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 ...
I work at a Los Angeles community college (economics professor).
This article was circulated widely via email at our campus some months ago.
The problem with college students — whether attending Stanford or attending the local Jr. College is
1) they come from horrid, chaotic, poorly run public K-12s and
2) they take classes with liberal profs who think the problem is not enough hugs - not lack of hard learning (memorizing important science ideas & principles, vocab. lessons, basic math, etc).
I continue to struggle with the students I’m given. They’re victims of govt. schools. Sad, sad, sad.
Merry Christmas, -
4L
You are confusing graduate and undergrad programs. Getting a C in most graduate courses is unacceptable—it is tyically OK for undergrads, however (unless they’re in a major that requires a min GPA >= 3.0).
As a university professor myself, I can say that a lot of kids going to college don’t really belong there. There are some who aren’t bright enough. But, more often than not, its laziness or lack of maturity on the part of the kid. There is also a huge problem with people not paying attention or following instructions—this is true for both adults and kids alike. The adults who go are typically better because they are the ones paying for it and appreciate it more.
By and large, most professors bend over backwards to give someone at least a C. The most heartbreaking thing, and the biggest quandry for a professor, is the person who is trying really, really hard, but just not getting it. They usually end up with a C out of pity.
>>>>Master’s Degree in business. I give him great credit for putting his shoulder to the wheel and making that degree happen.<<<<<<
I once sat with my CEO as he interviewed candidates for a sales job. The CEO had an undergrad degree in physics and was a multi-zillionaire businessman.
One of the candidates was a very impressive guy, but he should never have mentioned his MBA. The Boss zeroed in on it with things like “What did it do for you? Was it worth it? What did you learn? Then why did you do it?” Et cetera.
The guy had a lot wrapped up in his MBA, and the Zillionaire Boss saw that and hammered on it. Said candidate collapsed and didn’t get the job.
I have been saying for most of my former career as a public school teacher (14 years) that one of the biggest lies being sold to students in schools today is that EVERYONE needs a college education.
Of course, every time I voiced my opinion, I didn’t get any more popular with fellow teachers and especially administration.
It is that “college education” mentality that brings us the pseudo-problem of “needing” illegals to do the jobs “Americans won’t do”.
The real deal - if Americans won’t do it - it is because they are fat and lazy - and have been brought up and trained that way by the public school masters.
The truth - only a fraction of those currently in schools “need” to go to college.
And considering some former students who “successfully” completed a college degree... It doesn’t necessarily mean all that much. But between schools saying college is a “right”, and prospective employers trying to require a degree to sort mail or run errands... it has cheapened a college education (in every way except cost to students and to the taxpayers).
Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.
The teachers and principals who "taught" these students in elementary, middle, and high school are liars. ( And...I use the word "taught" loosely.
If the teachers and principals in their early grades had been **HONEST** many of the people would never had been promoted out of the 4th grade. We have a problem with inadequately prepared students showing up in this adjunct professor's classes because our government K-12 schools are staffed from top to bottom with LIARS.
WHY are Ivy League schools considered to be so much “better?” Do they actually teach something more? Does a doctor from Harvard know more about his specialty than a doctor from Duke? Or are the reputations just a result of decades of good public relations and marketing?
That isn't the only lie being sold to these students. Teachers and principals LIE to students when then pass them from grade to grade without having mastered the basics.
I often read of “X” percentage of children in a particular grade being “below basic”. Huh? Why are they even labeled as being in that grade? If they are in the 9th grade with 3rd grade reading and math skills then his teachers and principals have LIED to that student and his parents!
No, I don't think big hairy 15 year olds should be in the same classes as 9 year old fourth graders. They should be in classes with other 15 year olds but in no way should they be led to believe that they are nothing more than on the 3rd grade level and their chances of earning a graduation diploma are near hopeless.
>>>>>>The problem with college students ....is [that] they come from horrid, chaotic, poorly run public K-12s<<<<<<
Hear, hear.
I went in the 70’s, and high school was a prison with very little teaching and learning actually possible.
After 2 years of community college (4.0 and teacher references), I was awarded a 100 percent academic scholarship by a relatively serious university.
My point honestly is not to brag but to assert that our public high schools are generally a demoralizing disgrace and a blight, and for some kids it is only upon entry to college that they get the chance to embrace learning and study if given the opportunity.
I did read that. That’s what bored people do - fail.
At the K-12 level, teachers and administrators are usually pressured by parents to pass their kids. Most parents these days take their kids side and not the side of the educator. ‘the teacher hates me’, ‘the teacher is a racist’, ‘the teach is a sexist’ and so forth.
Oh well, it makes for a great story to illustrate to my own children the necessity of proofreading CAREFULLY the final document
I went back to school to get a degree in history. I was stunned by what I observed.
Many students have a sense of entitlement. They expect if they show up to class and cobble together assignments, they deserve a passing grade. Thank goodness professors (at least the ones I have had) do not succumb to that nonsense.
One class I took this semester required students to participate in peer review of papers written by other students. One female student who reviewed my paper giggled and said she could only find a couple of issues with my paper. That was ridiculous. Of course my paper had errors (it was at the draft stage).
Many students in that class were uncomfortable marking up drafts for fear of upsetting students. I suffered from no such apprehensions and marked up student drafts - in red ink.
What is most troubling is that many of these students are going on to be teachers in K-12. Some of them should not even be in college.
You are very welcome!
If I’m not mistaken, a doctor from Harvard and a doctor from Duke would be fairly equal.
However, a doctor from Harvard and a doctor from the University of Puerto Rico would not be on the same standing
I agree. Having been a substitute teacher in a public high school, I can attest to the fact that a significant number of the students had no business being there. They learned nothing and actively inhibited others from learning.
I second that...with experience in some of the highest-rated schools in the country.
>>>>>>It is that “college education” mentality that brings us the pseudo-problem of “needing” illegals to do the jobs “Americans won’t do”.<<<<<<
This is not true.
The fact is that the average wage rate for the unskilled and semi-skilled trades (which are heavily staffed with illegals) has not increased at the same rate as all other compensation rates in America.
To be in line with **any** other American compensation scale or index over the last 30 years, those guys making $12 on the construction site *should* be making $22 to $28 per hour.
So the “jobs Americans won’t do” are really the jobs that have been stolen from Americans for substandard wages ($12 versus $24) by illegal aliens.
They simply underbid American workers, because they could afford to.
Undergrad and grad are different, first of all.
Secondly, having attended both state and Ivy League schools, I’d take a good candidate from a state school in a heartbeat, if the Ivy Leaguer couldn’t demonstrate good effectiveness.
My dad is an emgineering consultant with years of experience in the field. He has told me that the simple truth is, if he gets 30 resumes for an open engineering position, the people who go to the top of the pile and are most likely to get an interview are the ones who went to schools like MIT or U of Michigan. He's playing the odds- he knows those schools recruit the brighter, more hard-working kids, as a general rule.
Same thing in other careers, such as law- having a certain school on your resume will, at the very least, keep your resume from immediately going in the trash.
My undergraduate degree is in Speech Communications. I received it from a major four year public university. I did not know then, and I do not know now, precisely what that degree was intended to teach or what it allegedly qualified me to do. I took numerous classes in things like Conversation Analysis. I took Interpersonal Communication three or four times, or at least significant components thereof, under different course names. It was not a serious degree.
Thankfully my first three jobs required only a college degree to be considered. No one cared what that degree was, or the GPA I earned. Frankly none of those jobs required a college degree to perform, though they were precisely what I wanted to do and I am thankful to have that opportunity.
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