Different Kind of Student
Institutional culture alone
does not completely explain the differences in my experience of these two
educational institutions. Much of the distinction lies in the demographics of
the students themselves.
I often describe my classes
at Osceola as teaching ethics at the United Nations. Osceola County, like
neighboring Orange, is a majority-minority county and there is no single ethnic
group numerically prevalent there anymore. The college reflects that diversity
with representatives not just from the Caribbean and Latin America,
for whose cultures I hold a decided affinity, but from India and Pakistan, Southeast
Asia and Africa as well. Diverse learning communities like these tend to be
highly generative primarily because they lack a dominant cultural understanding.
There is no “common sense” to default to.
For the most part, my
students are working class to middle class people. They range in age from the
dual enrollment high school seniors to the empty nester adults I love to see
come through my doors. What they hold in common is an understanding of the
importance of education to them, not just to secure employment but to become better
human beings and active participants in their community. For most of them, the
state college (né community college) is their only shot at getting a higher
education. And, for the most part, they take that pretty seriously.
This is a very different
reality from the predominately white upper middle class kids right out of high
school who make up the majority of my classes at the university. Many of those
students see college largely as a foregone conclusion, an entitlement and an obligation,
a requirement to get a decent job that they are compelled to endure and get
through as quickly and painlessly as possible. They are largely
hypercompetitive, self-promoting, disengaged and largely alienated from each
other, all marks of the professional middle class. Whatever community emerges
there does so in spite of the institutional culture, not because of it.
My students at the college
don’t tend to use Ratemyprofessor to pick their classes. They don’t evidence
the enormous senses of entitlement I observe to be a normal part of life at the
university. They are generally very respectful and express gratitude readily. And
thus far they haven’t used student ratings at the end of the term or grievance
proceedings to get even with instructors who have not met their demands
regarding work load, grading and feedback.
Many of them struggle
through the term with ungodly work schedules and home commitments. They come to
class tired, holding cups of coffee and energy drinks needed to keep them alert
for another three hours before they go home to their next job as Mom or Dad. But
for the most part, they give their best to the learning process. And the vast
majority of them are a joy to teach.
It’s tempting to see this
kind of congenial working environment where real teaching and learning are
actually possible as a luxury that is too expensive in a state without a fair,
reliable tax base or a socially responsible citizenry. But there are more
pragmatic reasons for seeing this example of higher education as a model worth
emulating. In my experience: It gets
results.
Last semester, in the same
ethics course, I had 20 students from around the world. They worked hard and we
held some outstanding classes together as we wrestled with ethical dilemmas
from nursing to public policy to criminal behaviors. The night of the final, I
took them to the cafeteria and paid for a soft drink for each of them and then
took them out by the campanile in front of our building to take a class photo. Before
I handed out the final that night I told them that I was in their debt, that they
had given me a great gift – for the first
time in a very long time I remembered why I loved being a teacher.
Of the 20 who began the
course, 20 completed it. Of the 20 who completed the course, all but one
managed to get the C they needed for their program requirements. I worked with
that one student right to the day I submitted grades but the student just
couldn’t hold a chaotic life together long enough to get the final exam done.
Like the true teacher I am, I
still grieve the one that got away.
Lessons to be Learned
Clearly it is important not
to romanticize the Valencia experience too much. My first semester class in
Ethics at Osceola a year ago was a very different experience. I faced a class composed
largely of full time employed working class women, some still in high school,
some just graduated, many of whom struggled with the critical thinking and
creative problem solving aspects of the curriculum.
I lost about ¼ of that class
to withdrawals and often deliberated about how generous I needed to be in my
grading of their work. Not everyone who shows up at open admission colleges is
ready to be there. And the potential value of achieving success has a downside
as well when lack of readiness leads to failure thus confirming one’s suspected
shortcomings.
I also hear from my former
colleagues at Osceola that this campus may be a bit of an anomaly in the
Valencia constellation. Apparently as the original two campuses have grown they
have begun to exhibit some of the same problems with impersonal relations,
competitiveness, ambition and anonymity that the second largest public university
in the country suffers from.
Conversely, despite a
largely adversarial institutional culture (one of my university colleagues actually
calls it toxic) that tends to alienate students and faculty alike, there are
some real success stories occurring at the university in terms of research and individual
educational achievement among faculty and students alike. At some level,
success in the face of alienating competition is even more commendable.
Could the university learn
from the Osceola experience? Is it possible to cap class sizes to create
genuine learning communities, create a less hostile system to negotiate,
actively support instructional staff and students, and insure an economically
and ethnically diverse student body from which critical thinking and creative problem
solving could be generated?
I wonder.
Do We Care?
The first step would require
a gut check – do we really care? Do we want a higher education in which all students
actually have the privilege of learning enough to provide the context to make
it possible for their teachers to actually teach them? Do we care about the
ones that get away, particularly the up to 1/3 of all online students who end
up withdrawing?
Second, if we care, what do
we really care about? Do we really value learning or is mere training for the
work world with a veneer of higher education sufficient? Do we care what our
students bring away from our classes beyond a grade and credit? Do we want our students and faculty to
actively engage each other? Do we want students to learn to think critically
and creatively express their understandings?
What is it we want our
students to come away with and why? And how much is it worth to us?
Third, are we simply inclined
to acquiesce to the status quo simply because changing it requires too much
from us? If we care enough to change, how much are we willing to invest in that
process? Are we willing to invest the time, the courage to critically assess
what we’re currently doing and why? Are we willing to identify the values that
surely inform any decision making regarding higher education - Cui
bono? Good for whom? And at whose expense?
I recognize that a lot of considerations
– many of them economic, political and ambitious in nature – came together to
create the current reality I observe. All of these would have to be reconsidered
in recreating a corporate megauniversity as a true learning community. Even
this idealist is realistic enough to recognize that the inertia of the status
quo alone gravitates against such a shift.
And yet, the example of that
small campus in Kissimmee with its United Nations student body and its
collegial faculty and staff working hard to provide their students with an
opportunity to become educated human beings suggests that there are always other
choices. And every choice has its consequences.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., M.Div. Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar
(inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church
(Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Religion and
Cultural Studies,
Osceola Campus, University
of Central Florida, Kissimmee
Adjunct Instructor: Valencia
College-Osceola
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an
unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production
in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 comment:
This class was made up of real learners attempting to grow intellectually with what the professor could relate.
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