Louis, in all other areas an individual in that age group is considered
adult--why would being a college student change that (unless, of course,
the college experience keeps them immature)?
Consider: If you go into an office and a 19 year old receptionist greets
you, you don't expect that person to act like a teenager--you expect him
or her to behave as a working adult. The same holds true of the cashier at
your store, the sales person at Best Buy or the 19 year old Radiology
Technician with a two year degree from a local community college. You
don't "cut any slack" for a 20 year old Marine Corp Corporal who shoots
civilians for target practice in Iraq, for a 19 year old Navy Corpsman who
decides to use the drugs in the dispensary instead of administering them
to a patient, or the 18 year old short order cook who picks your
half-cooked hamburger off the floor where it dropped and puts it on a bun
to serve you. In every one of those cases, you expect adult behavior, why
should the standard be any different in a college classroom?
It's easy to view our students as "kids." Easy--but insulting to them and
counter-productive for us. We hold individuals in that age group to an
adult standard in the workplace, in the voter's booth, and in a military
uniform with a firearm in their hands--yet you would suggest that if they
are intelligent (and fortunate) enough to enter college instead of moving
from high school to a low paying job or the military, they must be less
mature. Sorry, but to me that's absurd. College isn't an extension of High
School, it's a voluntary place of higher learning where individuals are
presumed to be mature enough to behave--and make decisions--as adults, not
children. Consider also, we expect our students to decide by the end of
their second year of college (if not sooner) what they will major in, and
therefore what they will do for a career for the rest of their lives (in
community colleges, by that time they have already completed their studies
and entered that career!). Is that the kind of decision you expect of a
child? Are YOU doing the work you wanted to do when you were a child? If
so, you are rare--most of us started with very different goals than we
developed as adults--and that's fortunate, since there are only so many
jobs open for doctors, lawyers, firefighters, pilots, and cowboys!
I treat my learners--both in the classroom and online--as adults and guess
what? They behave that way as a result. Do I cut them some slack because
of their age? Not a bit. I may be willing to take lack of experience into
account, but immaturity? Nope--if they aren't ready to grow up and take
responsibility for their lives and decisions, they aren't ready to be
sitting in a college classroom taking up space that should be used by
someone who IS ready for that responsibility. Sure, they may dress
differently at times--I have my share of green haired and gothic dressed
students. But clothing is only a matter of fashion--and is invariably age
dependent, not based on maturity levels. The most mature--and
serious--student in my current on-ground class is a brilliant young woman
of 18--and she has green-and-red hair, gothic jewelry, and looks more like
a seventies punk rocker than the twenty-first century elementary education
major she is.
Rick
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Rick Adams
Capella University School of Technology
Grand Canyon University School of Social Sciences.
Jackson Community College Department of Social Sciences
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"... and the only measure of your worth and your deeds will be the love
you leave behind when you're gone."
-Fred Small, J.D., "Everything Possible"
Anyway, this pronouncement says that at some magical point during
the summer between June high school graduation and that first August day
on a collegiate campus something in the vacationing water triggers a
selective but endemic mutation. The impulsive, spontaneous, immature,
undisciplined, naive adolescent genetically transforms into a mini,
experienced, thoughtful, responsible, self-disciplined, measured, "knows
better," scholarly adult dressed in teen clothing. No matter about the
belly button rings or pierced tongues or eyebrows or lips or nipples or
wherever, no matter the tattoos or gothic dress and "interesting hair
styles," no matter coming to class in pajamas and other "interesting"
styles of dress, no matter the binge drinking, no matter the wild parties,
no matter the impulsiveness, no matter the casual sex, no matter the
musical chair dating, no matter the drunken driving, no matter whatever.
Students are adults.
I was reading a written code of student conduct from one
institution. It said, ".....assumes students are adults and responsible
for their own conduct." It goes on to say that the institution expects
students "to behave in ways which demonstrate care and respect for the
personal dignity, rights and freedoms of all members of the community, and
to demonstrate care and respect for College property and the property of
others. As members of the ...... Community, we all share responsibility
for safeguarding the rights and freedoms of other members and for
maintaining community standards." Sounds great. Like heaven on Earth.
It was written by academic adults that a lot of academic adults with all
our experience, years, learning, resumes, and reputations find hard live
up to that ideal. And, then, we expect our 17-21 years old to do that?
Why not. One college goes so far to differentiates itself from high
school by the simple statement that "most college students are adults and
all high school students are adolescents." There's that mutation causing
water.
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