Continued Reeducation Points: For Obedient Stepford Wives?

On the day of the 2008 presidential election I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw that my son, who had just turned 18, was one of many young people waiting patiently for over an hour in front of a local church where people go to vote in my neighborhood. Churches and garages also serve as part-time shrines to democracy in America because that’s where people often go to vote, under the watchful eye of volunteers, mostly senior citizens.

In San Francisco California, I used to vote in a garage. In Chesapeake, Virginia, it was in a church. In fact, I was more than pleasantly surprised when I saw so many young people lining up and waiting to cast their vote, I was elated. Finally, things may start changing in this country if young people start paying attention to what is going on, I thought to myself.

It was only this year that I found out in a conversation with my son that the real reason why he voted was that he got extra points for voting in a class that he was taking at a local college. He didn’t really believe that voting for Obama or McCain would make a difference, he just did it for the points. (It so happens that the then 18 year-old was right. Nothing changed whatsoever).

Is it a good idea to give college students extra credit points to vote for candidates preapproved by corporations financing elections, when these are the only candidates who have a chance at being elected? I don’t think so. I think that what the teacher really did was take away from the students the only power they had – it was no longer within the power of the kids to stay home in the absence of a candidate who would represent them.

Incidentally, neither of the final presidential candidates in 2008 even mentioned the biggest problem these kids have had then and have now, which is that student debt has reached astronomical dimensions and by now has surpassed all credit card debt. You wouldn’t need to give students credits for voting if a candidate that would actually want to do something for them was allowed to run for president and had a chance at being elected. But because both parties and both candidates were then and are now generously financed by Wall Street, student loans have very high interest rates and refinancing at a lower interest rate is prohibited by law.

Isn’t the much celebrated “invisible hand of the free market” great?

Is it a good idea to give translators “continued education (CE) points” for participating in conferences, seminars and events that the translators might otherwise choose to ignore if they do not find them particularly useful? I think it’s an even worse idea than giving kids extra credit point for making them vote for a candidate whom they don’t trust. But some associations of translators, in particular the American Association of Translators (ATA), with about nine thousand members, and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) in UK, with about three thousand members, think that it’s an excellent idea.

First of all, who or what makes these august bodies, ATA in the United States and ITI in the United Kingdom, qualified to assign special points for continued education of translators? I don’t know how exactly things work on the other side of the big pond, but I know a little bit about how they work here.

The answer is: nobody and nothing. ATA simply declared itself an arbiter of what is and what isn’t continued education of translators, because it is the ATA. Period.

This is the same ATA that has not been able, in more than two decades, to put in place a “keyboarded exam” for translators who want to become “ATA-accredited”, although I understand it spent well over a hundred thousand dollars while trying in vain to figure out how to solve this insolvable problem. ATA members who want to participate in this exam must write their translations with pen on a piece of paper the way it was done last century and the centuries before.

The same organization, so well known for its organizational genius, also decreed that translators who go to the trouble of passing an examination have to do so by scribbling their translations on a piece of paper the same way these things were done several centuries ago, must participate in various seminars and events in order to hold on to their title of being “ATA-certified”, as explained on ATA website: “Currently certified members will have to earn and keep track of continuing education credits, as determined by ATA, in order to maintain their certification credential. Certified members are given three years to accumulate 20 hours of credit.”

Now, some continued education credits can be obtained relatively easily, for instance by attending a meeting of a local ATA chapter. It just so happens that Mad Patent Translator himself gave a talk by Skype to a local ATA chapter in Washington, DC a few years ago, and every participant was awarded continued education points for simply listening to me (I don’t remember how many points they were given, nor did I know about this arrangement in advance).

Apparently, it’s not that difficult to obtain these points, as they are generously awarded (among other things) for holistic seminars conducted by relatively recent translators who explain, probably mostly to newbies and people who need just a little bit more self-confidence, how to maintain a positive outlook – not an easy task if you’re a translator these days.

I also understand that basically all you have to do to receive your quota of “continued education points” is attend the yearly ATA conference. That sounds pretty simple, until you see how much the conference costs now. Here is this information, again from ATA’s website:

Early Registration (by September 25)
ATA Member Non Member ATA Student**
Full Conference: $485 $660 $240
Saturday Only*: $245 $330 N/A

Standard Registration (after September 25)

ATA Member Non Member ATA Student**
Full Conference: $630 $860 $310
Saturday Only*: $315 $430 N/A

Late Registration (after October 16)

ATA Member  Non Member ATA Student**
Full Conference: $945 $1,285 $465
Saturday Only*: $475 $645 N/A

It’s $485 for ATA members or $660 for the rest of the world, early registration; $945 for ATA members who register late, and $1,285 for non-members who register late.

Phew, given the additional cost of airfare, hotel and incidental costs, one would think that translators make about as much money as plastic surgeons, n’est-ce pas? Some people who live off the work of translators make as much or more than plastic surgeons. But very few translators do, if any.

One would not know it from official ATA statements and from the ATA Chronicle magazine (self-described as the Voice of Translators and Interpreters), because only articles reflecting unambiguously pro-corporate views of “the translation industry” are accepted for publication in the Voice of Translators and Interpreters, except for the fact that a volcano of discontent is erupting on social media, discontent with the current status quo of ATA, which officially stands for Association of American Translators, but in my opinion might as well stand for Association of Translation Agencies given the grip corporate bodies have on ATA’s agenda.

The unhappiness with ATA on social media is palpable. Here is a sampling of views expressed on social media recently:

“ATA should be actively working to advocate for translators and interpreters, and not simply keep quiet and misinformed about the issues, or tiptoe around issues while avoiding them, or writing empty platitudes when it cannot avoid direct questions.”

“Today, unfortunately, most gateways to the profession are controlled by that industry and serve as reeducation camps. The associations, which are the first place for budding and even more experienced translators to turn to for help and guidance, spew corporate propaganda and depict a reality in which there is no market outside of agencies. There are courses that under the moniker of “CPD” and the pretense of professional advice are all about preparing the “students” to start a fleeting career as modern agency slaves – including advice to be positive and accept everything with a smile, even when you can barely pay the bills.

And here is my favorite comment, which inspired me to write today’s post:

“It’s a sad tale of a slow decline into obscurity. ATA is invisible to the public and to clients, and the tag line, adopted during the height of the PREVIOUS PR and media program, of “The Voice of Interpreters and Translators,” is just a cynical reminder of how that voice has gone completely silent. Sad, really.
And honestly, people, if you want to change this, for the love of all things holy, please stop standing up in the General Meeting of Members on Friday morning and PRAISING this level of incompetence and grand foolishness. I get that the first law of ATA today is to smile like a good Stepford wife and never disagree or cause waves, but it’s precisely that behavior that has resulted in widespread contamination of the association.

Depending on who is awarding continued education points and for what, continuing education points may really be continued reeducation points, awarded to reluctant voters, or to obedient Stepford wife-like  translators after a successful lobotomy has been performed on their original, less educated brains, which are now being continuously replaced by a superior and improved product through continuous reeducation.