Last year I chronicled my move from a community college in the Southwest to an SLAC in the PNW.My new location is beautiful, and the campus is cute, tiny, and energizing, but what really separates my experiences are the priorities my students have compared to the kids and adults I taught in the CC system.
My CC students had such busy lives, work, family, etc. They wanted to do well in my class, but the hours they spent on it were never enough. I taught a sort of grade 11 English for years there, such were the constraints of my department's course outcomes.
When I came to the SLAC, my students weren't necessarily miles ahead, but they had the time. If I assigned a complete rewrite from Monday to Wednesday, they all did it. What I'm able to accomplish in half a semester I could never do in a full semester at the CC.
And the CC students got taught by our school that they were customers. It's in every transaction they make. They pay their $120 a class and they expect to pass. Even the best of them were annoyed at minor inconveniences like low grades and requests for revision. They see those glossy ads on TV and think they're paying for grades and achievement...not just the CHANCE at that.
I feel a fondness for some of those CC students now, with some distance from the place. But their inability to prioritize college has made their chances of getting a read education too low, and the community colleges - who are flooded with these full time students who actually have 1/4 or 1/2 time availability - are simply making too many allowances for the education that actually does take place to be worth anything.
Having attended and taught as a grad student at a couple of ivies (admittedly a long, long time ago), and with over a decade's experience at a state R2, I've come to the same conclusion: the amount of put-of-class time students have to devote to their studies makes a huge difference, both to what they get out of their educations (regardless of ability and/or preparation) and to what we can require of them -- which, of course, affects what they can get out of their educations. For those who can only afford and/or get into state schools (including community colleges) where the majority of students spend a great deal of time on paid work or other non-school commitments, leaving very little time for out-of-class work, there is, I fear, a self-perpetuating downward spiral in progress. And pressures to increase retention and other measures of "student success," combined with adjunctification and other trends toward decreased security, stability, pay, engagement, and institutional loyalty among faculty, are only exacerbating the spiral.
ReplyDeleteNext question: is there anything we can do about it? I'm pretty sure that online learning (though it works just fine for many classes) is *not* the answer, since it's even harder to convince students to spend 9-12 hrs./week on an online class (and just try telling them, as I will in a few weeks, that I really expect to pack 15 weeks' worth of work into the 5 weeks of a summer term, and so expect them to set aside 2-3 8-hour *days* a week or 4 hours of nearly every day in the week for the work of my class). Increasing the value of the Pell grant (and any other sources of non-loan, need-based aid) might help, though admittedly some students would fritter the time away, and/or keep working 20-40+ hours a week anyway.
P.S. I hope you have a lighter teaching load to allow you to keep up with all those papers and revised papers.
I can't say it any better than you did, Contingent Cassandra. I can only say, "AMEN."
DeleteI teach at "a step up" from a CC--an open-admissions 2-year transfer institution in a large midwestern state system--and I see EXACTLY the same things. My students complain "This isn't the only class I have" and it makes my fucking blood boil. I *KNOW*, I want to yell at them--and I KNOW that you don't read, you don't pay attention in the classes *you're paying for*, you don't care about anything except the grade, which you expect to be a minimum of a B for doing a minimum of work. The work excuse is usually exactly that--an excuse not to do homework. I have had students work 3rd shift at the cheese factory up the road, come to morning classes, participate, and get their homework done well--and on time--while juggling single-parenting. It takes them longer to graduate because they can only handle part-time, but they do it. They've learned how to manage their time in a way that their younger/less-experienced peers have not figured out.
Those students have my sympathy. But their peers? They've burned it all out of me.
I feel like living proof of this -- I got to go to college without having to work my way through, having struggled with several jobs at a time during high school. There was nothing to do BUT study, and I got a major fellowship package for graduate school, graduating from my doctoral program debt-free, with no undergraduate debt. The head start that gave me was priceless.
ReplyDeleteI have also taught at a CC and am currently at a SLAC. What I notice is that students at my SLAC STILL do not have enough out-of-class time, but for different reasons from the CC students. My SLAC students don't have the same childcare-job-expectation-arrested-and-held-overnight-in-jail excuses. The SLAC student excuses range from their cars not starting while they were at the mall, not being able to find or get the textbook, or "medical" conditions (such as going to the ER because of a bad headache, Red bull overdose, or a roommate with a medical condition).
ReplyDeleteMy CC students seemed better able to navigate life, whereas my SLAC students sometimes don't even know that you go to the bookstore to purchase books, not to the library, for example.
Sounds like a good situation, Darla!
Hey now, Red Bull overdose is a serious affliction, especially when mixed with vodka. A delicious, blackout-inducing affliction.
DeleteI'm doing this over Spring Break. Thanks for the advice. ;o)
DeleteMy CC students seemed better able to navigate life, whereas my SLAC students sometimes don't even know that you go to the bookstore to purchase books, not to the library, for example
DeleteI wonder if a lot of this isn't just a bunch of acting--or if it doesn't speak to SLAC students' ability to feign helplessness in order to exploit their professors' good will. I think they learned early on that acting helpless gets you out of due dates. I'm sure that most of them are capable of figuring out how to use the class website or how to use the library; they've simply been rewarded previously for using "I couldn't do it" or "I didn't understand what you were asking so I didn't try" as an excuse. It's a fool-proof tactic: Is your professor really going to punish you because you didn't understand how to do something? If so, you can always go to his boss and complain about what an unreasonable meanie he is, and how it's your first semester so you can't be expected to use the bookstore.
Yeah, excellent point; some of it is laziness and feigned helplessness because they can. I don't let them, and they rarely try that shit on me twice.
DeleteThe other part of it also involves parents who are very invested in and attached to their children and will do anything for said children. I've had more than one parent drive from hours away to pick up a package they'd mailed to their child from the campus mailroom on campus b/c said child claimed not to know where the mailroom is. So since these children are used to this pattern at home, they try it in college, too.
Bring back the shorts!
ReplyDeleteAre profs really oblivious to the fact that every student regards CC's as cash and carry transfer credits?
ReplyDeleteThat's not the case in my experience, nearly 10 years teaching at a large CC. A large number of my students got credit with me for a variety of programs, certificates, and associate degrees in disciplines like architecture, culinary arts, aviation, car repair, criminal justice, computer technology, engineering, pharmacy, and on and on.
DeleteAlso, why the fuck are you here? Every comment I see you make is some kind of a slam at professors. Do you know who this page is for? Maybe it's not right for you.
Then students need to get a clue. Transfer credits don't do you much good if they don't transfer because your constant complaining about having to <shudder> work has brought the standards down so low.
DeleteRetroactively preface my comment with "every student" = students who already have transferred from CC to my univ which is literally down the road. So I'm not referencing people who are just there taking classes for the fun of it (re: Darla's reply). I've heard everything from it being completely impossible to get anything lower than a B if you have a pulse to having "lab assignments" that would make middle school students laugh at how easy they are.
DeleteAnd I'm here because I enjoy reading tales of student dumbassery.
I don't think Darla's reply
Deletehad anything to do
with people taking CC courses
for the "fun of it."
On the other hand,
most of the list she offered
seemed awfully professional.
And you've been a bad actor
already here, Stalker.
I hope you will enjoy the place,
and not spend your time
thinking your tweaks
do anything more than
prove to us how right we are.
This is just such obvious troll bait. And moreover: boring. Try harder next time.
DeleteTake out community college and add any institution of higher education, really. Life intercedes for everyone, and the good students push through despite it and the poor students get distracted. Not just CC students, even graduate students get bogged down with life stuff. I had several peers that thought grad school was prime-time for baby making. Hey, that was their choice and more power to them. But I've been out for a while and they are still languishing. I have sympathy for students that have a parent to care for or need to put food on the table. But make wise decisions for fucks sake. Learning takes some dedicated time, and there are only so many hours in the day. If you don't have the time for a CC or a SLAC or an R1 graduate program, maybe you should refocus your priorities toward something you can actually accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI'm not at a CC, but many of my students take a very, very heavy load of classes, up to six classes a semester. How the hell do they do their work? It seems like many of them do the bare minimum to pass. I suspect they do it to reduce their college costs, which is understandable, but I wish they could take 3-4 classes a semester and learn more!
ReplyDeleteBut then, even at the CCs you have the occasional superkeener who thinks they can do it all, I've known some of them. There was the guy who was working two jobs and doing 15 units and dating some girl on the side and he called me a slacker for doing 10 units one semester. Then there was the guy on the speech team who had saved all his money and did 20 units in one semester so he could transfer and only pay for one year while at Drinker's College. They always claimed to be doing very well, but I wonder...
ReplyDelete______________________
This happened at Crusty Rock Community College, a real school I have disguised because we are all anonymous, right?
Drinker's College is a real place, so named because they have a bar on campus and a party school reputation; many people from Crusty Rock and it's sister college Giant Slab, wanted to transfer to Drinker's.
I'm jealous. I'm at a small liberal arts college within the state system. They are residential fulltimers and have all the time in the world. But they don't do jack b/c they've been taught they're customers too. The irony is that their entire education won't total a semester at a private school - yet they think they deserve VIP treatment because it isn't literally free.
ReplyDeleteDarla - agreed. I'm at a CC and it sounds exactly the same. I tutor rich HS kids that do much harder assignments, but at the same time I think I hold my class up to standard - certainly not everyone passes and I usually have grades that fall in the shape of a u...either they come in knowing everything or most everything or they come in knowing nothing and leave knowing nothing...it's a non-major's course. However, I feel like there are a lot of students at non CCs, SLACs, ivies, etc. that also think they are a customer. I think it is part of the culture now. It sucks and I'm not sure what can be done. I try to make my classes challenging/interesting for those that know a lot when they come in, but it's difficult to maintain a balance, but other teachers at the CC that teach the same course (or other profs that teach other courses) pass anyone and everyone no matter what...and the dumbing down does a huge disservice to several students.
ReplyDeleteI have students trying to do even graduate level work on some abstraction like medieval Europe or 19th century literature while working 12 hour shifts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Along with the "You Must Go To College" ideology comes the necessity of making it possible. When it isn't, we change what college is until it is.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to how students balance school, work, family, partying and everything else, the real difference between students is night and day, literally. The night students have more to balance and slack off less than the day students. The difference between day and night students, I've found, is even greater than the difference between students at CC's, SLAC's or other kinds of institutions.
ReplyDeleteThe students at LD3C are clueless about what it takes to earn their education, but I'm wondering these days how much of it is their fault. Here at LD3C, students straight out of high school come from genuinely wretched schools where just showing up often enough without perpetrating violence seems to have equated to a diploma. Many of the students who are returning to education after having spent years in the work force are often students who didn't give a tea party about education ten, twenty, thirty years ago--and they don't seem to want to start now.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing about my LD3C students that does drive me battier than anything else. Many of them miss many days--some serially, some here and there--and then expect me to somehow magically to have a firm grasp on their progress (or lack thereof). I have some students who attend so infrequently that I literally do not know who they are when they return to class. (They are offended by that, btw.) None of them--not one single one of them--comes to one of my many, many office hours to figure out what's going on.