The Pissed Off Professor

My students take their midterm exam today, and they are going to be writing about one of my favorite articles “The 7 Deadly Sins of Students.”

It says what I am thinking right now having recently finished grading the first set of out-of-class essays. . .

I normally don’t spend too much time doing things like this; however, every once-in-awhile, I find a quiz that I just can’t resist.

Case-in-point:

I normally don’t spend too much time doing

You can take the quiz HERE.

My students have their midterm exam coming up on Monday. They’ll be completing an in-class essay based on a reading they’ve been assigned.

WHAT—We have to write an essay in-class?!

During a discussion regarding an in-class writing, the three questions I can always count on are:

1. How long does it have to be?
2. Does punctuation count?
3. What about spelling—does it count?

Can you imagine a student asking a math teacher how long a math problem has to be?

Can you imagine a student asking a math teacher whether or not +, −, ÷, ×, or = counted?

Can you imagine a student asking a math teacher if using the right numbers matter?

At least most of my students get it when I ask them the math-based equivalents in response to their inquiries regarding what counts on an in-class essay.

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.