So, I get a message from a professor. It began this way:
I am a Professor of English, not a father confessor. I know my
subject. I
have
published extensively and I know how to convey the facts of my
discipline
to
my students. Why should I have to spend time thinking about the
students
emotional or social life, It's not my job. I care about
their learning
if they
care about their studies. Nevertheless, I can't be involved in
the lives
of the
students. I dont have time or inclination to do so. It will
distract
me from
teaching English and other scholarly things I have to do. I
have been
reading
your hopelessly romantic and irrelevant musings for a long
time. Why do
you tell such stories about ordinary, average, and at times
distasteful
students?
It's enough that I have to deal with them in my classes. Isn't
it better
to focus
on the better students who are here to learn?......"
Here was my "quickie" answer:
"As I read your note, I thought of Kim Tanner and the teachers in our
First Year
Program for another, and each would say about our job of caring for each and
every student
without concern for there SAT scores, class standings, GPA, and any other means
academia
uses to sort students. You, as far too many do, seem to use those terms
"ordinary" and
"average" with such disdain, almost a bitterness. So, I ask, 'why should the
struggling
less than stellar student disappear, barricaded behind our fixation with GPAs,
shunned
aside by our fascination with awards and recognitions, tolerated only because
they pay the
bills, spat out as "distasteful" sour milk, thrust into the shadows as we
spotlight honor
students, be out-of-focus as we focus on producing mini-scholars, separated as
chafe,
quarantined as infectious carriers, and hunted down as interlopers?' It
assumes that they
do not have potential, that they are not worth our time and effort, and that
they do not
have it within them to burst into novae. Then, again, the hiding of the less
than
stellar students is systematic in our academic culture. None of us are the
Southwestern
Airlines of academia. Love institutions we're not. We don't put these
students who
admittedly often test our mettle and are demanding our time and effort--and
love--first.
Instead we so handicap them with loveless disdain at worst and faithless
indifference at
best that we almost insure they run far behind the pack. So many of us just
don't see
teaching them as labors of love so much as laborious work."
"So many of us have two selves. When talk is of these students, who
make up the
majority, you can hear so many of us pronouncing a plethora of lofty platitudes
about how
we care about students or how we emphasize teaching or how we are concerned
about their
retention. But, are those academics expressing their real feelings and
beliefs? Are
they presenting a façade of a false self? Are they merely trying to appear a
certain way
to others? Are they publicly assuming a foreign identity? Are they publicly
hiding who
they really are? In so many private conversations about these "ordinary" and
"average"
students the grandeur is absent. Coming from these same academics are mournful
unwelcoming sighs; we can hear tones of discouragement, annoyance, moaning,
disavowal,
disdain, resignation, displeasure, and even anger. They place these students
among the
dismissed "don't belong" and "they're letting everyone in" and "I don't have
the time" and
"it's not my job" and "they get in the way." These academics use the external
and
superficial criteria of tests and grading as the basis for judging a student's
worth.
These supposedly irrelevant students don't stay long in their thoughts and are
quickly
swept out of the spotlight into the darkened background. They much prefer a
discussion of
their "dedication to their discipline," of their research and publication, and
of the
"good" students and especially of the "honor" students. That's when their
blank eyes get
a sparkle, their blank faces turn bright, and their sneering lips curl up in
smiles;
that's when stoops are transformed into erect posture and vocal tones of
despair are
replaced by tones of pride."
"But, if you really want to be a good teacher, if you want to be the
salt that
makes students, all students, thirsty for learning, you gladly--gladly--begin,
without
conditions, with the students you have. That minority of "above average"
students will
always be with us, but it is infinitely more important to tell the story of the
student in
the shadows in the hope of shaking our conscience and altering our academic
culture. I've
said this over and over and over again. And, I'll say it still again. After
watching PBS'
DECLINING BY DEGREES, I know that it's not that average student who should feel
ashamed of
not making the grade, it should be us. We are a perniciously corrupting force
when we
fail to esteem all--all--students and accept their frailities rather than
depreciating
them, when we display contingent faith and hope and love based on test scores
and grades.
If we are to be judged, let us be judged by the commitment we have, by the
dedication we
have, by the faith we exhibit, by the hope we offer, by the love we have, by
the support
and encouragement we give those who are most needy of us. If that be sappy,
whistling in
the dark, or foolishly romantic, so be it. But, you know, the dear Lord made
so many of
those "ordinary" and "average" students, he must love them. So, should we."
"On this Labor Day, I'll leave you with these words from Kahlil
Gibran's THE
PROPHET that my good friend Bri Johnson just sent me: 'Work is love made
visible. And if
you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should
leave your
work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with
joy. For if
you break bread with indifference, you bake bitter bread that feeds but half a
mans
hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of grapes, your grudge distils a poison
in the
wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle
mans ears to
the voices of the day and the voices of the night.'"
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of History
http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/
\ /\
//\/\/ /\
\__/__/_/\_\ \_/__\
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" -
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