As a future college professor, students interested in
psychology professoring need to keep in mind that they will be teaching adults,
not kids or teenagers. This makes their job slightly easier in the fact that
their students are, quite literally, invested in their education, but it also
means that the communication and rhetoric that the professor uses must be
adapted for students who make their own decisions and set their own schedules.
The students may be more respectful, but they won’t always prioritize the class
as much as the professor does. Of course, for some professors the class isn’t
as much of a priority as the research and publishing that the professor also
has to do. It really depends on the professor and on the university how much
time and energy is spent on instruction instead of researching and vice versa.
Of course a psychology professor also has to deal with interoffice relations;
always being respectful of the other professors and staff. This is especially
important in psychology where some of the information is controversial and
heavily debated. A psych professor must always be respectful and open-minded to
others’ views on these issues.
History:
A student interested in being a psychology professor needs
to understand the historical and current perceptions in psychology so they do
not tread on controversial issues unknowingly. Knowing that the ancient Greeks
and Romans viewed psychology as a philosophy will put a different perspective
on the study and implementation of psychology. Even though psychology is a
relatively new science the ideas it presents have been around for a while. The
torture and isolation that encapsulated psychology in Medieval Catholicism will
remind studiers of psychology to be careful what they pass off a treatments.
Professors’ publishing will be treated as fact by the general public and that
can lead to dangerous and widespread practices if not handled with
cautiousness. In modern times there are many different types of psychology. A
professor does not have the luxury of choosing the one that he or she most
agrees with and not learning about any others. Since the professor has to teach
other students, he or she should try to be as unbiased as possible.
Development Plan:
Since I will be addressing this paper to people who are
thinking about becoming psychology majors and professors but have not done so
yet, I will need to be careful with how many psychology terms I use. They are
not likely to know what psychotherapy entails or what the theories of Carl
Rogers are until they have taken actually psychology courses. I will need to be
direct and to the point with the way I word things but I do not really have to
simplify anything because I will be addressing an audience that is of my own
age and intellect.
Because the people you talk to, as you pointed out, varies between a job in psychology and psychology professoring (people with possible disorders vs. students), it would seem like the training and rhetoric would greatly vary. What types of things would you tell students going into this field that would prepare them to drastically change their focus (between clients and students) as they move from undergrad to grad school?
ReplyDeleteInteresting assessment. I think you may want to expand a bit on how your career will use rhetoric and the consequences thereof, but otherwise, great post.
ReplyDelete