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“THE ‘ETERNAL CANDIDATE’ — THAT WAS ME”: INTERVIEW WITH KAROLY BARD
on a political basis. And I say this, having taught a subject which occasionally
touched upon politically sensitive issues, such as the subject of coercive measures.
Sometimes it was the students themselves who raised these questions. I remember,
for example, that Gyuri Antall, son of the later prime minister, repeatedly raised
fundamental rights issues. But in truth, we were lucky to have started teaching at
a very opportune time. Yet I do recall when an older colleague warned us not to
discuss certain topics in front of the head of department. By this time, however,
the central political leadership was no longer concerned with university lecturers.
They let us be. Even so, I don’t have a single paper from that time that I would be
ashamed to publish today. Unfortunately, the generation before us was not so lucky.
V. Z. K.: As far as I can tell from the different accounts, young teachers formed
an active and close-knit group. For example, they regularly used the university’s
Visegrdd resort for further training. Preparing for this interview, I chanced upon
your study co-authored with Laszlo Kéri entitled ‘Teaching and Small Groups’.
In your paper, you argue against the frontal, lecture-centered teaching method
focusing on lexical knowledge, and emphasize the importance of transferring
skills, attitudes and points of view instead. Did this paper garner attention at
the university? How were these novel approaches received by the older generation?
K. B.: The study received no response at the university. We expected that
department heads would be outraged, for lectures at the time were their monopoly.
Instead, the paper failed to trigger a harsh or seething reaction. This was most
likely down to the fact that most of the teachers who were barred from giving
lectures agreed with our findings. Meanwhile, those who did hold lectures were
confident that this writing will not strip them of their position. I reread the text the
other day to check whether we were frustrated or jealous of the older generation.
I don’t think we were. It is a fairly objective paper.
But the fact that university leadership did not take note of the paper is not
particularly relevant. We wrote this paper mainly for ourselves. Young Teachers
operated as a sort of self-development course. It was just us talking to each other.
And sometimes we invited an external speaker with whom we'd otherwise not have
had the chance to meet, becasue they were barred from entering the university for
some reason or other: Tamas SarkGzy, for example. This wasn’t about competing
with senior lecturers. We much rather wanted to show that we are different from
the previous generation. The older generation was higher up on the faculty career
ladder and they were typically immersed in departmental politics and office
infighting, without much energy left for teaching. We wanted to prove that we
are better trained and more savvy for teaching. We were the first ones to acquire
multiple degrees, albeit this was still the exception when it comes to colleagues
teaching positive law. I was an outlier in this respect, because I taught criminal
procedure, but studied sociology as well.
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