The Lowering of Higher Education
My high school English teacher, Miss Gwen Patterson, made such a strong impression on me that I still remember every detail of her appearance, down to her stout black shoes, proper gray suit, and her rolled-up silver hair that recalled the style of World War II. Though we jokingly called her Gwip behind her back, we did what she said, no matter how long it took, how painful the process, or how much we sacrificed our preferred teenage activities.
We would not have dared to show up in class without our homework, unprepared, bad-tempered, or unwilling to raise our hands in class in response to her questions.
We certainly would not have dreamed of complaining to the principal that Miss Patterson was too tough on us, that she liked someone else in class better, or blamed our low grades on her inability to teach. Nor would we have ever, ever expected our parents to complain to the principal on our behalf.
Back before email, texting, cell phones, Facebook and Twitter, way back in the time of black-and-white TV, one bathroom shared by a family of four, and one telephone per household, we were expected to read, understand, and write intelligently about such classics as the Odyssey, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Heart of Darkness, the Book of Job, and much, much more.
School counted then. Learning counted then. We were trained to think, to be original, to immerse ourselves in the words and wisdom of those wiser than ourselves, those who had endured and transmitted the values of civilization with beauty and grandeur, and to respond with the best we could dredge out of our 15 year-old minds. No one suggested that this process was supposed to be fun, easy, comfortable, or stress-free.
Rather, we went to class every day to be challenged, to expand our minds, and to learn skills that would serve us throughout our lives as working people, family people, and citizens. We were taught that not only must we become self-sufficient, in addition, we were expected to discover our strengths and make a contribution.
Flash forward forty years. Would Miss Patterson be able to hold a teaching job today? As a former junior college teacher, I know from personal experience that unprepared students, students who fail to do the required reading then suffer the consequences of low quiz scores, students dissatisfied with their grades, or the rules of classroom deportment, or those who have been called on their plagiarizing, can complain to the dean and get a teacher fired.
Instead of transferring an unqualified student to a remedial class, my department head told me to “get her through with a C.” Although official department policy states that a student who plagiarizes will fail the course, one student who plagiarized from Wikipedia was allowed to pass the course with a C, after he begged the dean for mercy. What teacher hoping to keep her job is going to refuse the dean’s request for a grade change?
If a student does not “like” a teacher (translation: the student is uncomfortable because she is being asked to apply herself, to spend more than ten minutes on an essay, or to write her own paper), that student can and will complain and actually lie about a teacher, knowing she can get away with it. “Working the system” and applying such pressure is more appealing to many students than actually doing the work required to succeed.
That students, even college-level students, cannot read or write, is commonplace knowledge. A new government initiative throws more money at high schools to prepare students to succeed at college-level writing. Isn’t that what they were supposed to be doing in the first place?
Blame is everywhere, particularly on teachers. But are teachers, in today’s “culture of whining,” allowed to teach? Not when student evaluations are the criteria of a teacher’s success, when colleges are competing for FTE (full time equivalent) numbers, and every student is seen as a dollar sign necessary to keep the doors open and the administrators’ jobs secure. The student is now the customer, the customer is always right. What teacher dependent on a paycheck is going to rock the boat?
Now students are spoonfed, given years of remedial work, passed along, given support services, writing centers, learning centers, and federally-funded “success centers,” (though nobody is quite sure what the success center’s role is), financial aid, loans and scholarships – at enormous taxpayer expense. Nonetheless, real success must come from the same source it always has — the student’s willingness to work hard for it.
President Obama urges women on welfare to return to junior college, yet the welfare mentality of expecting a “free lunch” is so strongly ingrained that many are unable to apply themselves to the task of learning and are offended when asked to try. Add the entitled attitudes of many student athletes on scholarship, and the result is another big expense with unverifiable results.
True, many students are struggling with low self-image, poor high school training, drugs, pregnancy, out-of-wedlock families, family enmeshment, addictions, and abuse issues. The question is: Are expensive state and federally-funded learning institutions the place to remediate these social issues? Or are these junior colleges a huge taxpayer burden; actually, a more acceptable name for the extension of the welfare system?
In a time when money is so scarce, do learning institutions deserve funding without scrutiny, simply in the naive belief that they are doing good by keeping classrooms open, and by providing a place for those who, through whatever combination of personal misfortune and poor choices, have no other place to go?
Some students will succeed, of course, and they will value the opportunity of an education and make good use of it. Some will learn a trade. Some will re-invent themselves for changing job markets. Those willing to strive for an education will transfer to four year schools and do well. But can we do a better job of screening, rather than subsidizing the unmotivated and encouraging them in their sense of entitlement? The opposite seems to be true. Junior colleges, and four year colleges sprouting satellite campuses, encourage the unqualified to justify their existence. How is the quality of education these institutions offer being evaluated? In the employment of their graduates? In the retention of their graduates in four year schools? in getting their students off entitlement programs?
By the way, administrators supposedly responsible for the productivity of their institutions don’t receive cuts in their salaries, even when the teachers must “suck it up” and get by with less. Who is evaluating these administrators? What are their qualifications to lead? Woe be unto the teacher who does not give her administrator top marks. Of course, no administrator would agree with this assessment.
Perhaps you remember a teacher like Miss Patterson. Or like Miss Lindsay, Mrs. Dorsey, Mr. Garth, Mr. Powell, and the many others who devoted their lives to instructing us. They modeled the discipline and determination it takes to become strong individuals capable of navigating and sailing a straight course through the world’s rough tides. I thank them every day. But Miss Patterson would not be appreciated in today’s educational environment. She would be a dinosaur, one wrong step away from extinction.
Award-winning journalist and novelist Sharon Niederman is the author of ten books of Southwest history, travel, culture, and cuisine. Visit her website at: www.sharonniederman.com and her blogsite at: http://embracingthenorth@wordpress.com. She can be heard Saturdays on “L’il Sharon’s Country Cafe,” 2-4 pm, on KRTN-93.9 FM.