The Pissed Off Professor

One of the missions of California’s Community Colleges is to ensure access to higher education to those who can’t afford to attend a CSU or a UC.

California’s Community Colleges are also a great way for students to learn how to be college students: the campuses and classes are smaller; the teachers are more accessible; and in many cases, students new to college life remain living with their parents, so the juggling of new responsibilities and freedoms isn’t quite so overwhelming.

All of this is wonderful, but like all good things, it is being abused.

Some people simply don’t belong in college. This has nothing to do with age or gender or race or class or anything else along those lines. It has everything to do with skill and potential.

English Writing 40 (Writing Skills) is a catch-all course with virtually no prerequisites. Students in this class spend a semester learning to construct sentences and weave them into paragraphs. The teaching mandate includes work on spelling and capitalization.

REMEMBER, THIS IS COLLEGE.

My experience with this course has been frightening. The students who are placed in English Writing 40 are reading at the third to sixth grade level; generally, they are pronouncing the words, not comprehending them. They often cannot construct sentences because they do not know the difference between a phrase and a clause.

These same students are almost always concurrently enrolled in one or more core, general education courses (e.g. math, science, history). Now I ask you, if a student is reading at the grade school level, do you think he or she can read or comprehend the textbooks that are assigned in collegiate-level math or science or history classes?

Only rarely are these students who are just “behind” or who needs a “refresher” course. These are students who simply lake the minimal skill sets necessary to have even a glimmer of hope at succeeding in academia, and pretending otherwise is unfair to everyone involved.

In many cases, a number of students in English Writing 40 are severely learning disabled, physically handicapped, and socially immature. I am neither qualified nor obligated to deal with these things.

The greatest evil that I see is the money being STOLEN from these individuals: if a student is found to be so lacking in basic literacy that he or she is sent to a class designed to teach him or her skills that were not learned in grade school, middle school, high school, or life, why would that person be allowed to take any other college course that required reading or writing skills?

Not everyone is capable of doing everything. This is one of the harsh realities of life. If a twenty-something is reading at the third-grade level, allowing that individual to attend college because failing to do so is somehow denying that individual the right to fail is an insult to the educational system.

California’s Community Colleges are not half-way houses, group homes, baby-sitting services, or play grounds. They are designed for serious study and the pursuit of academic excellence, and they are not for everyone.

One of the things I never expected to encounter as a college teacher was The Angry Parent. I had two reasons for this: first, college students are adults (just ask them); second, my parents would never have done anything like this.

(Yes, I now see the flaw in my logic on that second point: just because my parents aren’t jackasses doesn’t mean other parents aren’t.)

Over the course of the eight years I have been teaching, I have had 7.5 parents call, e-mail, or confront me regarding some issue that involved a child who was in my class. (The .5 is because I busted one of the “parents” who was actually another student. No, really.)

The general details of the contacts are similar, so I’ll let you be the judge of which of these rings true.

MULTIPLE CHOICE: Please circle the letter of the choice that best answers the question.

A. The Phone Call

“Hello?”

“Professor Hansen?”

“This is Shawn Hansen. How may I help you?”

“Professor Hansen, my name is Betty Jones. My daughter Jane is in your English class. She says she’s been dropped from your class for no reason, and I’d like an explanation.”

“Well, Mrs. Jones. . .”

“It’s Ms. Jones. I’m not married.”

“Sorry. Ms. Jones. As your daughter is aware, she was dropped because she missed three full weeks of class. That’s a violation of the school’s attendance policy as well as a violation of my classroom policy.”

“My daughter didn’t say anything to me about missing class, and frankly, that doesn’t sound like her at all. Perhaps you have her confused with another student?”

“Ms. Jones, I can assure you, I know exactly who your daughter is.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you mean you know exactly who my daughter is?”

“I mean I am not confusing her with any other student.”

“Well, I still want to know why my daughter has been refused her right to pursue her education.”

“Ms. Jones, your daughter was dropped in accordance with school and classroom policies. She is free to re-register for English Writing 300 at a later date.”

“She’ll lose her financial aid if you do this to her.”

“Ms. Jones, I’ve done nothing to your daughter. She’s responsible for this situation, and at this point, I think any further discussion we have should involve not just the two of us, but your daughter and my dean as well.”

“Oh, so now you’re intimidating me? Let me remind you that I am not one of your students.”

B. The E-mail

Dear Mrs. Hansen,

My son received an “F” on his recent essay. This is obviously an oversight on your part, and I am writing to ask that you correct his grade immediately.

My son tells me he spent several hours on his paper, and I read his assignment before he turned it in. I feel certain that his paper reflects “A” work.

Please let me know as soon as the change has been made.

If you wish to discuss this further, you can call my secretary to arrange an appointment.

Thank you for your immediate attention in this matter.

Mr. John Fitzgerald Thomas, III, Esq.

Thomas & Benson, Attorneys at Law
1010 F St., Suite 1C
Sacramento, CA 95821
916-555-1111

C. The Office Visit

“Excuse me.”

“Hi.”

“Are you Shawn Hansen?”

“Yes, I am. Come in.”

“No, I don’t have time to come in. I’m here about my daughter, Margie. She says you told her she couldn’t be in you class.”

“I’m sorry, it’s the first week of the semester, and I don’t know many of my students’ names. What’s your daughter’s last name?”

“Martin—Margie Martin.”

“Let me take a look at my roll sheets, so I know which class we’re talking about.”

“Aren’t you listening to me? She’s not enrolled, and you wouldn’t let her.”

“Okay. That’s possible. If your daughter wasn’t enrolled or on the waiting list, I would have had to turn her away due to lack of space.”

“That wasn’t what you told her.”

“Well, what did I tell her?”

“You told her it was because of her job.”
“Oh, okay. Now I remember the issue.”

“What do you mean by that? My daughter’s not an issue.”

“No, ma’am, your daughter isn’t, but her job is. The class she wanted to add begins at four o’clock, and she works until four-thirty.”

“I understand that, but her boss is going to let her leave half-an-hour early on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

“That’s a nice gesture on her boss’ part, but it still means she’d be late to every class which would be unfair and disruptive to the rest of the students.”

“I don’t care about the rest of the students. I’m here about my daughter. She made arrangements with her boss and you need to let her in your class.”

“Well, beyond the attendance issue. . .”

“How can there be an attendance issue if she’s not enrolled?”

“Look, the class your daughter wants to attend has a full roster of twenty-five students. In addition, there are twelve students on the waiting list. Even if her getting to class on time were not an issue, there’s no space for your daughter in my class. I’m sorry.”

“That’s a lie. She says there were plenty of empty desks in the classroom. I want to talk to your boss.”

D. All of the Above

I have struggled to find a balance between what is required of students, what I ask of them, and what they seem to be willing to do. While I have a great deal of flexibility when it comes to how content is presented and how required elements are taught, I am bound by very specific parameters when it comes to subject matter students must master to pass and the amount of composing that is required for the course.

Over the years, I have drastically reduced the required assignments for English Writing 300/English 1A in an effort to meet my obligations, retain a reasonable standard, and educate the students who pass through my classes.

The last several years have left me feeling as if students are lazy, resent any homework, and simply are not interested in actually learning anything. Making room for a certain degree of jadedness on my part, the numbers below seem to support my position.

REQUIRED ASSIGNMENTS

2001
ESSAYS: 6
RESEARCH PAPER: 1
QUIZZES: 11 (lowest score dropped)
READING ANALYSES: 16 (lowest score dropped)

Students day one: 48—30 allowed in (cap 27)
Students at midterm: 25
Students who finished: 18

2003
ESSAYS: 5
RESEARCH PAPER: 1
QUIZZES: 6 (lowest score dropped)
READING ANALYSES: 11 (lowest score dropped)

Students day one: 38—30 allowed in (cap 27)
Students at midterm: 18
Students who finished: 15

2005
ESSAYS: 5
RESEARCH PAPER: 0 (integrated research with other papers)
QUIZZES: 6 (lowest score dropped)
READING ANALYSES: 11 (lowest score dropped)

Students day one: standing room only—27 allowed in (cap 25)
Students at midterm: 15
Students who finished: 12

2007
ESSAYS: 3
RESEARCH PAPER: 1
QUIZZES: 0
READING ANALYSES: 3 (Prewriting assignments for each essay)
READING JOURNAL ENTRIES: 15

[Update: Students day one: 45—27 allowed in (cap 25)]
[Update 2: Students remaining week 8: 14]