A former student has offered
a response to my most recent blog post in which I expressed my gratitude for
the opportunity to mentor students. I will gladly publish it. My only criteria for
publishing responses on my blog site is that such posts are thoughtful. While some
aren’t necessarily very thoughtful, this one evidences a certain degree of insight.
At some level I am in the
debt of this student. I don’t know who s/he is because s/he offered the
response anonymously. But what is important to me is that by placing his/her
comments on this forum, I am actually able to offer what I hope will be my own thoughtful
response to these comments.
An Exercise in Consumerism
Such is never the case with either
the overtly consumerist Ratemyprofessor sites one finds online or its thinly
veiled consumerist progeny, the student ratings conducted by the university
each term. Last school year, a mere 39%
of the students I taught actually went to the site to offer their ratings. If students
are given an option of engaging the ratings process, by definition only those
who feel motivated for whatever reason, whether to offer praise that borders on
sycophantism or with axes to grind, will actually do so.
Sadly, the questions posed at
the university’s site are unlikely to produce useful information for an
instructor. “What did you like best/least...” are consumerist questions better
suited for Baskin-Robbins and its many flavors of ice cream than feedback on an
academic process. Whether a student liked or hated any given aspect of a course
is a largely unrelated question as to whether it provided an opportunity to
learn. Unlike the former question, the latter has the possibility of actually
producing useful feedback to an instructor. Sadly, such approaches also signal
to students that they should behave like consumers entitled to have it their
way. That has all kinds of pathological ramifications for higher education.
Worse yet, student comments produced
by these ratings are offered in a contextual vacuum. The litany on my ratings is
the same each term: too much reading, grading too rigorous, feedback too harsh. But without
any context, what do such comments mean? Too much reading for whom? Under what
circumstances? Too rigorous in comparison to what? Too harsh given what presumed
criteria? In short, what were the expectations upon which these comments were
based and were they reasonable given the circumstances?
Not surprisingly, such questions
are never posed and thus a context for the responses to questions which actually
are asked is never established. The result is that much of the commentary generated
at these sites by definition has limited utility to instructors as feedback on
their teaching. And as in many cases online, the anonymity of cyberspace
sometimes seems to bring out the worst in contributors.
The insult added to the
injury of being subject to this simplistic, counterproductive process is that
universities actually use these acontextual consumerist responses to reward and
punish their faculty. This fact has hardly escaped the attention of their
consumer/students who readily recognize their power to dictate work load, grading
and the tenor of feedback through this process.
So I thank the student for making
these comments at my blogspot which in turn affords me an opportunity to actually
respond. Moreover, the comments themselves frame the concerns of the class s/he
took with me very well.
I will comment inter-textually
below. The text of the student’s comments are boldfaced italicized.
A Passion Flickering Out
I think you are a talented teacher with
a passion to teach,….
First, I thank you for
recognizing my capacities as a teacher. I work very hard at being a good
teacher. I have attended countless continuing education programs at the
university and elsewhere to stay atop of changes in technology and pedagogy. I
regularly engage in classes abroad and here in the US, mostly on my own nickel,
to stay on top of my fields and expand my content knowledge. I take my work
seriously and I have won several awards during my nearly 30 years of teaching
in higher education.
So, thank you for noticing. Increasingly
that is the rare exception and not the rule.
As for my passion to teach, for
most of my life it has flowed from the teacher at the core of my being.
Historically, teaching has never been just a job for me. Rather it has been an
expression of who I am as a human being. If I knew my primary needs in Maslow’s
hierarchy (food, clothing, shelter, security) would be met, I would readily
teach for free.
But, in all honesty, my
passion for teaching has decidedly cooled over the past few years. Truth is, I abhor
the direction I see universities taking as they have devolved into a deadly
combination of corporate business values, practices and organization executed
by an ever growing army of administrators and technocrats. Lost in the shuffle of marketing Club Med
dorms and tail gate parties and a highly reductionist and superficial demand
for “accountability” which largely reduces the art of teaching and learning to
meaningless data is any real concern for higher education.
Worse yet, I bewail the loss
of students interested in (or at least not adverse to) actually learning. Today I largely encounter strategic grade
seekers and entitled consumers. Sadly, I sense that this decline has been
accentuated by the rise of online courses like the one this student took. Once
you begin down the slippery slope of excusing students from having to invest
their time and energy in actually attending class all that’s really left is a
process of negotiation of the bottom line.
It’s important to note that I
do not blame the army of adolescents who arrive at our gates these days in a
largely unconscious state for these attitudes and behaviors. I have watched
with increasing levels of horror as the products of a generation of No Child
Left Behind “reforms” have come to the university. They have been suckled in the
toxic formula of multiple choice tests and the construction of education
strictly in instrumental terms, as means to jobs and little else. In years to
come, I fear my Boomer generation is going to be seen as not only falling short
of our promise to change the world for the better, we will be blamed for
ruining our successor generations.
During my recent month away to
study in Boston and Israel, I went through a rather dark night of the soul on
my vocation as a teacher. As I heard professors talking about the exciting
classes they were going to create as a result of our institute and the
challenging students they anticipated teaching, I found myself nearly despondent.
The chances are that I would
never have the chance to teach classes like these. There is little room in a
factory process degree assembly line for classes that would seriously wrestle
with the complex, existential questions that the reality of Israel raises. Even if the class was offered, the chances it
would draw sufficient enrollment to avoid being cancelled are pretty limited. In
a day of Ratemyprofessor.com and social media, the ability of student/consumers
to avoid classes requiring significant reading, writing and critical thinking
is virtually unlimited.
In all honesty, it is
difficult to remain passionate about teaching in the face of this reality.
This post continues in Part
II.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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)
Asst.
Lecturer: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
Osceola
Campus, University of Central Florida, Kissimmee
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. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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