Posted on 12/24/2008 12:35:29 PM PST by Zack Nguyen
...I work at colleges of last resort. For many of my students, college was not a goal they spent years preparing for, but a place they landed in. Those I teach don’t come up in the debates about adolescent overachievers and cutthroat college admissions. Mine are the students whose applications show indifferent grades and have blank spaces where the extracurricular activities would go. They chose their college based not on the U.S. News & World Report rankings but on MapQuest; in their ideal academic geometry, college is located at a convenient spot between work and home. I can relate, for it was exactly this line of thinking that dictated where I sent my teaching résumé.
...A few weeks into the semester, the students must start actually writing papers, and I must start grading them. Despite my enthusiasm, despite their thoughtful nods of agreement and what I have interpreted as moments of clarity, it turns out that in many cases it has all come to naught.
Remarkably few of my students can do well in these classes. Students routinely fail; some fail multiple times, and some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence.
In each of my courses, we discuss thesis statements and topic sentences, the need for precision in vocabulary, why economy of language is desirable, what constitutes a compelling subject. I explain, I give examples, I cheerlead, I cajole, but each evening, when the class is over and I come down from my teaching high, I inevitably lose faith in the task, as I’m sure my students do. I envision the lot of us driving home, solitary scholars in our cars, growing sadder by the mile.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Actually, we can't be sure of that. She may have the innate cognitive ability to do the work, but never received the proper education at a young age. Now, nearing middle age, the woman was unable to understand what was being asked of her, and did not seek out the extra help required.
You are exceptional. If only everyone was like you.
I’m serious - no sarcasm.
Argh - I suppose my search wasn’t extensive enough. Well, I’m glad people got a second look.
You probably don’t have a prayer of being hired or recruited for one of the big name (for instance) accounting firms if you graduated from a state school. That’s just the way it is.
Wrong example. The big name accounting schools are in state schools. University of Illinois, Texas, Florida, etc.
She may have the innate cognitive ability to do the work, but never received the proper education at a young age. Now, nearing middle age, the woman was unable to understand what was being asked of her, and did not seek out the extra help required.
That sounds like a pretty reasonable description. The sad part is that most community colleges have decent tutoring centers designed to help such students.
Were I to fault Prof X, it would be for not stressing prerequisite skills early enough. He has expressed concern about repeatedly failing 9/14 students. This is not good for anyone, yet he does it with remorse semester after semester. I would think some kind of diagnostic entrance exam with suggestions for non-credit remedial classes might be a solution. Community colleges should also publish the percentages of students requiring remediation broken down by local school district in the community.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Mr. Kroger: two C's, two D's and an F. That's a 1.2. Congratulations, Kroger. You're at the top of the Delta pledge class. Mr. Dorfman?Flounder: Hello!
Dean Vernon Wormer: Zero point two... Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Mr. Hoover, president of Delta house? One point six; four C's and an F. A fine example you set! Daniel Simpson Day... HAS no grade point average. All courses incomplete. Mr. Blu - MR. BLUTARSKY... ZERO POINT ZERO.
Many people use boredom as an excuse for low performance. Some seemt to think that boredom indicates that the person is especially intelligent or otherwise capable. I think it usually is just an excuse.
We teach our kids that there is never any reason to be “bored.” Even if there is no external stimulus that is engaging, there is never a reason not to use one’s brain to have a “lively” time, if only in one’s head.
I’ve been in several situations where all I had to do to keep myself occupied was “use my head.” Sometimes I would recite every Bible verse I could think of to myself, or list in my head all the addresses I’d ever lived at. These may be considered extreme examples, but everyday life is no different. Even daydreaming can be productive and engaging (and not “boring”). I have designed many a house while looking out a window on a long and tedious journey.
“Bored” is generally a chosen state of mind, and one to be avoided by taking personal responsibility for not being bored. It’s not an excuse for doing a task, any task, poorly.
I just don't see it that way and I don't think the author's point was that this woman was simply untrained. The title of the article is "why college may not be for everyone."
Clearly, she had multiple interactions with the teacher and was still intellectually unable to grasp the concept. She made a poor choice in blowing off the professor's recommendation that she take a class on computer skills, even as he offered to help her sign up right then and there.
These all indicate cognitive deficits that made her unable, not just unwilling, to do college-level work. Sure, had she applied herself more, she would have done better---but that is not to say she would have done college-level work. And the fact that she didn't apply herself more is only more evidence that she wasn't all that bright. Bright people make better choices than she did.
An excellent post.
My take on boredom here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2153912/posts?page=149#149
I was referring to the nonsense promulgated by folks like Foucalt and others.
A quick google search finds
Introduction to Modern Literary Theory Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. London: Longman, 1994....... Postmodernism - Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism ... Stephen Greenblatt was an early important figure, and Michel Foucault's (fou-KOH) intertextual ...
This is not the simple 'reading ... thinking .. and writing about' approach you mention. It's thinking about the text in a particular Marxist frame of mind.
There many different approaches to reading. And psychoanalitic criticism and postmodernism aren’t Marxism. Marxists dislike it actually.
What the Marxists want isn't relevant. There isn't a pope of Marxism to declare who and who isn't a Marxist. The psychoanalytic critics claim to be Marxist, and use Marxist terms and theory. That's good enough for me.
There are different approaches to economics, as well as to reading. And some of those different approaches to economics think that having the government hire folks to dig holes and then fill them up again builds wealth. Different can mean 'complete BS'.
They’ve crossbred quite a bit in the 20th century (mostly thanks to Marcuse) but they came from different paths. Freud wasn’t a Marxis and neither were most of his followers. Postmodernism is a cultural logic that has produced some fine work (Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo).
I didn't say he was. I did link to a postmodernist who claims a Marxist approach. There's no pope of Marxism to decide who is and who isn't a marxist. (Though in the case of Trotsky and others, Stalin did want do decide such things, but I don't think we have the modern day equivalent of Stalin around.)
You point to a couple of fiction writers as a high point of postmodern thought. A 'cultural logic' of a meaningless life isn't exactly an uplifting approach.
And, I doubt that anybody has written down the postulates of that cultural logic. Which means it isn't a logic, but merely a pose.
I suppose you can come up with a scenario where logic doesn't mean what it did to Isaac Newton. But then I'd just note that you are playing word games that must generate meaninglessness because there is no assigned meaning to anything. And you'd disagree, and I think we'd have to leave it at that.
Word games is what the postmodernists say everyone is doing anyway. But the esential idea of PoMo is that the relationship between symbols and what they refer to had become unglued over the centuries and even if the relationship seemed strong it was just a rhetorical shellgame. It was a useful idea to a degree and accurately describes a great deal of our culture in a disconnected, media saturated age.
Well said. Very interesting post.
Great post!
My parents taught us, and we teach our kids, there is no job beneath you. My parents grew up during a time that not only wasn’t a college education needed, it wasn’t a possibility for them. Thus, they valued education and encouraged us to attend college since the opportunity was there. My parents had no formal post high school education and they were intelligent, self-educated, hard working people.
We’re encouraging our children to do the same but college isn’t for everyone and it’s not for everyone right after high school. Our eldest received her acceptance letter and packet to her first choice school and if enough academic scholarship money follows, she’ll attend. If not, she’ll attend her 2nd or 3rd or 4th choice, etc. The two teens are set on attending college but no idea about the two younger ones.
You don't think there are any conservatives studying law, science, medicine, economics, or business? You're either making a joke, or are ignorant.
Or, maybe the orgies, free sex and godlessness taught in college don’t allow any conservatives to survive till graduation.
I went to some pretty liberal schools, and orgies, free sex and godlessness were never part of what we were taught in class. Certainly, some students choose to participate in such activities outside of class time, but that's their choice- they are legal adults, after all. Colleges aren't babysitters and it is not their job to make sure that students live their lives in a certain way.
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