What Do We Expect From Freshmen?

I'm not breaking my Christmas vow to focus on engaging with the comments on my blog/writing; this post, in fact, is a long response to my recent University of Venus post, "What is a Course in Higher Ed?" One particularly negative comment focused on how I live in a fairy-land and should never be allowed to teach again. Never mind that the course focused on education and its role in our society, and that the assignment was warmly and enthusiastically received by my students. And while some of my students didn't do as well as I had hoped, when do they ever? 

But that isn't what this blog post is about. No, my fellow University of Venus blogger Mary Churchill dealt quite well with the issue of instructors and professors being openly discouraged from trying (and potentially failing) in the classroom here.

I want to focus on the critique that I expected too much from my Freshmen in the class (never mind that most of my students were, in fact, Sophomores or higher). One of the comments read:

Freshman are not educators; most of them do not even know how to do critical thinking, much less create a course that develops it. Freshmen are supposed to be somewhat self-centered with a limited worldview. Changing that is the purpose of higher ed. While, along the way, imparting skills and knowledge.

True enough, they are not educators, but they have all chosen to attend an institution of higher education, at great cost to themselves and/or their families. But is it also true that they are "supposed to be somewhat self-centered"? This goes back to the central question of my post, what is higher education? Is its purpose to produce well-rounded, critical thinking individuals? And is it the only place where this could and should happen?

In the West, most people still do not attend college, let alone complete a degree (note that I've said college and not community college or technical schools). We are a democracy, and we rely on a population that is capable of making informed decisions when they vote. Why, then, is critical thinking the sole responsibility of colleges and universities? Why has that role been taken away from or fallen away from the high schools? What about the significant numbers of the population who have not gone to college?

We spoke at length about education and its role in our society both with my more advanced 200-level writers, about whom I wrote, and with my developmental writers, who were all Freshmen. All of them agree that their college education, in fact, all of education, is motivated by economics. It was very difficult for them to even contemplate or imagine education serving any other purpose. Why then, I asked, was education historically reserved for the wealthy who didn't need any sort of education in order to perpetuate their (mostly inherited) wealth? Why did the emerging merchant class insist that their children receive a classical education when their trade was, well, trade?

I don't think any of us ever came up with a satisfactory answer. Is this a failure on my part as an instructor? Well, I could have told them or lectured them on their self-centered, capitalist worldview, which would have gone in one ear and out the other. Instead, we read, we wrote, and I let them create. And, really, at the end of 15 weeks, is it too much to ask of a student to apply what we have read, discussed, and learned, regardless of what level they are at, Freshmen or Seniors?

I think in our disgust with the level of K-12 education, our increasing course loads/student numbers, our push to standardize courses, and our general disdain for the motivation of our students (or lack thereof), we have severely underestimated their abilities. They don't want to be challenged; they're not ready to be challenged; I'm too busy to challenge them. But it doesn't have to be that way. Most Freshmen, heck most students, will rise to the challenge, if you are willing to go there with them.

Back when I was naive, I taught a developmental writing course in California, at one of the state schools.  The need for remediation was so strong that they created two levels of developmental writing, one that was one 10-week quarter and another that took place over two 10-week quarters. The only requirement was that the students had to study (read, write, and discuss) a non-fiction book, one that makes an argument. I, in my naiveté, chose Manliness by Harvey Mansfield. The students, I thought, would love it. And they did, eventually.

We spent the final 10 weeks on the book. I told them ahead of time that it would be the most challenging book they'd probably ever read, but if they trusted me, worked hard, we would get through it and they could be confident that they could get through anything college threw at them.  It was the hardest 10 weeks of my life and probably the students' (intellectual) lives. But we did get through it and at the end of the semester, I was more proud of the results they produced than I ever have before or since. Why? One reason is because I never had the opportunity to teach the book again. But another reason is exactly because it was so hard for me as their instructor and thus a deterrent to ever teaching something that challenging to Freshmen or developmental writers ever again. Why should I be surprised at their uninspired writing and ideas when I give them (or am required to give them) uninspired things to read and write about?

My idea to have all of my students, regardless of their level read and write about education and education reform has produced the most satisfying results for me as an instructor since I taught Manliness. And, it was my most challenging teaching experience since then, too. Were all the essays stellar examples of critical thinking and college-level writing? No. But, they all showed evidence of at least an attempt at both critical thinking and college-level writing. It didn't earn them an A, but it did reinforce my belief that much of the time we expect too little from our students, Freshmen or otherwise.

For Part II, I ask, what can we expect from Freshmen?

Taking a Break for Conversations

I'm good at blogging; I'm not so good at engaging in conversations with those readers who are kind enough to comment on my blog posts. I'm also moving, and heading back up to the Great White North for the holidays. So, for Christmas vacation, I am going to take a step back from writing blog posts (I have a pile on tap for the New Year and New Semester, so don't worry) and go through the comments I have received here and on Twitter about my posts, and actually engage with them. In other words, respond.

Happy Holidays!

What difference does it make that you get an "A"?

The students are handing in their papers and writing final exams. Once the grades are in (and even before that), it will begin. The grade grubbing. It's my least favorite part of the semester. It has already started; students who have missed a lot of assignments and then have not done well on major papers are at my desk before and after class, asking if there is anything they can do (build a time machine, go back to the beginning of the semester, do better). But the students who really frustrate me are those students who come to me demanding to know:

"Why didn't I get an A" or "How can I get an A"? 

I tell my students at the beginning of the semester that if they work hard, attend class, do the assignments both big and small, take it seriously, and take advantage of the services and support offered to them, then there is no reason why they can't all get A's. But as the semester progresses, it becomes clear that some of the students' only motivation is to get an A. It doesn't matter that becoming a better writer is a valuable life skill, they just want to know what list of changes they need to make in order to make something into an "A" paper. It's one of the reasons why I try to keep from too heavily editing students' papers; the students don't see it as an opportunity to learn, only an opportunity to get an A. 

There has been a lot of debate recently about how we evaluate students and how pressure to do well (get a high GPA) is leading to an erosion of the educational experience. Students increasingly don't see anything wrong with cheating; all that counts is that, in the end, they get their high grade and their degree. I try to work with my students on the process of writing, in order to make the writing the focus, instead of the grade. But it doesn't work. Especially since many of my classes are general education requirements that students think should be easier because they have to take them, in part to make up for lower grades earned in their more demanding classes in their major. 

And so the student who comes to me complaining about a B will be met with one question: why is it so important that your grade be an A? What are your priorities? Why? And then, what didn't you do this semester that kept you from getting an A? Earning a B in my class may be the opportunity a student needs to really take a hard look at why they are in school and how their behavior and choices are undermining their ultimate goals and aspirations. But, it is also a good time to ask, what difference will that A really make? 

I've earned A's and I've earned D's. I've had wild successes and massive failures. If all I did was stop at the letter grade assigned to any project or assignment, where would I be? I was wholly unprepared for a job because there wasn't the finality of a grade one way or the other, and that my bosses we not as ready or willing to reward me with the same accolades my work had previously earned. In school, the grade is final. At work, my writing was constantly being edited, revised, rewritten, and, worst of all for me, heavily critiqued. While I would always forget about a good or bad grade immediately after it had been posted, I didn't really learn anything, or was I ever motivated to improve. Working was a rude awakening to how inadequately I was prepared, despite my stellar (and not so stellar) grades.

What difference is that A really going to make? 

What's the Point of Freshman Writing?

This post is in response to a question asked on the Phi Beta Cons blog.

I am sorry that you don't see the point of courses like Freshman Writing. But you've never met my students. You've never met the students who come to the non-selective institutions of higher education in this country, in other words, the majority of them. And you most definitely have not gone through the K-12 system that currently values standardized test scores over real writing skills. Look at the statistics. The majority of students are not prepared for college work. They need remediation (look at California and New York's numbers). Well then, give them remediation, you say. After one semester, have these students really overcome 12 years of educational deficiency?

And, really, even those who don't need remediation. Are they really that far ahead of their peers in remedial or developmental courses? Are they ready to face the demands of a college degree, the level of writing that will be required of them? Not really, given the tyranny of the standardized test and the standardized essay. They do the five-paragraph essay over and over again. And then they are expected to succeed in a college humanities class?  

These are not students who have parents who have paid for academic coaches, SAT tutors, and admissions councilors. These are often students who are the first in their family to finish high school, let alone attend college. They are not the best and the brightest. They are often not the ambitious and highly motivated. But they are all motivated by the same goal: to build a better life for themselves. And the way to do that, they have been told repeatedly, is to go to college. 

It is the end of the semester, and I am saddened by the number of students who have written to me that I am the first teacher they have had who has given a crap about them, their writing, and their education. I am the first teacher who has tried to explain to them how to properly use a comma or what a sentence fragment is. That they learned more in my 15-week class than four years of high school. That they never believed that they could write until they came into my class. I have taught at three different public universities in three different states. I received the same kinds of comments from the majority of my students at all three.

As for the class refer to at UNC, I think you need to take any student's description of a class with a grain of salt. It actually sounds like the instructor tried to engage with the students in a way that was relevant to where the future of humanities is going (whether we like it or not): the digital humanities. Also, instead of droning on and on and on in a boring lecture format, the instructor invited the students to step outside the classroom and explore educational events on campus. Freshmen especially need to know what resources are available to them on campus, whether they think they are going to be interested or not. To then ask students to work together and shape their own learning experience? The nerve, forcing the students to be active, independent learners. I hope she didn't trip over her sense of superiority while she overlooked an opportunity to engage in some creative and critical thinking, something that is no longer valued in high school.

I am not absolving the instructor for not giving the course as advertised and failing to provide more guidance to the student in question (did she even ask, however?). But notice how I avoid talking about the instructor as a professor; that is because it was made clear that the instructor of the course was a PhD student. This is one of the biggest problems with how Freshman Writing is taught in many institutions, both selective and non-selective. Professors are too busy with their research, graduate students, and upper-level courses to teach Freshman Writing, so instead it is passed off to underprepared graduate students or over-worked adjuncts (often, but not always, they are one and the same). If professors aren't willing to take the courses seriously enough to teach them (even though it was they who demanded that the courses be offered because, presumably, they noticed that students couldn't write well enough), then how seriously will a graduate student take them, when their sole goal is to emulate their professors? 

Perhaps Freshman Writing is a waste of some students' time, but for the majority, it is a necessity to make up for years of standardized testing and sub-standard teaching. As for poor teachers of Freshman Writing or poor course/assignment design, blame a system that doesn't prioritize teaching. There are many, many of us out there who do try to teach it well, and most of us are off the tenure-track. Reading your post and the student's post remind me of how thankless and disrespected a task I chose to take on. Reading many of my students' thanks, I am reminded of why I love what I do.