It is time we had an interdisciplinary world. It is time we created a society where all levels of thinking and society can work together – so the individual psychologies can live together in a more
integrated society. Interdisciplinary thinking tries to promote environmentalism, capitalism, religion, heroic
individualism, and families simultaneously. Beauty, truth, and ethics are united.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
No, You Do Not Deserve an "A" -- You Earn One
Even the New Republic has people who understand that the self-esteem movement has ruined our students. Now it needs to get to our parents, teachers, administrators, school boards, etc.
"No, Jason. What would be wrong is if a university trained its students to believe that they were excellent simply for getting up off their futons and doing what was expected of them. Did the reading? Attended class? Stayed up late working on a paper? Good for you, puppy! Sure, you did a craptastic job on that paper--not to mention the final--suggesting that you have no more than a fourth-grader's grasp of the material. But what the hell!? You worked hard. You showed up--even when you had that reallllly bad hangover. You may not have learned much, but you sure did try. Have a nice fat A. And here's hoping it comes in handy when your first employer fires you for not being able to tell your ass from your elbow when it comes to doing your job."
I sympathize with Michelle Cottle's frustration, but her sneering, sarcastic, condescending tone doesn't score any points with me. I'm sure she thinks naming names will shame students into rethinking their opinions, but surely an educated woman has something better to do than use the Internet to bully a couple of kids.
Talking to a few friends (one from Europe and one from South Korea), we were on the subject of high school. They both described the American high schools as a 'joke.' I can not agree more. I just wish I knew that then, I would have took the GED and skipped about half of high school.
Well, John, she's not actually naming names. My own experience teaching at the university level was that this kind of irony is the only thing that will bore through the granite skulls of the administrators who allowed this to occur in the first place. It's the kind of thing you desperately wish you could say to somebody.
Tell that to Sarah Kinn, junior English major at the "Univierty" of Vermont, and Jason Greenwood, senior kenesiology major at the University of New Maryland.
Just my opinion, but I think shame works best when the people you're shaming know you care, that they have a stake in your community's future and it in theirs. If Cottle's aim was to make a point to administrators, she should have addressed them, or at least picked on someone her own size. The difference between "tough love" and plain old meanness is love.
Those two were being quoted in a new piece for which they volunteered their names with their opinions. That leaves them open for criticism. I am with that author that what they said is truly contemptuous, and we need to express contempt at contemptuous remarks. Which is different from showing contempt at the people themselves. I have no problem criticizing people two put themselves out there in the public as those two students did. It's not like she was quoting her own students without them knowing about it until her article came out, after all. That would be in bad taste.
5 comments:
"No, Jason. What would be wrong is if a university trained its students to believe that they were excellent simply for getting up off their futons and doing what was expected of them. Did the reading? Attended class? Stayed up late working on a paper? Good for you, puppy! Sure, you did a craptastic job on that paper--not to mention the final--suggesting that you have no more than a fourth-grader's grasp of the material. But what the hell!? You worked hard. You showed up--even when you had that reallllly bad hangover. You may not have learned much, but you sure did try. Have a nice fat A. And here's hoping it comes in handy when your first employer fires you for not being able to tell your ass from your elbow when it comes to doing your job."
I sympathize with Michelle Cottle's frustration, but her sneering, sarcastic, condescending tone doesn't score any points with me. I'm sure she thinks naming names will shame students into rethinking their opinions, but surely an educated woman has something better to do than use the Internet to bully a couple of kids.
Talking to a few friends (one from Europe and one from South Korea), we were on the subject of high school. They both described the American high schools as a 'joke.' I can not agree more. I just wish I knew that then, I would have took the GED and skipped about half of high school.
Well, John, she's not actually naming names. My own experience teaching at the university level was that this kind of irony is the only thing that will bore through the granite skulls of the administrators who allowed this to occur in the first place. It's the kind of thing you desperately wish you could say to somebody.
Tell that to Sarah Kinn, junior English major at the "Univierty" of Vermont, and Jason Greenwood, senior kenesiology major at the University of New Maryland.
Just my opinion, but I think shame works best when the people you're shaming know you care, that they have a stake in your community's future and it in theirs. If Cottle's aim was to make a point to administrators, she should have addressed them, or at least picked on someone her own size. The difference between "tough love" and plain old meanness is love.
Those two were being quoted in a new piece for which they volunteered their names with their opinions. That leaves them open for criticism. I am with that author that what they said is truly contemptuous, and we need to express contempt at contemptuous remarks. Which is different from showing contempt at the people themselves. I have no problem criticizing people two put themselves out there in the public as those two students did. It's not like she was quoting her own students without them knowing about it until her article came out, after all. That would be in bad taste.
Post a Comment