Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Oberlin, Amirite? #2

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12 comments:

  1. Post of the Week! Also, I want to marry this professor.

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  2. I like the cut of this professor's jib.

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  3. Maybe there's more backstory than I realize (and I am aware of the similar requests at some law schools, whose students can at least claim a professional interest in the subject; still, juggling an interest in public affairs with everyday obligations is presumably something aspiring lawyers need to learn to do), but it strikes me as particularly questionable that this self-identified white student has taken it upon herself to speak for "people of color" -- and, especially, to claim that they've found the last few weeks particularly traumatic. I don't want to make the same mistake, but it strikes me that the last few weeks have revealed longstanding, ongoing sources of fear/trauma for many people of color that have been all too easy for many white people to ignore. Whether having the problem out in the open, confirmed all too blatantly by recent court/police actions, is traumatic, cathartic, or both probably depends to some extent on the individual, hir experience(s), and hir underlying temperament. At least Della seems to realize that some students might prefer a postponed final and some might not (sometimes the best approach to a hard semester is to close it out, however messily), but, overall, she seems to be making pretty broad generalizations from uncertain data (not a good thing in a statistics student).

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    1. Okay, I'm seeing a bit more context in the video below. This isn't Della's idea alone. I'm still coming down on the side of this being a lesson in time management and the consequences/costs of activism. Sometimes you have to give something else up to fight for what you believe in. Owning those choices is part of adulthood.

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  4. By standing firm, that prof taught the students a valuable lesson. Real life often involves having to make decisions, neither of which may be palatable, and whatever choice one makes, it will come at a cost.

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  5. I have a colleague who says that the thing that is missing the most in the modern student is any sense of accountability. They are used to getting the redos and the do overs.

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    1. That would be supported by the emails I'm getting from students who disappeared 4-8 weeks (or more) ago, and are reappearing in my email inbox, wanting to meet with me, now that I've recorded the Fs that accurately reflect the amount of work I receive from them on the registrar's website (about a week after the final deadline for turning in work for the class, which is very clearly spelled out in the syllabus). At least so far they're taking "no" for an answer.

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    2. YES. And like CC, it is amazing how much they want to do missed work ~2 weeks before the end of the semester!

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  6. But the students ARE in a place to take their finals.
    It's called a university.

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  7. "But the students ARE in a place to take their finals.
    It's called a university."
    - EC1

    Finals could be done in an empty warehouse.....it's everything you do before the finals that counts.

    Labor camp all Oberlin students because of this one girl.

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  8. They are nothing if not opportunists. Encouraged by their success in high school (as CM points out above), they feel like the same tactics will work in college. Sadly, some proffies will allow it, and they should be remanded to Strelnikov's labor camp forthwith.

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  9. My moles at Oberlin report that the student body is very much of several minds about this. Many students have attended attended protests and events, and requests for rescheduling academic exercises are often born of students' having mismanaged their time. Other students feel that the time to have asked for extensions was before attending the events, so suck it up. Some feel that in light of the already extant widespread protests, the best way to for them to personally make a difference is to complete their education and then attain positions from which they might steer the nation towards a better course. Others have signed a petition that states that the lowest grade anyone should receive this term is a C.

    Some feel that the best way for the privileged class to show support for the victim class is to stand with them, but not presume to articulate the latter's position as if they were incapable of doing so themselves, or as if the former's (often less-than-nuanced) view were applicable to all members of the latter.

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