I recall that George W. Bush and John Kerry both graudated from Yale with C averages. Today in graduate school a C is roughly the academic equivalent of being slapped in public. It is rarely done and quite serious when it happens. It is not that students are any better today (indeed the opposite is likely true), rather grades have been inflated.
I picked my college based on how close it was to home and price. A degree from one is the same as any other. Employers do not care where you graduated as long as you did and interview well.
Such students should never have been given a high school diploma.
I work with a man with a Master’s Degree in business. I give him great credit for putting his shoulder to the wheel and making that degree happen. He works hard. He got where he is through sheer determination because he was one of those people like the students you write of.
But he just doesn’t “get it”. I’ve never worked with anybody who “got it” less than he does. We have the same job covering different territories of our company’s operations. He is about to be terminated but has no idea it is coming. I hope he finds something else soon. He is ill-suited for what he’s doing now. I feel bad for him.
I don't see the benefit to such a person of taking this class or writing a research paper.
She probably didn't either and that's why she failed. Boredom!
They used to say that about high school diplomas.
for later
The author has the unenviable position of being the devolved-to rub-out guy, insightful to why his students fail, and compassionate to their situations.
Nice article.
Thanks for sharing.
But there is an air of snobbery in his writing. He pretends to have empathy. But he seems to revel too much in his gate-keeping function. I think the editors of the Atlantic decided that he was "one of us," not merely and really a night-school person.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "Come Back to 1600, Johnny Dean, Johnny Dean"
The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.
I encourage all to read the entire article. It is about a professor struggling to teach basic research and writing skills.
So little is actually taught in our public high schools that college has become High School, Part II.
I actually despised high school, it was an impossible environment for learning.
But I loved college.
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
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.
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.
that is well written piece. You might appreciate this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1672282/posts?page=1
And further eroding the value of a degree is the rush by the higher-education "industry" to sell its wares -- even a Harvard degree has lost its genuine prestige. A degree from a once-vaunted institution now possess more snob-appeal than merit.
Then, of course, out in the marketplace, if one doesn't hold a degree -- however watered down it may be -- he's in the professional ghetto. It's ridiculous. And finally, well, to see how ridiculous it is, look what it's wrought on Wall Street, where the elite of the degreed elite gather.
In the current world, writing is an extra essential skill. Writing sentences and paragraphs to convey necessary information is not learned well enough in highschool.
Even people on loading docks and driving forklifts must interface with computers and communicate via e mail.
If you haven’t learned writing, you will not get a decent job.
“I think one of the failures of the modern corporate world is the demand that job applicants possess college degrees. In many cases the performance of these jobs do not require a college degree,”
So true. But it benefits banks by forcing people to go into debt to get those degrees.
bump