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Location: Upstate, South Carolina, United States

I think that the Meredith Brooks' song, "Bitch," summarizes me rather nicely. Or, if you prefer, X. dell says I'm a life-smart literary scholar with a low BS tolerance...that also works!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Rant

When Amanda was over at Chez Kira last night, after a couple of glasses of wine I decided to do a repeat performance of “The Rant” which I just started giving to my classes this semester. She enjoyed it so much that she said I had to blog about it! (Although Amanda wins with the line of the night…I believe it was something like, “He just makes you wonder how many toilets he was dunked in as a child!” Haha! I like that one. I’ll be stealing it in the future!)

Ok, before I start on the rant, let me remind all of you guys that my goal as a teacher has always been TO TEACH the kids the materials. In the long run, if I do that, then it hardly matters how they feel about me, personally. That’s how I conduct my classroom. Usually this particular rant starts before class gets going and one of them mentions another teacher who is an “easy A” and hence, the class should consider taking that teacher’s class. I once was a student, so I surely remember that all the kids discuss the pros and cons of the teachers they’ve had, and the ones who dished out easy A’s were popular for only that reason. I, however, have a different approach. Usually my rant contains a reference to an incident I had as a student, but I think I clipped that one out when I gave my patented speech to Amanda last night. Oh well. Here it goes!


You want to take that teacher’s class because it’s an easy A that’s good for your GPA? How sad. I mean, I understand the appeal…I was a student once too. But the easy A classes come back to bite you on the ass. How so, you ask? Well, I remember when I was at Duke, I had signed up for an English lit class of interest to me. All of my friends went, oh that’s Grover! He’s the only easy A you can get in the English department! Good job! And then I groaned.

Why did I groan? Well, it’s been my experience that an easy A means that all I have accomplished is wasting my time, my energy, and my life just to bolster my GPA. In those classes, I learn nothing. Sure enough, after the end of that term, I could recall nothing I knew from anything else anywhere. In fact, on the easy as hell exam, I mostly used the information that my AP English instructor gave me in high school to answer the questions present. Everybody seemed thrilled with their grade; I, on the other hand, felt disgust. From now on, if an employer looks at my transcript, he or she will assume I have that knowledge because not only did I take the class…but I received an A in it. It’s a lie. It’s a lie on my transcript.

Whenever you take classes because they are easy, you cheat yourself. Sure, you may graduate with a perfect 4.0 and the employers may go, wow, I need to hire him or her! But then you will arrive at the job, knowing nothing when the boss assumes you know everything, and you’re screwed. You won’t get promoted. You may not even get to hold onto your job because your education has been a waste. You have a degree, but no knowledge with the degree.

When I was at USC getting my master’s, I had to take an American Lit class because we were all required to take one class from the opposite field. If one focused on Brit Lit, then one took an American Lit class to graduate; if one focused on American Lit, then one took a Brit Lit class to graduate. After talking to the American Lit folks, I was labeled crazy because I decided to take my one class in that field from the hardest professor in the department. They told me that he failed half his students every term, even the ones who were getting their specialty in American lit, because he asked so much work and performance from the students. However, he was THE BEST USC had to offer. If I had to take one class in American Lit, wouldn’t I want that to be from the best? So, I worked my ass off. It WAS hard. I even drove up to the Duke library one weekend to access their better books for a better paper. I ALWAYS received A’s of some type on my papers, and I remember getting a B+ on that one. I was so proud of that B+ I could have died. My good friend in the class who never had received anything lower than an A and was a PhD candidate received a C—which in graduate school is a failing grade—on her paper. She was hysterical. I just clutched my paper and felt a surge of pride. I ended up with a B in that class, something that the rest of the students thought was a miracle of god, but holy hell, did I LEARN!!! And now, if a future employer wants to know if I know anything about the 20th century American novel, I can damn well say I do.

You see, kids, you may think you’re doing yourself a favor by striving to get that all-perfect GPA, but what you’re doing by taking the easy path is not getting the knowledge you need to succeed. Some teachers make it so easy for you to take this path. I know of several teachers who don’t get the attention they need or want at home or in their personal life, and so the classroom becomes a way for them to get what they want. These are the teachers that everybody knows that if you suck up to them or flirt with them, you’re getting an A. And what did you learn from that? Nothing.

See, I don’t need to be loved. I don’t need you to love me. I don’t need that attention. I have parents, two great kids, a fabulous fiancé, lots of friends, and a cat who all love me. I don’t need more. My goal in here is not to be loved or get great evaluations or be voted teacher of the century to feed my self-esteem. My goal here is….TO TEACH YOU. If you are a bad writer, I want you to make it up to average. If you are average, I want you to become good. If you are good, I want you to become great. If you are great already…well, then, I’m sorry you have to take this course! But my goal here is NOT to become popular. It’s to give you this knowledge and these skills so that you can SUCCEED. And you know what, guys? If you succeed in life, even if you curse my name with your dying breath, I won. I won because I achieved my goal. I can wake up in the morning, look at myself in the mirror, and pat myself on the back for a job well done. I’ve done my job…I’ve taught you. Now, if you come through all of that and you still manage to love me, all I can say is that you have great taste! Haha! But do I NEED that attention? Do I NEED you to run around and say that I’m the best teacher ever? No. I NEED you to learn the stuff and to not pass until you do so that you can get the jobs you want…get promoted…and get where you want to go in life. THAT is what I need. And THAT is why I will never, ever, EVER be the ‘easy A’ teacher. If you get an A in here, feel free to brag to the world because it ACTUALLY MEANS SOMETHING IN MY CLASS!

For the record, both classes I gave this speech to this term broke out into spontaneous applause when I finished my little rant. Haha! I really do have some kids who hate me because I make them work or make them hand in assignments on time or whatever. That’s their business. I know I’m doing what I have to…and sometimes it pays off. For instance, take this letter that I received yesterday in my school email box as an example. The student actually moved me to watery-eyed tears with these specific words:

At the beginning of the semester I
remember e-mailing you and telling you that you were my favorite
professor, and that still holds today and will always. You weren't just an
English teacher to me. You were a life and moral teacher. You taught me
about how to see the world and how to make my own judgment no
matter if other people saw my side. To be honest you have been the
first professor in my years of being in school that has let me make my
own choices, which was scary at first but I got used to it and I
appreciate that a lot. So I basically just wanted to say thanks for all
you have done, you have done more than you realize. Thank you


And that’s why I teach! I know the pay sucks…boy do I, especially in this state. But it’s moments like that when I realize it’s all worth it.

16 Comments:

Blogger NWJR said...

How weird. This is the second blog I've read this morning that discusses grading. I'll copy/paste the comment I made on the last blog, because oddly enough, it's relevant here, too:

I once had a professor who had the most unique grading system I ever encountered.

He'd give a test, and then score you one of two ways: On a point system, or on a class curve. You got the higher of the two grades.

If you didn't like the results, you could take the test again as a series of essay questions.

If you didn't like those results, you could go in his office and sit and discuss the material with him.

All he was after was an indication of whether or not you knew the material.

Oh, and if all you wanted to do was pass the course, you just had to show up every day and never miss a class. If you did that, he'd give you the lowest possible passing grade, because he figured you had to pick up something if you were there every day.

I never knew of anyone who took the alternative options. But they were there.

9:03 AM  
Blogger Kira said...

That's...amazing. And please understand that by amazing, I mean "amazingly stupid."

First of all, my five year old son could show up to class every day and he wouldn't necessarily learn a thing by the end of the class. Some students show up and try to sleep. Some doodle and drool. That's not learning shit. That's a warm body showing up to class.

Second of all, what the hell is the point of the "pick out the grade you want!" approach? If he were truly interested in making sure the students knew the materials, he would structure the tests in such a fashion as to reflect that. He could incorporate some sort of "oral discussion" as part of the grade, too, if he were interested in a student expressing knowledge learned. But letting you keep trying until you get a good grade? You must be kidding me. It's one thing to allow rough drafts, have the instructor give feedback, and then the student revises...and quite another to tell a kid you can keep taking the test until you get the grade you want.

In real life, in a real life job situation, one's boss doesn't let you try and try again until you get it right. Too many tries, and you are fired. I would never feel that such an approach would assist a student in making it in the job world, honestly!

9:26 AM  
Blogger Grant said...

It's amazing how naive you are for somebody so old. I'm blaming a mix of Alzheimer's and booze. :p

I love learning, but I put myself through the hell of college while working full time just to get ahead in the workplace. None of my employers has ever cared about anything I learned (especially not my knowledge of literature), they just insist on a degree in something before you can join their corporate society. The only thing I ever learned in college that I could apply to the workplace is that on a mainframe computer system, return and enter are two separate keys, and I didn't need four years to learn that one. Bear in mind I have an IT degree and work as an IT professional, and I repeat - nothing I learned in college applies to any job I've ever had.

Although I can claim I learned that education and training are separate concepts. Education is great, but I view it more as entertainment and self-enrichment than anything that can help in the workplace, and there are much better places to get an education than in a university (like experincing things first-hand instead of reading about them).

In short, what you do is totally pointless and you'd do better to quit your job, leave your family and friends, and become my house pet. Thanks to my college degree I do make a fair wage, so your cage - I mean room - will be nice and comfy. :p

12:10 PM  
Blogger Kira said...

Grant--it totally depends on your field and the specific class as to what the employer will assume and what knowledge you will carry. In my school, it's largely a tech school...the students are supposed to be learning very practical things that will help them practice their career. I doubt you can tell a nurse that her course of study at our school could be something one sleeps through, you know? Also, in my particular field, I'm trying to teach these kids to WRITE. Feedback I HAVE INDEED RECEIVED from managers at companies is how sad it is that they assume that passing Freshman comp means the student can write emails without embarrassing the company...and how often that is NOT the case. I don't want my kids leaving my class without the basic writing skills that nearly everybody needs in jobs in order to NOT be the person who writes the email that is forwarded to every employee for laughter. I stand completely by everything in my rant. Sure, there are some jobs that "only" require a degree...like when I was hired at DSS and they just wanted a master's in anything...they wanted to train me from scratch. But many jobs DO require base level writing skills, and what I teach primarily is how to write!

On another note, that being your pet job sounds great. I don't suppose that since I'm not asian it involves anything fun and kinky? :P

Amanda--only four? I hope there's a ceiling fan in there so we can get more drunker faster! But you have a point about the cleavage and the sarcasm. I think that really IS the draw sometimes...haha!

12:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lol - we are bordering on a big discussion of the major educational philosophies here. I could start quoting Dewey and Rousseau, but I'll spare everyone that, lol. I think, based on NWJR's comments, the professor was not an advocate of grades at all. Some aren't. I'm not sure about the do nothing more than come to class and get a passing grade part - that's pretty much bullshit. But the retaking the test in different ways until you understand thing does make sense to me, and I have to agree with NWJR that the professor must have cared about nothing more than the mastery of the material. This philosophy is only one school of thought that is not incredibly prevalent but does exist. Basically, those individuals believe that grades encourage performance orientation as opposed to mastery orientation. And those scholars would argue that a person could make As on tests and forget all the material because they simply learned it just to get the grade. It wasn't attached to anything meaningful in their real lives. I personally think our culture fosters performance orientation, so we're stuck with grades, unless we restructure our entire lives, lol. The no grades approach would be something like what they do at Reggio Emilia (See http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/reggiochildren.htm. Basically, it was the Italian response to the horror that unfolded around them under Mussolini. They felt that if all children could be valued and truly educated, someone like Mussolini could never get control of their country again.) Very Dewey in nature. Basically,you learn for the sake of learning because it fosters growth as a human being. And that's pretty much it. If that could really happen, the world would be a perfect place. But let's be honest - it isn't going to. I don't blame the students for that, however. It's just our culture. We expect to be rewarded in some tangible way for our endeavors. Maybe it's more than our culture. Maybe it's just human nature.

Grant's comment makes me think of the classic vs. vocational debate in education. Some argue the classic Greek education no longer serves a purpose. Those in favor of a classic education would argue that a vocational education teaches you a skill set, but it doesn't teach you to actually solve problems or think for yourself. (And some would argue that this is entirely on purpose - a non-thinking working class is less likely to rebel or to even realize that conditions are unjust.) I personally think the best approach must be somewhere in the middle, but I fall more on the side of the classic education. However, I have to agree with Grant that the way we teach this classic curriculum rarely reflects how things work in the real world. (This is probably in large part due to our focus on superficial measures, such as grades.) If we were teaching in an ideal way (Reggio Emilia again), I think the classic curriculum would apply to everything you do. The problem is we are so focused on measuring success - standardized tests, etc. - we just don't have the time for that kind of discovery-based learning. (And yes, Reggio Emilia is a curriculum for early childhood, but the same concepts could be applied to curricula designed for other age groups.)

There are many avenues for discussion here, and they are already the subjects of many books (most of which I've read or will have to read before I take my Comp exams in December), not blog comments, so I'll stop there. It's a lot to ponder...

1:06 PM  
Blogger Joseph H. Vilas said...

Can we go back to talking about boobs? ;)

2:07 PM  
Blogger Kira said...

Angie--I had a friend who went to a college in Washington state wherein they had no grades...they just received evaluations for each class. Very few kids really bothered to study or truly absorb the materials because all they had to do was go to class and interact with the teacher enough that he or she wrote up an evaluation that stated, "The kid understands it." I didn't see the value in that approach, although I understood the CONCEPT...that is, a grade matters less than if the student actually learned the materials. Perhaps that instructor also felt that way, but if he's willing to just give class credit for showing up and sleeping...well, I don't think so.

I hate standardized tests because every person and child is different. In my ideal world, whatever grade I gave should come with a one or two line sentence. For instance, one kid in my 101 class received a C this term. I'd love to add, "I have rarely seen a student work so hard to take awful writing and poor written communication skills and turn them into something much better. She may not be the best writer you've ever seen, but with that kind of effort and care for BECOMING a better writer, she will certainly develop outside of this classroom." See, that puts the C in context...versus "This student has the potential to become a good writer, but he doesn't give a rip about writing and made no progress throughout class. Since he doesn't want to be better at written communication, I can't see that he WILL become better at written communication." I'd love to put that stuff down on paper so that the grade had more meaning than just a letter. In my rant, I discussed the American lit class wherein I received a B. That B meant more than just about any A I ever received. It'd be cool if grades could be given a context: "This student worked very, very hard for her B. She had no prior background to the subject and was at a loss compared to the other students in the class, yet she managed to learn considerable information while trying to play catch up to the others." That's what MY tagline should read!

As far as Grant's practical vs. abstract knowledge discussion, I really do believe that the English comp classes I teach are necessary to instruct a student to succeed in the basic writing necessary with any job that he or she is likely to have. I understand that in IT, he might not have use of an English lit class...directly! I feel that a careful study of literature teaches a person analysis skills and the various qualities of people/motivations of people that can be very useful in business. Really good lit shows us the nature of man and woman. That, in turn, relates to helpful skills within any office setting. However, that is more abstract than I think Grant wanted to hear! But, that's why I feel that even my Brit lit class I teach has value for a computer science major or a history major...it teaches one how to look at the smaller parts, to search for that which is not apparent, and to learn about the nature of people. That's always invaluable unless one has a job wherein one never makes contact with other people.

(please keep in mind, Angie...I'm coming from a background of NO education classes or education theory or how to be a teacher or...well, anything! So, I can only argue from the viewpoint of experience on this one....)

Joe--Well, ok! So, Joe, what's your favorite cup size on a short woman? Does it vary for a taller woman? :)

2:51 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Wow!
What an amazing discussion and as a fellow educator and lover of learning, I'm kicking in my two cents.

Students need writing skills to succeed at most careers. A large majority of employers are starting to feel panic at the upcoming generation of workers because they, overall, are not learning standard writing skills.

I sat on a hiring committee once and was incredibly saddened at the pathetic cover letters that came in to us for a job that required a bachelor's degree in science!

I think education does matter, especially in the science world. It's so competitive that if you don't know your s**t, your employers won't even deal with you for too long. You'll just be fired. You have to know what's going on, it's not enough to have the degree.

Part of it is that it's getting easier to get these degrees and employers are recognizing that. So they look for proof that you actually learned something (looking at internships, job experience, etc.).

We need more teachers like you Kira. I LOVED your rant and wish I was teaching again next year just so I could use it :)

I think a lot of teachers forget about the real world and what our job truly is about.

Kudos to you!

3:16 PM  
Blogger X. Dell said...

Unfortunately, all the talk about academic "merit" is just going to make the problem worse. My students, for example, have to compete for graduate schools and fellowships against schools where grade inflation is reputedly rampant. Although I disagree, I can nevertheless understand if they see an easy A in a class where they learned nothing would be more valuabl than a very informative class where they got a B+.

3:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not surprised to hear about how it went at Washington State. The thing is, we could never do away with grades sucessfully unless we'd established that love of learning in every single student as a young child. Basically, I don't know how we can make that happen.

One of the big problems with measuring learning is that it is just damn near impossible in a class room to actually demonstrate "real" learning. Writing is actually an easier thing to measure because you can actually write something in a classroom. (Now, some people do teach grammar using very ineffective strategies. But that's when they view it as a separate thing. The best way to teach grammar is in the context of student writing, exactly as it is done in the Writing Center.) But take, for example, a foreign langauge class. How many times have you heard someone say, "I took _____ (French, Spanish, German, whatever) in high school, but I don't remember a word of it." The problem in the past was that the method used to teach was strictly grammar-translation. Students would memorize massive amounts of vocabulary, learn to conjugate multitudes of verbs, and then translate long, difficult texts. Some of them were very good at that kind of memorization and got good grades. The problem is, when one of those students actually traveled to a country where that was the primary language, no one walked up and handed them a piece of paper and asked them to translate anything. No one said, "Hey - will you fill in the blank in this sentence for me?" or "Could you fill out this conjugation chart?" Those measurement tactics did nothing to gauge the skills that the students really needed to communicate in that language. Memorization of words is part of it; but there's a lot more that needs to happen cognitively if one is to successfully communicate in a second language. Of course, students really needed to be speaking the language when they were learning it, in addition to writing it. But can you REALLY speak in a classroom the same way you would on a busy street in Paris, with all the background noise, with busy waiters who just want you to spit your order out so that they can get their jobs done? Sadly, no. I used to try things on tests like having every student come up and talk to me for one section of the test. But with 35 per class, I really couldn't feasibly do that during one class session. Moreover, how would I listen to them talk and watch to make sure the others weren't cheating? It was impossible. If I sacrificed the speaking to make sure people didn't cheat, I lost something. If I let them speak, someone surely got by with cheating, so I lost something then too. We had measurements. But they did not have face validity.

I remember a substitute who was from Africa coming in and throwing away my lesson plan because it involved having the students listen to a song to hear their vocabulary words. She didn't think it was appropriate to hear vocabulary words from a song. Instead, she called them out and had the students repeat them. Now, how many times in the real world would you have to figure out words that you didn't know all isolated for you like that? Never. You'd always be trying to understand those words within a context. Babies learn a language by listening to it in context. But how do you recreate that in classroom?

I just finished my tenth year of teaching; and I've taught all age groups - preschool through adults. (Middle school is definitely the most difficult, lol.) I speak more from experience than theory when I say we are unable to truly measure what we really need to in most cases. Even in the stats class that I just struggled to get a B in, I did not have to take my own numbers from my own research and make statistical inferences about them by running various tests. Even though I can calculate all kinds of things about other people's work, I would still need a great deal of guidance about how to do it on my own work. I learned a great deal; but the only way I can turn it into something meaningful is through the practical use of it. That's the missing piece in most cases because many students will never follow up with that important part of the learning, especially if it's a subject that they don't value.

Yet, I still believe we have to have grades because our students are simply not conditioned to learn for the sake of learning. I don't know that they are really an adequate gauge of what our students learn, but nonetheless we must use them. Sadly, as X-Dell points out, when grades are there, students under pressure to have a high GPR for whatever reason will go for the class where they might learn less just to keep the number higher. And they will also cheat, which is just a sad commentary on human nature in general. The problem is and will always be that the number might not really be indicative of what that student actually knows.

5:25 PM  
Blogger Joseph H. Vilas said...

K -- I like smart breasts. No dumb breasts for me! I listen to what they talk about with each other. And when they blog -- if they type "intelligant," I am so out of there! ;)

8:13 PM  
Blogger NWJR said...

Gee...look what I started! Just so y'all know, I'm not making any judgements about the validity of his grading method; I simply thought he had a unique approach. And I know for a fact that no one ever took him up on those offers, but we all knew they were there. FYI, he taught political science.

FWIW, this professor had "man-boobs". I wasn't impressed.

7:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

NWJR - you started what I thought was kinda fun. I love these kinds of discussions. I have no choice but love them, based on some of the classes I have to take, lol. I was hoping you'd jump back in and talk about your perception of the experience. Not surprised to hear he's poli sci... I can so see a no-grades person there. =o)

7:50 AM  
Blogger Edgy Mama said...

You go, girl.

I hope your students realize how lucky they are.

9:04 AM  
Blogger OldHorsetailSnake said...

Wunderbar, Kira! Nicely ranted.

3:21 PM  
Blogger Joseph H. Vilas said...

I am not into man boobs.

Ok, time to go leave another boob comment on Kira's next post....

4:56 PM  

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