What happens when everyone attends college
Mike just passed along to me the June Atlantic (not yet available online), in which one finds an article titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.” It is a poignant piece, written by an adjunct professor whose night classes contain all those that society deems ready for college—who must go to college—but are in reality far from it. The author (the anonymous “Professor X”) writes, “They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.”
And so, it becomes the adjunct professor’s responsibility to clean up for society’s destructive romanticism. Does he lower standards or hand out multiple Fs? The professor in question takes the latter route, but he doesn’t sleep well because of it. His students, many of whom cannot construct a coherent sentence, are confused by the poor grades they receive. Haven’t they done everything right, haven’t they fulfilled society’s expectations and returned to school to better themselves? It may not occur to many of them that society’s expectations are unrealistic, its hopes based on fiction, and that they have been set up for failure.
It’s a piece well worth reading, because the human cost of the “all kids to college” push is seldom discussed.
Photo by Flickr user partsnpieces.
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May 9th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Disclaimer! The following is a VERY rough draft of thinking on the topic.
I have just finished reading Professor X’s ‘Basement’ essay in the June Atlantic Monthly. His criticisms are spot on, so far as my experience, and that of many of my colleagues, is concerned. Nevertheless, and though I realize he’s trying to make a very specific point, it strikes me there’s something missing.
After four years of adjunct teaching at 4-year colleges, universities, and community colleges, I landed a full-time position at a community college. I knew what I was getting into, but I also knew that any full time job in my discipline, Philosophy, was not to be rejected. There were many colleagues equally, if not more, qualified for the job.
Given my experience, I know well the experience of teaching a “college level” course that is populated by people who are virtually illiterate, or who should at least be in remedial English. Yet I also know that part of the tradition of a liberal arts education is to work toward transforming oneself. (And, I would argue, even occupational programs should have some ‘tincture of philosophy.’) In this way, Philosophy is particularly fortunate; it has obvious therapeutic, as well as purely intellectual worth. But so also does every other discipline. To borrow a phrase from Bertrand Russell, the ‘enlarging of the self’ that occurs with studying philosophy is part and parcel of education itself.
Take, for example, the woman in Professor X’s essay who, X knew, would fail the course. To say the woman was naive is to be polite. She hadn’t a clue how bereft she was of the requisite skills for academic success. But, hopefully, she came to learn the VALUE of the instruction she received, and she began to get an inkling of the sort of work required. Community college tuition is, thankfully, fairly reasonable. If she was a student in one of Prof. X’s community college classes (and, I’d argue, even if she weren’t ), she didn’t waste her money.
It seems to me that, setting aside the insidious ways programs like No Child Left Behind works to create unthinking widget-makers instead of citizen widget-makers, and setting aside the disingenuous college administrators who admit unprepared students (at least at the 4-year institutions, since I believe all public community colleges are open enrollment), we instructors have an opportunity and a responsibility to change the way our students think about their education. If that includes an F in English or Philosophy, so be it. But, I hope, the F is the beginning, not the end.
I have one soapbox topic in all my courses: the intangible value of education. (Students generally don’t know my views on anything else.) They do know that I think education has little to do with a better job or another sort of material reward for all their sacrifices. They know I think education is about becoming a better, more careful and thorough thinker. This is their chance to conceive their world anew. In the process, they may begin to conceive themselves anew, as well.