Edumacation Rant

[shanmonster]

In my religious studies class last night, someone asked how long their research paper should be. I was a bit surprised, because the answer should be you write until it is done. But the answer was at least five pages. And then, someone asked "Double-spaced?" My first reaction was to laugh, but then I realized the woman who asked this wasn't joking. This is just so foreign to the way I think. I mean, it's possible to have a good five-page, double-spaced article, but I don't think most of the topics chosen by students in my class are narrow enough in scope. Some of the research ideas could produce several books' worth of material. How can they expect to do a decent job in so little space? I doubt they'll be using shorthand. And it's not like this is a rare point of view. Most of the students were looking for this quantitative guidance when it's pretty much irrelevant. I mean, I can see that a forty-page paper is a bit long for the professor to read (there are too many students for her to get that much reading done), so if the paper is going to be too long, narrow the focus of the thesis. Gah!

I'm also horrified at the lack of scholarly skills my fellow students are exibiting. The writing skills of some of them shouldn't have let them pass grade five or six. Plenty of sentences are unreadable due to an ignorance of grammar, and their spelling has regressed to something like a cross between Chaucer and an ICQvert. And even the literate ones don't have a clue how to use citations or footnotes. This is stuff that should have been well in hand by the time students finished junior high school. Hell, I did it in grade six. Now, I don't think all, or even most of, these students are stupid. I've spoken with plenty who seem intelligent enough, but something has gone horribly wrong. They're uneducated, ignorant, and waiting to be spoonfed. It's as though all their years of reading, writing, and critical thinking in grade school have been excised. What the heck is going on?

A couple of years ago, I took a class with a discussion group in it. The topic was "What makes a good professor?" One of the students said, "A good professor tells you what you need to know so you don't waste your time learning other stuff." Ack!

I'm tempted to go back to university, even though I'm not a very academically-minded person. If education were a contest, I think I'd beat most of the undergrads I've met, hands down. But it shouldn't be a contest. It should be about learning, exercising critical thought, and adding to the pool of knowledge. But how can people learn and contribute in a post-secondary institution if they can only barely read and write? I don't believe my education in the school system was any better than that of my peers. I had some really lousy teachers over the years. So what on earth is going on?

Most students I've met are looking for a high GPA so they can graduate quickly and get a big-paying job. Actually learning something is secondary to getting out into the "real world." I'm not a big fan of letter grades, or, in the martial arts world, the belt system. I understand the value of these for instructors--it theoretically makes it easier to determine the expertise level of your students--but in my perfect little world, people would work not to get an A or a black belt, but because they want to increase their body of knowledge. Shouldn't learning be an end unto itself?

Comments

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Some people should just buy their diplomas from those spam companies selling them and be done with it.

Ha ha ha...welcome to the modern state education system.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

It turns out mediocrities who feel they are entitled to praise and self-esteem without ambition or accomplishment.

Re: Ha ha ha...welcome to the modern state education system.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

The modern provincial education system does, too.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Simply knowing how to write is enough to put you head and shoulders above much of academia. Knowing how to write well is even better.
I'm one of the ones who can't remember how to cite. I work in two different systems and hate the MLA format-- I can't remember page numbers when I'm writing, and half the time, my process is to read a lot, then throw some ideas at the outline I wrote with no information and see what grows.
There's also something of a don't-be-wrong philosophy. It's better to be unoriginal than wrong, it seems.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about proper MLA formatting. I'm talking about basics, here. For instance, someone in my group wrote something to the effect of, "A recent book says ...". And then, they don't say what book anywhere in the text, and since they also don't include a bibliography, I can't even make a guess.

Not citing your sources is tantamount to plagiarism.

I'm not sure what you mean by the don't-be-wrong philosophy.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

My goodness. Yay for tough bio programs.

In one of my classes, there's only one person who ever answers questions. It's not me-- I started out the semester answering if I thought I knew or had a reasonable guess, but the professor's style of teaching is to correct mistakes, not teach what's right. So he asks leading questions, waiting for someone to fall into the trap so he can say, "You'd think that, but here's a piece of information you didn't have," or, "I wanted one of you to say this, the wrong answer!"
Still, most of the time, people don't throw out reasonable guesses. If you know the answer, you may chime in, but only if you're certain. It's better to be silent than wrong because if you're silent, you probably knew the answer but didn't speak up.

[elanya.livejournal.com]

There is a disturbing trend where professors at all levels have stopped marking for grammar, thinking it is the content that is important. Having marked some seriously atrociously written undergrad papers... I shake my head. Hardly anyone teaches grammar, and fewer reenforce it.

And this is *me* saying this ;p

(Although, in my defense, my formal prose tends to be much more finely crafted than the average lj update or irc conversation ;)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

You totally spellchecked this! Hee hee!

My prof told people not to worry about grammar or spelling in their drafts (which are to be read and commented on by other students). I disagree. If you want to be understood by those other students, a decent grasp on grammar is necessary.

[elanya.livejournal.com]

Actually, no I didn't, but talking about writing always makes me more aware of what the product of my key-mashing is.

I spell-checked it with my brain!

And I agree... I can understand people not being *retardedly* picky about grammar in a draft. I mean, I might not be as obsessive about erradicating all examples of passive voice, or prepositional phrases, and all the things that give writing real polish, but it should at least be *comprehensible*. :p

[fritzleonhardt.livejournal.com]

I am taking a university teaching program at UNB and the simple fact is first year students are looking to be led around by the prof because that is how they are taught in public school. The job of (a good) professor is to prepare them for advanced level work i.e. 3rd and 4th year where they have to use critical skills and analysis.

Now for mature students such as yourself the expectations for yourselves are different because you have your own opinions and know that being led around is not conducive to good arguments. I was a mature student in Intro. to Religious Studies and there were times I wanted to ask some of the students why they were even in university?

As to good grammar, my own opinion is that it is secondary to a good argument but only marginally so. It is not a good argument if I do not understand what you are trying to say. However, by getting students to read each others drafts the professor is at least attempting to teach some good study practices even if you have to bear the painful brunt of that exercise.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

"The job of (a good) professor is to prepare them for advanced level work i.e. 3rd and 4th year where they have to use critical skills and analysis."

So basically, the role of a professor is to cram the twelve years of education into their students' brains which should have already been present.

When I was in second year, I had a professor hand back a paper with an A on it. The A was crossed out, and a D written beside it along with a note asking me to see him after class. So I went to see him. He told me that I plagiarizaed my paper. Horrified, I told him that I certainly had done no such thing. He then pointed at a paragraph in my paper and said, "No second year student can write that well."

"This one can," I said.

"Then why is the paragraph after it not as well-written?"

"Because I'm not perfect yet."

I showed him my bibliography and told him I'd go get all the books I'd used in my research, but he refused to have anything further to do with it. I was stuck with the D.

If I knew then what I know now, I'd have taken the matter up with the Dean of Students. But I just assumed it would be my word against his, and no one would believe me, and I let it go. I wish I hadn't. What a prick.

Still, if the average second year student writes as poorly as what I've been seeing, I understand why he may have disbelieved me.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Paper Length: I think it is fair for students to get a rough idea of what type of paper is expected. If the prof says it's a five-page paper double-spaced, that's a good length for certain types of assignments. And, if she's assigned a length that is grossly inappropriate for the topics being chosen, either she's done a bad job in letting people pick too-broad topics or a bad job in setting the length of the assignment. And it's not reasonable to expect students to know when picking topics how big the topic will be, since they haven't done the research yet. The answer "write until it's done" may be fine for self-instruction, but it's a weak answer when dealing with university classes. Learning how to restrain yourself and edit your work to a certain length is an essential skill in academia. And, in any event, if the prof is only assigning a five-page paper, then *she's* the one with the problem, as she isn't adequately challenging her students. An 8-10 page paper should be the minimum for an introductory class.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

This isn't exactly an introductory class, though. It's a second year class. Presumably, students in it have already made it through their freshman year.

The class seems very much self-directed. People choose their own topics and are then assigned to groups. The students are supposed to have already done their preparatory research, and had a draft of their first paper ready for perusal. This would have let them see how big or small their topic is and let them adjust for length accordingly.

[phil-in-a-box.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. I went to a private university for undergrad that was supposed to be very strong academically, but I was still appalled at the work that my fellow students did; almost as appalled as I was at their learning-anything-beyond-what's-on-the-test-is-an-insult-to-my-dignity attitudes.

I don't know what to blame it on. I think a lot of it has to do with the fancy-shmancy programs and strategies they're always coming up with to make kids perform better (or, more often, to make kids feel better about their performance.) My guess is that the people who come up with and/or implement these programs have to show how great and wonderful they are (in order to keep their current job/funding or get future jobs/funding) and that this usually leads to rather creative ways of quanitifying the student's performance; basically, they inflate the kids' grades and egos to make themselves and their program look better and to make the kids (and parents) feel better about the program. *shrug* I also place much of the blame on television, because it has almost completely supplanted reading in most kids lives. I am constantly infuriated by how many younger people feel that reading is a burden or a chore, and something to be avoided at all costs. It's no wonder they can't write if they don't read.

What I probably understand the least, though, is how students who lack these basic skills can live with themselves. I've read a lot of shitty papers in my short years--total nonsense, with no grasp of punctutation let alone clarity of thought--but not only were these students not killing themselves out of shame (as would have been only proper), they seemed to think that everything they wrote deserved an A! What is with that??

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I don't think television is necessarily the ogre here. I was a product of the tv generation. I grew up watching all sorts of tv shows, and the tv was always on whenever anyone was home. I watched tv while eating my meals, studying for school, and even reading. I probably spent a good three or fours hours a day in front of the boob tube. Of course, I also spent an abundant amount of time outdoors, where I also read while doing things like horseback riding.

That being said, I do think tv is quite an opiate, and pretty brain-sucking. I'm glad I have the internet instead, now. Hmm....

[zero-design.livejournal.com]

Ahhh... but we are a quantitative society. Just learning is _not enough_. There's got to be some way for a hierarchy to be worked out, and absolute numbers make that easier. The fact that those numbers only vaguely reflect actual learning is pretty much irrelevant.

The big reason people are looking for the marks, the grades, the belts is because that's what most people around them value.

It's pretty sad. And it's a big part of why I got the hell out of the teaching career path when I really started to get a grasp on the concept.

Oh - and if you think your folk are a sad bunch, you should have been in the Craft College classes I had that required writing skills. *shivers*

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember those Craft School writing classes. My jewellery history class had some very sorry presentations. There was definitely widescale plagiarism going on when people who normally can't string a simple sentence together on paper were whipping out paragraph after paragraph of complex sentences and ideas with words they couldn't pronounce. And when they were questioned about some of the terminology, they pleaded ignorance. Gah!

[tobysionann.livejournal.com]

The thing I hate the most is, "Is this going to be on the test?"

There was a grad student who asked this question in one of my upper level archaeology classes once (I was an undergrad). I think I actually told him, "Yes, just assume that everything you hear in this classoom will be on the test and you will pass." It kind of goes with the whole "learning for the sake of learning" concept. If it wasn't going to be on the test, than, by god, it just wasn't worth learning. Yeesh.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yuck.

[aberrantmist.livejournal.com]

"It should be about learning, exercising critical thought, and adding to the pool of knowledge."

You are right. University should be about that. Now it's about getting a job. I am a perfect "exhibit A". Personally, I'd rather be doing a Masters in History, but here I am, slogging through a CS degree at 34. Reality stinks. And so does being poor.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I thought university was about getting an education, and college was for getting a job. This is obviously changing, though.

[zero-design.livejournal.com]

Just to be a bit of a devil's advocate here -

I'm not so sure it's blaming the universities or the secondary schools here that's going to do any good.

"Universities" don't make choices. Nor do "High Schools". Individuals do.

Ours is simply not a society that values learning or wisdom. The simplest way to understand this is to examine the major way that we measure value - money. Who get's paid the most? Sports players. Movie performers. CEO's.

While teacher's and educational institutes aren't destitute, neither are they especially lavished with money either. Pretty easy to see where it is that we put our focus, value-wise.

Until there's a fundamental shift to the underlying society, then any policies enacted by educational institutes are going to be stop-gap measures at best.

To quote one of my favourite books: "We don't need new programs. We need a new vision" - The Story of B by Daniel Quinn.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm not necessarily blaming the universities or secondary schools, although I do think they are part of the equation.

[f00dave.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I agree ... with one extension: the fundamental shift you describe is one wherein the dollar is replaced as the top priority, education and everything else below, with one where education is placed first. This can't happen in the USA, not as it's currently structured, without a massive threat of some sort (another Russia, or some aliens threatening to attack, or something). No, the USA is being slowly dragged down into the same irrelevance that the Holy Roman Empire was, and nothing is likely to halt that slide. Moreover, if something did, then it wouldn't be the USA anymore; it would be something that does value education, something concerned less with instant gratification/empty entertainment and more with long-term goals. I'd be willing to live in that country, where I'm not interested at the moment....