InsaneJournal

Current mood:	thoughtful
Entry tags:	about me, about the world, thoughts on: life

Long thoughts about schooling
I just read this piece on Adult and Continuing Education. It's called In The Basement of the Ivory Tower. There are comments on Racialicious which linked it, here.



I was very surprised to see that comments were disparaging to the teacher. Comments called her or him, lazy. Comments claimed she or he didn't want to work, and were snobbish, elitist, stuck up, and felt that the students discussed were too low brow for reading and or college all together.

That's not what I got out of the article.

I wondered about the reading comprehension of some of the commenters who could post such thoughts considering the article plainly says that the teacher suggested an immediate appointment with a Librarian. And then followed up with stating at another juncture that the Librarian could help and was needed. How is suggesting you make an appointment with someone whose job it is to teach you computer/research skills, somehow a teacher being lazy?

I saw a teacher exhausted with trying to maintain a standard for education, while worrying about his or her own role in the continued debt these students were accumulating trying to pass a class for which they might initially have needed a remedial course. I saw a teacher complaining about the lack of care for the students by the general administration. I saw a teacher burnt out because she or he is well aware of life, the daytime job, worrying about one's children, trying to juggle bills and then here's this class needed for a work promotion or salary boost or career opportunity and the students dutifully attend every class and try their best; but unfortunately their best isn't yet good enough. And how the teacher feels that she or he is left holding the bag, feeling responsible and conflicted and angry about the system of education.

Another commenter made the good point that high schools are partly to blame. They're no longer preparing students for college. It's been a while since I was in high school but I remembered the tiered system then. I remember my shock when I realized what non Regents students were learning.

It was similar to my shock at the article's claim that many of the teacher's students have never read To Kill A Mockingbird or even Charlotte's Web.

Again and again I stumble online to information discussing how the general American public doesn't read. I thought I'd come to believe it. But I guess I haven't yet. I'm not expecting people to read Metamorphoses by Ovid or Shakespearean Plays. But I did think that there was some reading. It's never occurred to me before that comic book readers were more well read than the average Jane. I never thought before that in the past before comics dialogue became more colloquial, that they (comic readers) were exposed to expanding vocabulary and scientific concepts as a matter of course. Comics often involve mythology and politics and the ability to follow continuity shows an ability to follow the many plots and subplots of a long drawn out narrative.

The article and comments together are all confusing and slightly depressing.

I find myself agreeing with the author that her particular example, Mrs. L had been harmed by the idealistic view that being in college meant she was automatically ready for college level work. I know I've been having second and third thoughts about whether or not I want to return to college - whether or not I can handle having to do things at someone else's pace, with someone else picking topics of interest, etc.

My points are important for me, of course, along with the emotional strength and concentration needed if I decide to go back. But it feels a little petty now considering the fleecing of money and hope that seems to be going on. And it makes my mother's claims that it matters which school I go back to seem incredibly valid.

ETA: I am struck by the feeling than fandom is elitist and snobby - by the definitions given - and not just acafans. But dissecting text, drawling parallels, being able to write coherent meta, doing research for a long well linked essay post -- Fandom apparently is not 'average'.

ETA2: Or is that only the parts of fandom I follow and interact with. Because I have heard stories of bad fic writers. Usually, though, those writers aren't referred to as part of fandom, but as newbies or fanfic.net drones, or -watch me angst this out omg my writing is so cook loveme- I'd think I was excluding the parts I don't like, except that lots of the idiots doing racially skeezy and insensitive things have upset me because I have looked at their writing and thought them -fandom-

*ponders*