Putting the D in Demos
July 17, 2006 6:31 AM   Subscribe

 
[C]ollege is like Burger King -- Get It Your Way!

On one hand, I understand and empathize with her point that education should not be a commodity, but the reality is otherwise, even at — yes — state schools.

As someone paying top dollar for his own (graduate) education, and not taking out loans, I get rightfully upset when the quality of instruction is poor, and that I should be allowed to expect better value for my money.

Sorry, but if, year after year, schools keep raising their prices at a rate faster than inflation, their instructors shouldn't complain when their customers/students expect better.
posted by Mr. Six at 6:42 AM on July 17, 2006


Mr. Six is right, but as someone who taught at universities for eight years (Univ of Washington, Lewis and Clark College, Mt Hood Community College, Oregon State University)--don't blame the instructors. This will sound like a classic "pass the buck" scenario, but we get stuck teaching classes sometimes we don't even know any more about than the students, and most often just for budgetary reasons.

If students should be up in arms, it's not at instructors or professors, it's at the university administrators who aren't standing up for higher education in state legislatures, etc.

I could go on about this, but there's a touching article in the Chronicle that describes what it's like to be an instructor, one caught in the middle but sympathetic with students:

I Loved It Once by Jasper Owen.
posted by josephtate at 6:54 AM on July 17, 2006


Hmm... zee html, it disappeared: I Loved It Once.
posted by josephtate at 6:55 AM on July 17, 2006


The idea that every child should go to university/college after high school should be reconsidered. Not everyone is cut out to study with little/no guidance for 3 or 4 years. Visit any university today and you'll see a lot of people who'd be a lot better off in a trades apprenticeship, but whose parents decided that they absolutely had to have at least a BA.
posted by clevershark at 7:03 AM on July 17, 2006


The Consumerist Students link is dead on. I still can't get over the profusion of brand names in hip-hop lyrics. Kids get corperate logos tatooed on them ferchrissakes!

Ugh.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:07 AM on July 17, 2006


Here, here, clevershark, I've been saying the same thing for years. No one seems to like to acknowledge it, but university is not for everyone. Then governments set these ridiculous goals, like they want everyone to go to uni and it's just inappropriate, and causes problems for everyone. University is not job training, nor should it be.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 7:09 AM on July 17, 2006


The Consumerist Students link is ridiculous. Kids have cellphones and bluejeans are popular! OH NOSE. Get over yourself, you whiny old curmudgeon.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:11 AM on July 17, 2006


Clevershark,
I would say the same thing, except it seems that the existence of that much 'unskilled' labor is evaporating out of the country. Plus imagine all the jobs that Professors would loose.
posted by BillJenkins at 7:13 AM on July 17, 2006


Sorry, but if, year after year, schools keep raising their prices at a rate faster than inflation, their instructors shouldn't complain when their customers/students expect better.

Expect better WHAT? Education? I call bullshit on this. Nothing makes my students happier than when I let them skip a few steps and get out of the lab earlier. Some chapters have to be skipped due to lack of time? Sure, why not? Not a single soul complains. So if they don't want to learn, why should the professors waste the time and effort trying to make them?
Secondly, there is an almost universal misunderstanding as of what exactly the University is. It isn't a high school, and the professors and TAs are not teachers. They are there to do research in some particular field. They were not trained to teach, nor do most of them have any sort of talent in this area. Like I tell my students, I might as well be required to play a violine for them. I will do it, but it wouldn't be my fault if their ears bleed.
posted by c13 at 7:13 AM on July 17, 2006


c13, maybe the universities should lay you researchers off so they can afford real teachers.
posted by fleetmouse at 7:19 AM on July 17, 2006


I have been troubled for some time now by the inability of most students to recognize the difference between the right to an opinion and the validity of the same. If I say the Earth is flat, I have the right to that opinion. I'd still be batshitinsane.

It's the same with supporting either G.W. Bush or Hillary Clinton, and I'd argue that politics are where we can see the effect most clearly.

And don't even get me started on "Intelligent Design" and all the loonies that actually argue that it's a valid alternative merely because some people believe in it.
posted by mystyk at 7:21 AM on July 17, 2006


The Lippmann/Dewey debate (from the last link) is truly wonderful piece of American history. Alterman's account of it is good, so if you've gotten this far in the comments without checking it out, DO SO NOW.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:21 AM on July 17, 2006


"Please, Fry, I don't know how to teach! I'm a professor!" -Prof. Hubert Farnsworth
posted by clevershark at 7:23 AM on July 17, 2006


clevershark nails it. When everyone goes to college, everyone loses. It waters down the degree's value, makes sure that education isn't the main focus of most universities, so on. Except for the fun times, I wish I'd skipped it. (Well, I did skip quite a bit of it).
posted by Bookhouse at 7:24 AM on July 17, 2006


Not all schools are very bad.l Not all instructors are very bad. Not all administrators are bad. We are a credential society and kids go to school to get a credential. You want good education? Use the library as much as possible.

on costs: very few people note that the G.I. Bill was in fact socialized education. Rewarded servicemen for serving their country by paying college costs.

It is true that not all people should go to college. Who is to decide?
When I went to college at a state school, the out of state fee was about 2 thousand more than instate. Now, at most schools, it is double or triple. And a number of school prefer out of state students to get the additional money and in a sense are telling their instate students to go out of state and pay more!
posted by Postroad at 7:30 AM on July 17, 2006


[The University] isn't a high school, and the professors and TAs are not teachers. They are there to do research in some particular field. They were not trained to teach, nor do most of them have any sort of talent in this area.

I'm sorry, what? Maybe I'm just a young and idealistic graduate student, but what exactly is the difference between a university and a think tank, then? If you ask any University administrator — or hell, even look at their charter (here's the one from McGill University, for example) — they'll say that education is one of the primary purposes of the University.

Certainly, colleges & universities have always had to strike a balance between, as the McGill charter puts it, "education" and "the advancement of learning". But any university that cultivates the notion that educating students is not at all part of it mission has, quite simply, lost its way.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:33 AM on July 17, 2006


Colliversity is the new high school. It used to be, "Stay in school! You can't get a job without a high school diploma!" Now you can barely get a decent job with a high school diploma, so a B.X. (for X = A, Sc, Ed, Eng, Comm, etc.) is now the minimum. Not a slam on our present undergrad population (they didn't write the rules), but the less that's required from graduating high school seniors, the more that the job of "finishing" falls on postsecondary institutions, and the more that a Bachelor's becomes seen as an entitlement.

(Then again, I entered university in '79, and there was planty of talk then about what a bunch of slack-jawed underachievers the incoming froshies were. </fogey>)

The hot place to be here, in Alberta's booming resource-based economy? Not university - trades school.
posted by hangashore at 7:48 AM on July 17, 2006


"I get rightfully upset when the quality of instruction is poor, and that I should be allowed to expect better value for my money."

To my ear this is a bizarre thing for a graduate student to be asserting. The professors and students in your courses are your peers. You, especially in graduate school, are every bit as responsible for the quality of your education as your professor is. You are not there to be a sponge. You are not expected to merely absorb their lectures. You are there to discuss, debate and challenge each other. You claim that you understand that education shouldn't be a commodity, but then act exactly as if it were a one.

Furthermore, you realize that the tuition paid by students is only a small (perhaps tiny) percentage of their professor's salaries. The consumerist position is akin to getting a new car for 30% of it's value and then complaining that it's not good enough. Student's who expect to get what they pay for should actually be grateful that they are getting as good an education as they are. They certainly are getting much more than their money's worth.

Reality is what you make of it. If you don't want education to be a commodity, then don't treat it like one. If you want to work with good professors then do so (you're a grad student just walk up to the teachers you like and engage them).
posted by oddman at 8:03 AM on July 17, 2006


clevershark writes "Visit any university today and you'll see a lot of people who'd be a lot better off in a trades apprenticeship, but whose parents decided that they absolutely had to have at least a BA."

We get quite a few people in our trades programs who already have degrees (and not only French history, math or English degrees, guys with comp sci, business, or education degrees also). Often they went to university because it was expected and after graduating found they liked wearing a tool belt a lot better than a suit.

c13 writes "Nothing makes my students happier than when I let them skip a few steps and get out of the lab earlier. Some chapters have to be skipped due to lack of time? Sure, why not? Not a single soul complains."

When I was in school it used to piss me off to no end when instructors would let the class out early or cancel the Friday before the long weekend's lecture[1]. At the time I was paying, in advance mind you, $3-10 per hour for 3 credit courses. Teach me damn it. Yet students who were constantly railing against tuition increases wouldn't get pissed that they weren't getting what they had already paid for. I was always in a firm minority of one in thinking cancelling a class was outrageous. I often wondered if they made us pony up the tution fee at the begining of every lecture if things would be different.

[1] No doubt so the instructor could leave on Thursday for the lake/mountain.
posted by Mitheral at 8:05 AM on July 17, 2006


BA/BS degree holders, age 25-29, 2003:

White: 3/10
Black: 1/6
Asian: 5/10
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:13 AM on July 17, 2006


c13, maybe the universities should lay you researchers off so they can afford real teachers.
Really? And how are they going to support themselves? Tuition money? Oddman is right. At my school, for example, tuition covers something like %25 of total operating expense. The rest comes from grants, the state, etc. And guess who's getting the grants. That's right, professors. And those grants are for specific RESEARCH, not for softer chairs in classrooms.

Johnny Assay, I'm not saying Universities should not teach, I'm just saying that the professors that work there are not teachers. My boss, for example, did not want to be a teacher when he was a kid. He wanted to be a biochemist. I'm sure your PI wanted to work in his field first and foremost also.

Mitheral, I may be painting with too broad a brush, but people like you are definitely in the minority. In my classes they are either foreigners, or older students that are coming back to school. Normal, average undergraduates don't give a shit. Which is really the base of the matter, I think. On one hand you've got people who don't really want to teach, because they've got research to do, and on the other you have people who don't really want to learn. I've thought about it a lot, and I'm beyond placing a blame on a specific group, but I also don't really know what's to be done.
posted by c13 at 8:18 AM on July 17, 2006


Maybe people should be encouraged to take at least one really crappy job for a year before entering college as a way of making them appreciate college more when they are actually in it.
posted by clevershark at 8:47 AM on July 17, 2006


Mr. Six writes "I get rightfully upset when the quality of instruction is poor, and that I should be allowed to expect better value for my money."

Uh the irony is that because of the poor education you can't get a job and money to fight it in court , nor notice you were poorly educated ! Talk about getting shafted.

clevershark writes "The idea that every child should go to university/college after high school should be reconsidered."

Certainly, not everyone can do that, yet consider that the preparation time of an highly skilled workforce is measured in years and if one is supposed to work and study at same time the time taken is more then doubled. It is good to have a pool of well trained brains.

Any company would _not_ finance this overpreparation , but would buy the skill in demand in some other country, like US was and is doing with the last batch of superb quality italian college students ( financed by state eheh) ; the problem is this pool of low cost high quality students is disappearing in the west as public funding is reduced , so what happens is that one tries to outsource that to china, india, whatever can be baited with more valuable money. Yet as they don't exactly climb down a tree, they will increase price according to western demands : lower price , but still and their internal market may absord the best ones.

Yet as eastern government realize they are preparing the best of their workforce for free, why should they finance advanced public education as westerns did ? That would be idiotic ! One should leave that to private education, but as private educators can also be scammers and partisan (see religious schools)yet they require good money for their bad job, I guess we well see a reduction of people with advanced and continued education AND with grinded-on-stone learning skills ; both because private schools generally suck and allow more payed cheating AND because less people can afford private education.

But surprise, there will be no reduction of titles ! On the contrary more people will get a Phd or some form of title, as they -STILL- consider it an investment for the future, but will approach it with a consumeristic approach of "univ is supposed to educate ME" and not " I am supposed to LEARN myself" because consumeristic "culture" is about getting the most with the least effort.

If you ask me, I can't see that as being good.
posted by elpapacito at 9:06 AM on July 17, 2006


Seems very normal to me: people are lazy, want fun and status, and are rarely idealistic knowledge seekers.

Maybe related: kids in poorer countries like science.
posted by vertriebskonzept at 9:19 AM on July 17, 2006


It might have been nice to get a bit more explanation of these links. The first one describes the findings of a report from the US Department of Education, that reveals the Bush Adminstration's desire to remake higher education a la "no child left behind."

They seem to propose that the "results" of a college education can be measured by the ratio of dollars spent on earning a degree to dollars earned after graduation.

The report reflects an attenuated vision of higher ed that looks with disdain on requirements that students learn history or religion or philosophy or sociology, or literature or languages--or *any* of the kinds of learning that helps people evaluate arguments and make informed political decisions. Or that helps people consider any sort of picture bigger than the one needed to compete for dollars in the marketplace.

It's easy enough to blame the consumerist students for their apathy (I know I do, sometimes), but let's not miss the main upshot of that first link, which shows how determined the present adminstration is to destroy the foundations of liberal education, which perhaps tends to disagree with conservative appeals to religious and patriotic irrationalism.

When you read this (from the first link):
To “change from a system based on reputation to one based on performance,” higher education must become much more transparent and accountable. The report calls for the creation of a “consumer friendly information database” that would provide data on college costs and prices, admissions data, completion rates and learning outcomes; urges states to require public institutions to measure and report how much their students learn in college; and endorses the creation of a national (“privacy protected”) system that tracks students’ progress through the education system and into the work force.

What you're reading is a statement of deliberate intent to attack the prestige and funding of the nation's elite universities.

There are many improvements that could be made to higher ed in the states (the report rightly decries uncontrolled tuition costs), but the evisceration of liberal education isn't an improvement that would be a great favor to democracy in the states, or to anyone affected by US policy.
posted by washburn at 9:20 AM on July 17, 2006


I basically agree with c13 about the role of research at a research university, but any researcher can teach decently enough to avoid the majority of student complaints. As a TA, I see absolutely no evidence that students are more "consumerist" than at any other time in our history.

State and federal governments are slashing funding to higher ed left and right, hurting both teaching and resesarch, and all academics and students can do is snipe at each other. "Overpaid!" "Ungrateful consumerist!"
posted by transona5 at 9:22 AM on July 17, 2006


And oh yeah, a little higher ed tragicomedy via The Onion.

Almost true.
posted by washburn at 9:24 AM on July 17, 2006


The idea that every child should go to university/college after high school should be reconsidered.

As the old saying goes: Great idea. You go first.

After working sub-degree almost continuously for 10+ years, and having little (And diminishingly less as time went on...) to show for it, I think you're going to have a rough time trying to sell the majority of adults on the idea that their child is going to grow up without health care, a retirement fund or any form of job security whatsoever('At will' employment is almost universal for the undegreed).

Maybe if we could do something to make the lot of non-degree labor a little better than a pauper's grave and a mountain of (hard-to-dodge)debt, we might have a little more luck getting people to take it.

I think (maybe) if we didn't expect them to compete on a level playing field with businesses that use slave labor, it might be a start. Maybe.
posted by Orb2069 at 9:26 AM on July 17, 2006 [1 favorite]


I'm not saying Universities should not teach, I'm just saying that the professors that work there are not teachers. My boss, for example, did not want to be a teacher when he was a kid.

Fair enough, but there's still something fundamentally wrong when professors view teaching as a distraction from their "real work". (And I have heard professors express this sentiment, in so many words.) The faculty of any institution of higher education are not there solely to do research, or even primarily to do research. Their teaching duties should be on an equal footing with their research duties, or at the very least, significantly more than an afterthought.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:34 AM on July 17, 2006


I just took a graduate course on Air Carrier Operations as part of a Masters in Aeronautical Science program.

One of the questions on the mid-term was, "Which airline CEO was given a Harley Davidson by his pilots association"?

Yeah - I learned a lot in that class. I learned money does not equal quality.
posted by matty at 9:45 AM on July 17, 2006


What you're reading is a statement of deliberate intent to attack the prestige and funding of the nation's elite universities.

And that's a bad thing? Maybe moving the research money from the "elite institutions" wouldn't be so bad. The hardest thing about the ivies is getting in -- you have to have perfect SAT scores. No wonder it's the rich who go, they're the only ones who can afford the specialized test instruction or the fake disability diagnosis to get unlimited test time.

Once in, I honestly don't believe it's that much "harder" than comparable schools without the reputation. Look at Harvard: rampant grade inflation, plagiarism, and forced conformity with liberal ideals.

Maybe it's time to put the money into those "other" schools; those that are willing to work harder and not rest solely on their elitism.
posted by karson at 9:51 AM on July 17, 2006


Fair enough, but there's still something fundamentally wrong when professors view teaching as a distraction from their "real work".

But it IS a distraction! At least it is made to feel like one. No one is going to give me a PhD for good teaching. No one is going to give my PI the money to do research and run the lab, and pay his student's stipends for teaching. When the progress report time comes around, people want to hear about the results, not whether your powerpoint slides are in order. What about incoming professors? You really expect them concentrate on teaching more than trying to publish something that will get them a tenure? Especially if they get poor teaching evaluations because they are "too hard", or "cover too much useless shit".
posted by c13 at 9:53 AM on July 17, 2006


matty writes "Which airline CEO was given a Harley Davidson by his pilots association"

Ahahaah if it wasn't tragic it would be funny :) What should and airline CEO think if their pilots are presenting him with a two wheeled vehicle :) ?

a) that's the only transport stuff you can handle
b) you are the best when it comes to down to _earth_ business
c) cmon why the hell don't you join Hell's Angel your scooter you !
posted by elpapacito at 9:55 AM on July 17, 2006


Especially if they get poor teaching evaluations because they are "too hard", or "cover too much useless shit".

I find that covering material in a straightforward, even somewhat repetitive way (I'm in the sciences) is the way to avoid these kinds of comments. They're not going to see the beauty of the mathematics until they've worked out the same kinds of examples over and over again and have a sense of the underlying structure. Some instructors have the very unrealistic expectation of their students that they should be there purely out of love for the subject material (even if it's a required class in a major where they're interested in another area), but love for a subject often comes from hours of struggling over problems with no immediate motivation other than a course grade.

Not every student will be happy all the time, but teaching reasonably well just isn't that hard, and it doesn't cut into your research time more than teaching badly.
posted by transona5 at 10:10 AM on July 17, 2006


As an aside to the teaching vs. research dual-role expected of professors.

1) I, for one, was always very excited to learn from a big name in the field. Some weren't that good as teachers, but they knew their shit hands down, and if you put in the work and asked questions, you got more out of them than many of the profs who slacked after getting tenure but were charismatic, organized -- "good teachers", in short.

2) I just got a job at a teaching oriented liberal arts college. I am psyched, because I love teaching (and the location is amazing). I am worried about the lack of emphasis on research though, because I know that to keep working at the edge of my field makes me a better teacher. In the reverse situation to the tenure track prof at a research oriented institution, I will get little credit and few resources (certainly no graduate students) for keeping research up, but I still have to do it.

The dual teaching/researcher role is not inherently problematic. Lack of recognition, resources and instruction on the teaching side of the ledger is.
posted by bumpkin at 10:13 AM on July 17, 2006


Not every student will be happy all the time, but teaching reasonably well just isn't that hard, and it doesn't cut into your research time more than teaching badly.

Well, in the long run, no. In the short run, putting together a well-organized course for the first time is a major time investment, and a big source of stress to pre-tenure faculty.
posted by bumpkin at 10:15 AM on July 17, 2006


I don't dispute the fact that some professors are better at teaching than others. Or that some actually enjoy doing that. I'm just saying that neither professors no the TA's are ever taught how to teach effectively (at least not in my experience). And for most people that I know teaching is a chore and a distraction. Some naturally cope better than others. But it is very sophomoric of undergrads to expect that, once they paid their tuition, they will somehow magically and painlessly get what they think they need for a plush job. Education is not a commodity, and the University is not a mall. You don't pay for a thing, you're paying for the opportunity to be around people who know something that you presumably need learn. I got through school with that attitude and I did ok. And I see students with similar ideas do just fine every semester, despite "confusing" material or "boring" professors, picky TA's and such.
You really can't buy intellegence, knowledge or skills.
posted by c13 at 10:36 AM on July 17, 2006


There's a good discussion going on at the blog that was the second link, mostly with young professors/grad students discussing their responsibility for engaging 'disinterested', 'consumerist', and/or 'relativist' students.

I want to address the pretty important central question of the original post -- the relationship between higher education and democracy. This seems central to many issues of the day -- and why there is so little hope for truly visionary leadership from elected politicians in contemporary America. Higher eduction has come to be understood as a commodity -- something which increases a student's earning potential and social standing. It is hard to make that consistent with the idea that higher education is expected to give students the opportunity to develop the capacity for more sophisticated and nuanced thinking -- e.g, to become more responsible participants in democratic/civic discourse.

Part of the problem is the myth of a truly egalitarian, classless democracy in America -- which, for better or for worse, has compromised the traditional intentions of liberal arts education. Education in the humanities used to be for members of the aristocracy -- students who were fully expected to have the time to become thoughtful, sophisticated, articulate, and responsible participants in a limited democracy for white male landowners. By creating a culture where everyone is expected to go to university while holding on to some idea about the intrinsic value of liberal education, we've landed in a mess where neither 'democracy' nor 'liberal values' are truly being served.

one useful myth, of course, is that one higher degree is as 'good as' another -- that what matters is more the experience of finishing college (e.g. the aquisition of the commodity of a degree) than the actual content of the study -- so that we start looking at these statistical analyses which discuss the 'college educated' population and their relative success in the marketplace. this, however, presumes a value-theory and a relationship to history and politics which -- if they actually paid attention in their Liberal Arts education -- reasonably educated students should know are far from uncontested or determinate.

The underlying question, to my mind, is less 'are universities doing their jobs of equalizing us and battling entrenched relationships of class and power' so that we can come closer to realizing some vision of a truly democratic society', and more 'is the way we are taught to think about democracy in our secondary (and higher) education over-simple propoganda which has the long-term effect of maintaining class and power structures as they are by training us to equate participation in the market as consumers with responsible civic (democratic) participation.'
posted by milkman at 10:39 AM on July 17, 2006


Hmm, I understand what she's saying but she is associating way too many common characteristics of Gen Y as being negative in order to get her point across.

I waited until I was 20 to start school. That was 2 years ago. And yeah, there are quite a few kids who are just doing this to please their parents. They don't want to write papers, they don't want to do their readings, they have no interest whatsoever in their major. These kids piss me off. They talk during class, they ask stupid questions, they try to hide the fact that they're talking on their cell phones during a lecture by whispering and ducking under the table. They ask ME for notes because I've got a laptop.

In Canada you either go to college or university. You will find many of the same fields in both types of school, but college is supposed to be more hands-on and practical (and they usually have the trades), and university is more practical and academic. I know a lot of kids who would be better off in college. But there is this whole stigma attached to going to college, and that it's not as good as university, and blah blah blah.

Maybe people should be encouraged to take at least one really crappy job for a year before entering college as a way of making them appreciate college more when they are actually in it.

I did that. It worked. There were way too many 17 year-old kids in my first year classes. How the fuck do you know what you want to do or study at that age?
posted by Menomena at 10:51 AM on July 17, 2006


I wanted to repeat this comment: You, especially in graduate school, are every bit as responsible for the quality of your education as your professor is. You are not there to be a sponge. You are not expected to merely absorb their lectures. You are there to discuss, debate and challenge each other. You claim that you understand that education shouldn't be a commodity, but then act exactly as if it were a one.

That's my biggest frustration as a professor (regarding students, anyway): students who want me to teach them everything, with no inkling of their own roles in their educations. One of my mantras to my students is that NO teacher or curriculum or school can possibly teach you everything about anything. However, I can't say that it's a frustration that makes me weep for our future--many of my students (who are majoring in the field I teach) come a long way toward realizing that as they grow and develop through their university experience. I can really only be frustrated that they come in that way; if they leave the same way, I've failed some, too. (Important qualifier: this attitude does little for those who teach large sections, and/or sections of students not in your field; those core curriculum classes can be a rough time.)

I also agree with washburn when he writes, of the first link, What you're reading is a statement of deliberate intent to attack the prestige and funding of the nation's elite universities. That's pretty clear to me, too. Anytime I hear the phrase "lack of accountability" w/r/t education, I know that shit is being shoveled in my direction. It's a phrase that nearly always reveals a motive of control, as well as a complete misconception of what education is--education is not a product, where success can be measured and quantified akin to profit in a business. It is testament to the dominance of the business paradigm in our national thinking that such an absurd notion should be given any currency at all; education is a process, and should be evaluated as such. It does not produce a commodity (an "education") nor can it; its real value lies not in how many facts a graduate knows, or even in what demonstrable concrete skills he or she may have acquired in that process--though both of those occur to a great degree. Its true value is measured in what sort of human beings such a process encourages to develop; hopefully, American colleges and universities produce thoughtful humanists, citizens with critical thinking skills, etc.

(Beer & Circus, by Murray Sperber, is a cogent critique along these lines, though he cites a different root cause.)

On preview, milkman articulates some of what I'm getting at, though I'd say that, as a younger faculty member of a university, that universities are just no longer sure what their mission is, nor do I see them (as a big group) being able to figure that out any time soon. The political waves that roiled academia and academic discourse--mostly about a university's mission--through the 70s, 80s, and 90s seem to have mostly calmed, but without clear resolution; it seems that all the sound and the fury really sort of signified a great big muddling of curricula. But the tension now (in California, at least) is not among professors, discussing the kinds of things milkman mentions, but is rather an adversarial one between faculty and administration. Administrations (all the way up to the Governor) have a business-minded, commodification approach to education; this is of course incompatible with the intrinsic nature of education, and faculty, when we have energy to fight at all, are fighting those battles instead.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:07 AM on July 17, 2006


I agree with thirteenkiller, the Consumerist Students link is trash. Articles like that are churned out by the ream every year by TA's and instructors whose own snap judgments and shallow thinking concerning their students are actually more troubling than the qualities of the students that they are complaining about.
posted by jayder at 11:14 AM on July 17, 2006


The Consumerist Students link is ridiculous.

Hallelujiah. When a teacher starts putting down his or her students, it is proof positive that teacher is burned out and needs to be replaced.

I have been teaching at a smallish Midwestern state university for ten years now. I teach a required class that most students do not want to take. My students will work just as hard as I make them. They will be just as smart as I insist on their being. They will read as much as I require, study as long as it takes, participate and discuss, write what is required.

They do these things because I require them. I create high expectations on the first day of class and hold the students to them with frequent assessments. It isn't rocket science, it is teaching, and it is my job.

Students won't discuss in your class? Oh boo hoo. Tell them that they are having a discussion on Thursday over X reading and that they are having a quiz over it as well. Give them the quiz. Lead a discussion. Ask engaging questions. Call on people who don't speak. Then do it all again in two weeks. You will have great discussions in your class.

I love my students, they are awesome young people. They are also busy, and respond to incentives. It has ever been thus. Just as bad teachers have always complained about their students.
posted by LarryC at 11:21 AM on July 17, 2006


Tell them that they are having a discussion on Thursday over X reading and that they are having a quiz over it as well.

Yes, thank you. I don't resent being asked "Is this on the test?" If I want them to understand it, I put it on the test (well, inasmuch as I have control over that as a TA) and I tell them it's on the test. It works better than assuming that they should know that they need to study it because the professor is a great researcher and he said so. If I do my job, they'll understand the material by the exam day and they'll understand why it was important five years later when they're in grad school.
posted by transona5 at 11:37 AM on July 17, 2006


LarryC is right on. The most valuable classes I took from the first day of college to the last day of law school were those which enforced keeping up with the reading and otherwise engaging the material. It's a bit annoying at first, but it really makes a difference.
posted by MattD at 12:06 PM on July 17, 2006


LooseFilter writes "That's my biggest frustration as a professor (regarding students, anyway): students who want me to teach them everything, with no inkling of their own roles in their educations."

Yeah that is true of some student and sometime of entire classes ; basically they want me to explain them every other logical step, the why and the whats. When I challenge these people with trying their own, reasoning their own, the answer is usually something along the line of "uh well but you should explain me". I teached to classes of 10-15 pupils more or less 16-18 years old elements of economy with very mixed results, even if I am told I am a rather good teacher, easy to understand, follow and good at explaining.

LarryC writes "Give them the quiz. Lead a discussion. Ask engaging questions."

Yeah that's "leading" them with a beat, engaging them, sometime menacing grades. I did that and sometime it gives positive encouraging results, which is fine and dandy with me. Yet in my experience if a class reponds positively to that, one doesn't have a problem with pupils , the problem was the teacher. Sometime the situation is a combination of being the only teacher with a strong enthusiasm , etc. Perfectly fine with me, that is NOT a pupil generated problem.

YET what I see increasingly is apathy, lack of interest, disillusion and it starts from k12 ...in order not to "leave behind" any pupils, most mediocre and immature pupils are pushed throught the system (instead of repeating one or more years, at least this it how it should work in italy, it was good it is now ruined) so you have functional idiots reaching high school.

This year only 3% of pupils didn't pass state examination (we call it "maturity examination" only because it happens usually when the kid becomes a legal adult at 18 years) which is very very low...we will soon see results.. Yet who cares, market will fix it !
posted by elpapacito at 12:09 PM on July 17, 2006


in order not to "leave behind" any pupils, most mediocre and immature pupils are pushed throught the system - elpapacito

and more advanced students are stuck mired in dumbed-down everything, are told not to think for themselves, and generally get shat upon for needing things quicker or more challenging. Nobody wins!
posted by raedyn at 12:20 PM on July 17, 2006


I, for one, was always very excited to learn from a big name in the field. Some weren't that good as teachers, but they knew their shit hands down, and if you put in the work and asked questions, you got more out of them than many of the profs who slacked after getting tenure but were charismatic, organized -- "good teachers", in short.

If you're taking a course in a subject that's near and dear to the professor's heart, then his or her enthusiasm and knowledge will easily make up for a lack of organization and charisma, sure. But if you're taking an intro class, covering material that anyone in the field, regardless of their specialty, is expected to know, then organization and charisma are sometimes all that makes the difference between learning and not. If I'm taking algebraic topology, to take an example from mathematics, it would be invaluable to have one of the world's leading topologists teaching the course; if I'm taking Calculus II, not so much.

But it [teaching] IS a distraction! At least it is made to feel like one.

I agree with you there, and that's precisely the problem, as I see it, with large, research-oriented institutions. If you're saying that it's not a problem that students and teaching are viewed as a very low priority by many professors, well, that's where you and I part views.

A professor in my department was recently denied tenure because1 he had spent too much time on teaching & pedagogy, and not enough time on research. He was an incredible teacher, knew his stuff backwards & forwards, and was obviously an asset to the department and the University, but since he was found somewhat lacking on the research side of things, he was let go. That my department and many other departments elsewhere have cultivated an environment amenable to such short-sighted decisions is troubling at best.

1Or so the stories go. I'm not claiming to have specific insider information on the decision.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:09 PM on July 17, 2006


Johnny Assay writes "A professor in my department was recently denied tenure because1 he had spent too much time on teaching & pedagogy, and not enough time on research."

It happens, the guy I took about a 1/3 of my engineering physics classes from (and the father of a friend) was a brilliant teacher with a real passion for teaching physics. He purposely took a job at a two year college over a university so as to not have to do research and chase grants. As the institute grew (eventually granting degrees) they started ragging on him about his lack of research. He luckily was past the point where they could let him go but it still drove him crazy and ultimately into retirement when he would have continued teaching Physics 101/EPHYS 111 if they'd left him alone.
posted by Mitheral at 2:10 PM on July 17, 2006


c13 sounds like mutual laziness, on the part of the spoiled students and on your privileged part, cf. LarryC.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:06 AM on July 18, 2006


"The whole of human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." -- H.G. Wells

In retrospect, it's good I was forced by economic circumstances to drop out of a major US state university and go get a "real world" job right away. The lack of a BA or BS has been a problem only w/r/t certain organizations whose H/R departments are "Mothers of Prevention"; otherwise, nobody's really cared, and I was already much better educated than a lot of people with master's degrees.

Really, a couple of semesters before my hand was forced, I'd come to realize that (a) "sittin' and gittin" passively in a classroom is a frustrating and expensive waste of time and (b) I'd already achieved sufficient intellectual and academic "critical mass" that I knew how to educate myself -- and this was well before the advent of the World Wide Web, when the thing to do was to use a library as a system of research tools.

My own dad, the last of a dying breed -- an engineer without a degree but waaaay ahead of some BSMEs in basic real-world smarts and experience -- had already shown me how it was done: When he needed to understand how to apply some calculus techniques for a project at work, he bought a used calc textbook, sat down, read it, worked exercises, and taught himself four semesters' worth of calc and diffEQ in about six weeks. There were giants in those days.

I'm getting way off topic here, but my point is that the whole four-years-of-college thing is essentially a bunch of horsefeathers -- what economist Lester Thurow calls "credentialism" -- that doesn't teach basic critical-thinking skills; it teaches how to game a system for four years while drinking beer, getting laid (one hopes) and collecting a piece of paper that "proves" one has a "higher education." I actually had an associate dean at Enormous State tell me, "We're just trying to ram you kids through this assembly line in four years; if you accidentally learn something, so much the better." This was back in the early 1980s, and since then it's gotten worse, almost to the point of self-caricature.

All I learned in college that's really significant, and couldn't have been learned elsewhere, is that most frat boys deserve to have their @$$es comprehensively kicked (I cheerfully and enthusiastically complied on at least one occasion) and to take the classes offered before 10 am, when the faculty is actually motivated and getting a left-handed desk isn't as much of a challenge.

Real life is far more interdisciplinary, with an essay final. Now I have a library card, a high-speed Internet connection, and a built-in shockproof BS detector, so unless I hit the multistate and get to spend the rest of my life taking courses for fun, I'm pretty well set.
posted by pax digita at 7:17 AM on July 19, 2006


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