While We're at It, Let's Do Away with Spring Break, Too

Wow, it's been awhile.  My apologies to my loyal readers out there--all both of them--but things have been busy at Solipsist Central.  Nevertheless, I felt compelled to throw in my two cents on yesterday's major court ruling in California.

In case you missed it, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu declared the state's law granting public school teachers tenure after eighteen months of service unconstitutional, based on the idea that tenure protections deprive students--in particular lower-income and minority students--of the state-guaranteed right to a quality education:

“'All sides to this litigation agree that competent teachers are a critical, if not the most important, component of success of a child’s in-school educational experience,' Judge Treu wrote in his ruling. 'There is also no dispute that there are a significant number of grossly ineffective teachers currently active in California classrooms.'”

I, too, basically agree with that entire statement (although words and phrases like "significant number" and "ineffective" are so vague as to be meaningless).  Still, however, I reject the conclusion that, somehow, eliminating tenure protections will lead to a vast improvement in overall educational quality.

When the general public hears the word "tenure," they probably picture college professors: tweed-bedecked academics sipping brandy and pontificating on intellectual ephemera with little concern for or interest in the real world needs of the students they teach.  Those who brought this particular case see tenure as little more than a job-protection program for incompetent teachers.  And I will acknowledge that tenure laws do make it difficult to get rid of unsatisfactory teachers.  But people need to remember that the original idea behind tenure was not to protect the incompetent from some deserved termination, but rather to protect highly-qualified professionals from arbitrary punishment when they expressed unpopular ideas.  Is this, in fact, still a problem?  Consider that there are school boards in Kansas that discourage the teaching of evolution.  If you were a Kansas science teacher, would you be willing to discuss Darwin in a classroom--even as an alternative to creationist nonsense--unless you had some kind of tenure?

More to the point, though, What, exactly, do opponents of tenure expect will happen if they achieve their goals.  Let's say we could all agree on some objective definition of "incompetence," and that schools subsequently rid themselves of all their tenured-but-incompetent instructors.  What then?  Do you suppose there will be some sudden influx of brilliant, dedicated instructors rushing to fill these classes?  Do you think there is a vast pool of people dying to teach--if only this already poorly compensated profession would do away with one of the few perqs it offers?  Or would the remaining instructors--by definition those who are competent-to-excellent--simply be asked to do even more, take on more classes, teach more students--knowing that if they are unable to keep up with the ever-increasing demands, they, too, will be found incompetent and summarily replaced?

Sure, it should be easier to get rid of grossly incompetent teachers.  But in an underfunded, undervalued, overcrowded, and overburdened school system, teacher tenure is one of the least important "problems" to be tackling.

Senior Moments

As the NCAA basketball season winds down, and March marches inexorably toward madness, many colleges are hosting "Senior Nights" at ball games.  These games, typically the final home game of the regular season, offer fans the chance to honor and bid farewell to those players who will soon be graduating.  But these days, virtually all of the best players--those destined for NBA superstardom--leave college as underclassmen; many are "one and done" players, serving their obligatory (since an NBA rule change) freshman-year sentence in relatively luxurious serfdom at a major university, before declaring for the draft and reaping millions come June.  So, if you think about it--and I do--those seniors everyone is bidding adieu are almost inevitably not stars, not frontline players, not likely to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated or the back pages of your local tabloids any time soon.  They are talented, to be sure, but not quite talented enough to rise to the top tier of their field.  One cannot help but wonder--and perhaps worry a little--about how these young men and women will fare once they depart the cozy confines of their university gymnasia, as highly educated (we can only hope!) members of the common herd.

Put on a Friendly Face

The other day, a student spoke about how "unwelcoming" a college could be.  She spoke of being made to feel like a nuisance when she sought help from college staff members.  Then someone else--an administrator, this time--talked about how he once, as a sort of experiment, decided to stand in line at the Admissions counter to get a sense of what the experience was like.  He described being struck by the preponderance of signage advising people what they couldn't do: "Please end all cell phone conversations before speaking to the clerical staff"; "Do not place anything on the counter"; "Please do not tease or feed the financial aid representatives."  I kid about that last one, but you get the idea.

The student then went on to describe how, from her point of view, so much of the communication she experienced at the college took this kind of negative or domineering tone:  the typical class syllabus, for example.  Now, a syllabus is, essentially, a contract between an instructor and his class.  It outlines what the course will cover, as well as the expectations for both students and faculty.  As such, the syllabus must be fairly extensive and formal.  And this formality can certainly be intimidating: "Assignments must be handed in on the dates indicated. No late assignments will be accepted, and students will receive a grade of '0' for any assignment not handed in": "All written assignments must follow MLA format.  Any papers that fail to adhere to MLA format will receive a failing grade": "Students who miss more than six hours of class will be dropped from the class."

Again, as a quasi-legal document, the course syllabus must serve its contractual obligation and clearly delineate the rules and expectations.  But what the student said got me thinking about why (or whether) an official document had to be so draconian sounding.  What would a "softer" syllabus sound like?  "In order for me [i.e., the instructor] to give you helpful feedback on your work, you need to make sure that you hand work in on time.  Unfortunately, due to the limited time we have over the course of the semester, I cannot accept late work"; "In this class, you will learn how to document sources properly using MLA format.  After you learn these techniques, you will need to apply them to your formal written assignments for this--and other--classes"; "We cover a lot of information in our class meetings, so, if you miss more than six hours of class, you will not be able to do all the necessary work to achieve a passing grade.  In that event, I may drop you from the class so that you do not receive a failing grade."

A difference without a distinction?  Possibly.  Still, it pays for an organization to think about the minor variations possible in the ways it interacts with its clientele. Small gestures in the service of better presentation may make a big difference to the customer.

What the Dean Do?

As I went through the application process for this position, I was heartened--touched, really--by a huge outpouring of support from members of the various departments that I would supervise if I actually got the job.  So many people came up to me to express their sincere appreciation to me for pursuing the job--and not just, as is often the case, because they themselves wouldn't take the job if you paid them!

(Wait, I AM getting paid for this, right?  OK, good.)

No, people seemed to think I would actually be good at the job.  They expressed faith in my managerial abilities, as well as a sense that I am someone who is easy to work with.  And I am!  Easy to work with, that is.  I have always taken an approach to work--whatever job I held--that there is pretty much never a reason to get too worked up about anything.  At a college, for example, no matter how crazy things get, no matter how many additional requirements get dumped on people, the fundamental job remains fairly straightforward: Teach the students.  Everything else really doesn't matter all that much.  Anyway, this fundamentally laconic attitude, I think, was reassuring to the people I work with: They know that I'm not going to get too stressed out, nor am I going to get terribly worked up about "the small stuff."

Absent, however, from all these expressions of faith and encouragement was any clear sense of what I would do as dean.  And then I realized why: Nobody exactly understands just what it is that a dean does!  I mean, we all knew that a dean oversaw the creation of the class schedule and monitored budgets.  And everybody knows about the best part of the dean job: canceling classes!  But there are only so many classes one can cancel.  (Alas!)  And then what?

For the benefit of future generations of mid-level higher-education managers, then, I will attempt to document here the various things that I do in my new decanal position.  First and foremost, I learn!  I have learned, for example, that the adjectival form of the word "dean" is "decanal."  I have learned in my first two days on the job how to fill out forms requesting new classes, changing instructors, and canceling classes--in fact, they're all the same form!!! I have filled out forms requesting that instructors be allowed to teach more than they are supposed to be teaching!  I have filled out forms requesting keys!  I have filled out forms ensuring that people get paid on time!  It's been an exciting start, I can tell you!

At my interview, I was asked about things like my vision for the position.  I didn't mention a neverending succession of forms.  So I guess I got that answer wrong.

Advice to an OLD Teacher: And Now What?

A few months ago, I went to an academic conference.  One of the breakout sessions was an hour-long discussion about why so few faculty aspired to go into administration.  I didn't actually attend this session, as I couldn't comprehend why anyone would need an hour to say, "Well, duh!"  Because, seriously, why would anyone, given a choice, opt for a workweek filled with meetings, bureaucracy, and complaints over the much more innately appealing prospect of hanging out with students, pontificating for several hours a week on a topic that interests you, and having summers off?  It's a fair question.

Nevertheless, last semester, when my own longtime dean announced her retirement, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and apply for her job.  And today, I was informed that I got it.  And now I am answering the obvious question: Why?

Mainly, I want a new challenge.  I enjoy teaching, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but I've been doing it now, in one way or another, for over twenty years.  It's time for something new.  And as much as administration features some unappealing aspects--I dread the meetings that are, I fear, going to become a major part of my life for years to come--administration also, possibly, offers opportunities.  If nothing else, a good administrator can make it easier for good teachers to do a good job.  If nothing else, I hope that becomes part of my legacy.

But, legacies are a long way off.  Tomorrow is day one.  Let the adventure begin!

Dubious Moments in Management

This semester has featured some calendrical oddities: In addition to beginning on a Friday--which is actually typical--this semester offers less than two weeks of classes between Thanksgiving and the end of the semester.  What this means for me and other teachers in my department is that final exams--which are all administered department-wide on the same day--have to be graded in a compressed timeframe.

We grade the exams collectively: One teacher reads an exam (not knowing who has written it--the students' names are covered), grades it, and then it is passed along to another teacher--who doesn't know what the first teacher has given it--to grade.  Usually, we have at least a week to do all this, but this semester, we have only about three days.  So, in the spirit of efficiency, I pulled department-chair rank and called in all the teachers to come together today for a sort of grading party.  We would all bring our exams--having done the first readings--and then we would just stay and read until all the second reads were done.  To make the offer palatable, I suggested people bring snacks.  Which they did.

We all got together, got our snacks, and proceeded to sit down and start to read.  Now, by general consensus, I am the fastest reader of these tests.  I pride myself on speed.  And, indeed, I train my students to accommodate the speedy reader: I tell them that these exams are graded holistically and that, when reading them, I do not want to think!  I should be able to read an exam quickly, smoothly, without having to pause or linger over anything.  Because, I explain, while making a reader think is sometimes the mark of a great piece of writing, it is more often--at least at this level--a result of opaque prose.  The less a piece of writing makes me think, the more likely it is to receive a passing grade.  So anyway, I can usually blast through these exams at a rate of 10-12 an hour.  Today, however, I got through about eight--in two hours!

The problem, of course, is that when you get a bunch of teachers together at the end of the semester, and set them a task of reading dozens of essays--or, more accurately, essentially the SAME essay dozens of times--they tend to get a bit slap-happy.  Throw in Nutter Butter cookies and Coca-Cola, and productivity is not going to be high.  And it seemed like such a good idea at the time!

Well, anyway, I'm home now.  And, if you'll excuse me. . . I have a bunch of essays to read.

Personally, I Think the Focus Should Be "Teacher Entertainment"

I am on the "Student Success" committee at my college, student success being the current catchphrase used by unseen bureaucrats to describe the purported guiding ethos of community-college educators.  Previous catchphrases have included things like "Equity" and "Learning."  I suppose "student success" is as good a lodestar as any.  Certainly better than "student failure," at any rate--although that would be considerably easier to achieve.

Two Great Tastes That Taste Gooder Together

COLLEAGUE OF SOLIPSIST: Uh-oh.

SOLIPSIST: What?

COS: My pile of student essays got mixed up with your pile of student essays.

SOL: Oh, great.  A Reese's Peanut-Butter Cup of grammatical dysfunction.

Stem the STEM Tide

When I first started college, I pursued a major in acting, a degree choice that was accepted by my liberal, teen-of-the-60's mother and greeted with no small amount of eye-rolling by any number of friends and well-wishers: What, exactly, did I think I was going to do with a degree in acting?.  I suppose on some level I, too, asked myself that question and came up with an unsatisfactory answer because, midway through my sophomore year I switched my major from the dramatic arts to the more socially acceptable English, with a soupcon of education-training thrown in.  Strangely enough, this was seen as a rational move, a practical step down the road to responsible adulthood.

Nowadays, though, such a change of major would elicit so much eye-rolling as to strain the optic nerves: Not only would a switch from drama to English be seen as, at best, a lateral move on the continuum of frivolity, but I would also be condemned for wasting my time and money on the inevitable inefficiencies of transferring.  Nowadays, if a student goes to college intending to study anything less obviously practical than, say, applied nuclear physics, he risks incurring the wrath of parents and society alike.  English--a major once so respectable as to inspire musical-theater balladry--is now just another academic dead-end.

Colleges have begun to take notice.  At Stanford and Harvard and any number of other bastions of higher education, administrators look on with concern as the enrollments in once proud humanities departments continue to shrink.  While the trend didn't start with the global economic meltdown, the recession has seemingly channeled ever-greater number of students into the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math)--these seeming to offer students greater chances of gainful employment upon graduation.  Why, the thinking goes, would anyone waste four-plus years and potentially tens of thousands of dollars on a degree in something as squishy as English?

I have to admit, I find myself on the defensive when confronting the question, "What good is an English degree?"  I mean, there is something apparently self-indulgent about spending years reading and discussing good books when one could spend those same years learning how to splice a nucleotide to a particle accelerator.  Or whatever it is that science people do.  Then again, maybe nucleotide-splicing is just as self-indulgent in its way, as the people who major in science probably enjoy lab work just as much as English majors enjoy books.

Or at least, they probably did, back in the days when not everyone felt compelled to major in "practical" fields whether they wanted to or not.  Which I think is an important point: Do we have more STEM majors because people want to major in STEM fields or simply because people think that only by majoring in these fields will they be able to find work?  And if the reason is the latter, then won't they be disappointed when they graduate and find themselves having to compete with a multitude of other graduates for what will still be a limited number of positions?  And won't the ones who get the best jobs still be the ones whose enthusiasm for the subject has led them to achieve at the highest levels--the ones who probably would have gone into the sciences anyway?

Humanities majors may not be as well-versed in the workings of the atom or the proper way to run an economy as those who pursue more scientific fields.  But those who study English or philosophy or music or, yes, drama develop valuable skills nonetheless--communication skills, writing skills, those oft-mentioned critical thinking skills that everyone values so highly.  Not everyone, frankly, is cut out for scientific careers--I'm certainly not--so why shouldn't students follow their passions to find something at which they can excel?  The jobs will come.  For what it's worth, while most of my fellow drama majors may not have achieved Broadway superstardom or landed lucrative multi-picture deals, they have pretty much all gone on to successful careers in any number of fields.  Who could argue with that?

An Academic Manager's Lot Is Not a Happy One

Managers deal with complaints.  It goes with the territory.  I am a manager--of sorts--and I am no exception.  I frequently have to handle complaints, primarily complaints lodged by students against faculty members or tutors or staff.  This is probably the single most difficult part of my job--almost never satisfying and frequently exasperating.

The main problem is I am never exactly sure what I am supposed to do when a student complains--particularly if she's complaining about a faculty member.  It's never cut and dried, you see.  Well, almost never: I mean if a student complains that an instructor, say, stripped down to his underwear and engaged in simulated sex acts with a piece of canteloupe--well, then I can pretty safely and decisively take action, or at the very least acknowledge that, yes, the instructor acted improperly.  (Unless it was a particularly attractive canteloupe, a possible mitigating factor.)  But circumstances are rarely so clear.

Typically, students complain that instructors (or tutors or staff members) were "rude" to them, or disrespectful, or unfair.  Students might complain that a teacher "isn't teaching them anything."  The problem, of course, is that the only evidence they offer for this is that they "haven't learned anything."  Sort of a chicken-egg scenario at best, you know?  And academia is not retail: The customer is not always right.  Seriously, just look at the test results!  I'm often happy if the "customers" are "right" just enough to earn a 'C.'  Kidding aside, though, most of the complaints I deal with revolve around he-said-she-said situations and/or subjective feelings.  The teacher isn't clear; I deserved a higher grade; that tutor has an "attitude."  What is a manager to do?

Years ago, I dealt with a student's complaint in precisely the wrong way: I tried to reason with him.  I was working as an office manager in a college departmental office.  A student came to see me because he wanted to file a complaint against his teacher for giving him a "bad" grade.  The grade she assigned?  A 'B.'  I pointed out to the student that a 'B' was hardly a bad grade--that, indeed, by definition a 'B' meant that the student had done "good work."  The student felt that he had done 'A' work--not because he had ever earned an 'A' on his assignments, but simply because he felt his work had been excellent.  I pointed out that he could certainly protest the grade (and I should have stopped there), but that it would be difficult if not impossible to prove that his work was "excellent" as opposed to just "quite good."  Things escalated, and we both ended up yelling at each other.  Nothing more came of it, but--well, this was about twenty years ago, and I STILL feel somewhat stymied by the whole customer-relations/complaint-resolution aspect of the academic-manager job.

I know now how to handle complaints, of course.  I do all the proper interpersonal-relations stuff: I listen, I reflect back what the speaker is saying, I try to put myself in the other person's shoes, I am calm but firm in my replies.  But in the end, I almost always find myself wrestling with a fundamental question: What am I supposed to do about this?  Again, if what a student describes is a violation of the law or school policies, I can follow up with the instructor--I must follow up with the instructor.  But if what's being described is purely subjective?  Is it worth following up on?  Will this simply make the instructor (or whoever) feel defensive?  Will it just make the situation worse?  And of course, as an educator, I also feel obligated to help the students make sense of the experience--to look critically at their own role in the situation and to help them identify ways that they could handle future situations better.  The customer is not always right, indeed.

Wait, What Do You Teach?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. . . .

STUDENT: Mr. Solipsist, is "kissing" sex?

Only if you're doing it right.

Only if you're doing it wrong.

Only if you're twelve.

It depends what the meaning of "is" is.

Kissing what?

Is kissing sex what?

I am legally enjoined from answering that question.

Advice for New Teachers: Try Sentence Disentangling

A number of writing teachers swear by sentence-combining as a technique for teaching students how to construct sentences.  The principle is simple enough: Give students a set of simple sentences, and have them put the clauses together in a more sophisticated form.  You can use sentences from anywhere.  Here's a set of independent clauses from a selection in an anthology I have lying around:

In June of 1968, I was drafted.
A month earlier, I had graduated from Macalester College.
I was drafted to fight a war.
I hated this war.

Put those together as Tim O'Brien did in the essay "On the Rainy River," and you'll end up with this:

"In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated."

It's actually kind of fun, if you're the type of person who enjoys this sort of thing (a nerd.),  But I'm not sure it gets at the heart of what troubles beginning-level writers.  Most of my students, for example, suffer less from a tendency to write overly simplistic sentences than from what we may consider the opposite tendency--the tendency to write things like this:

"The points that he described in his essay were very practical, especially the points about childhood stereotyping that how we try to make sense of the world, and what we should do to prevent ourselves from stereotyping."

Kind of makes you long for those boring clauses transcribed above, no?

I suspect that what causes this sort of verbal tragedy is a kind of insecurity: Inexperienced writers fear that if they don't, with all deliberate speed, get down on paper every thought that flashes through their minds, then they will lose the thought forever.  In the sentence above, things are going more or less OK up until "childhood stereotyping" (which is actually an incorrect phrase, as the essay being discussed is speaking about stereotyping learned during childhood--but let that go).  At that point, though, I suspect the writer had flashes of ideas about other points to make, and proceeded to throw them down without regard for sense or syntax.

It's OK.  As I explain to my students when I introduce them to these Word Monsters, every writer, whether novice or expert, does it from time to time--composes these sprawling, incoherent sentences.  The difference between good writers and bad is that when good writers spawn Word Monsters, they never see the light of day: They are snuffed out shortly after their creation, transformed into--if not high poetry, at least understandable prose.

What these sentences call for is not combining, then, but disentangling.  Take the sentence above (please!).

"The points that he described in his essay were very practical, especially the points about childhood stereotyping that how we try to make sense of the world, and what we should do to prevent ourselves from stereotyping."

I tell students that, if they find they've written a long sentence--or a sentence that feels long--to try to take it apart in order to see what they've actually got.  One way to start working with a sentence like the above Word Monster is to try pulling out all the verbs and trying to match them with their subjects.  This yields:

He described
The points were
We try
We should do

And right away, students can see a problem: After all, if we assume that a sentence's subjects should tell us a little something about the topic of a sentence--and we do--then this sentence has some lousy subjects.  From there, we could think about what the sentence is actually about: stereotyping (or, to be precise, an essay about stereotyping).

The author made points about stereotyping.
The points were practical.

"We try to make sense of the world [by stereotyping]" might become "Stereotypes help us make sense of the world."

"What we should do to prevent stereotyping" could become simplified to "We should prevent stereotyping."

Ultimately, once we untangle the sentence--and clarify what the writer meant--we might end up with a few sentences--combining the individual sentence parts, yes, but only after we have pulled the original sentence apart:

"The author made several practical points about stereotyping.  He explained that we stereotype because of childhood experiences and in order to make sense of the world.  He also suggests ways we could prevent stereotyping."

Ready for The New Yorker?  Probably not.  But an improvement over the original?  You betcha.

Advice to New Teachers: Please, If You're Good, Stick with It

I have been a teacher in one capacity or another--tutor, workshop leader, classroom instructor--for over twenty years now.  I have been a good teacher for maybe seven or eight years.  That's not false modesty--merely an honest assessment.  And I don't mean to give the impression that prior to, say, 2005 or so I posed a threat to the intellectual development of any students who had the misfortune to find themselves under my charge.  I do mean, however, that only after teaching for a good long time did I consider myself fully qualified to call myself a teacher; only then did I feel confident in my abilities to plan effective lessons and manage the day-to-day workings of a classroom environment.  Because, frankly, it takes some time to learn this stuff.

Now, charter schools have their share of supporters and detractors, but one sign of their questionable overall quality must surely be the fact--detailed in an article in The New York Times--that the average length of a charter-school teacher's tenure ranges from two to five years.  This means, as far as I'm concerned, that at the moment that a qualified (one hopes!) instructor is just beginning to grasp the ins and outs of the teaching profession--at that very moment, the teacher is preparing to move on.  What's even more disturbing is the fact that charter-school administrators tend to encourage such turnover:

“We have this highly motivated, highly driven work force who are now wondering, ‘O.K., I’ve got this, what’s the next thing?’ ” said Jennifer Hines, senior vice president of people and programs at YES Prep. “There is a certain comfort level that we have with people who are perhaps going to come into YES Prep and not stay forever.”

To begin with, Jennifer--and anyone else who shares her viewpoint--if your attitude towards "highly motivated" and "highly driven" teachers is that they are essentially replaceable, perhaps interchangeable parts, please do us all a favor and get out of the education business.  It is precisely such "highly driven" people you should be desperate to retain; it is just such people who should be teaching the next generation.  Moreover, when that two-year veteran teacher says to herself, "O.K., I've got this," the response should be, not to put too fine a point on it, "Bullshit!"

Of course, part of the reason a highly-motivated teacher may flee a charter school for the "next thing" after two brief years is the very nature of charter schools, which more often than not stress rote memorization over creativity:

Novice teachers receive constant feedback from principals and other campus administrators. . . .       

Observing two first-year math teachers, [Ms. Singleton, an administrator] noticed that both were reviewing place values with sixth graders. . . .And when one teacher exhorted her students to give themselves a celebratory chant, Ms. Singleton corrected the teacher’s instructions. 'I have to interrupt,' Ms. Singleton said. 'It’s two claps and then a sizzle.'

I have no idea what that even means, and I'm insulted on behalf of the teacher! 

People lament the state of public education, but the only true way to improve education is to improve teaching.  We can all debate what will or will not strengthen classroom teaching, but it's just common sense to note that de-professionalizing the profession--sending the message that teaching is not a career to aspire to but a temporary way-station en route to "the next thing"--will not improve anything.

Great Moments in Writing Instruction

"A sentence is. . . . A sentence is like a. . like something you ride--like a horse!  It can take you anywhere you want to go, but you need to control it. . . and so your punctuation marks are like the, the, the reins that you use. . . to control the, uh, the horse--the sentence. . . so that it doesn't get away from you. . . like this one just got away from me."

Indoctrination Day

The other day in my e-mail at work, I found the following message, forwarded by my dean from the vice-president's office:

Pursuant to legislation passed in 2005, any educational institution receiving Federal funds is required to provide educational programs pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17^th each year.  This year Constitution Day falls on a Tuesday.    By way of this email, I am asking you to follow-up with your areas to see how faculty and staff can incorporate this observance into their classes or student programs.  Afterwards, we will need to collect information about the different activities and have this documentation available in case of an audit. . . .  . I look forward to hearing the creative ways we can help students learn more about our Constitution and government.  

Please keep this in mind as you prepare your classes.

My first reaction: "Are. You. Kidding. Me?"--except for "kidding," substitute a scatological verb modified by a vulgar sexual adverb--to which the dean replied, "Expected response. Please direct your inquiries to the vice-president's office."

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge fan of 18th-century governmental charters.  And as these things go, the United States Constitution is quite the page-turner, especially compared with such snoozefests as the Swiss Regulations for the Sovereign Council (1790).  But is there not something ironic in this governmental diktat requiring the teaching of the Constitution on September 17?  Suggested slogan: "Celebrate Our Right to Freedom of Speech by Surrendering Your Own!"
 

Advice to New Teachers: Howzabout You Just TEACH Them?

My first quasi-teaching job was tutoring in the Hunter College Writing Center.  We would work with students of all skill levels, but a majority of our clientele consisted of students in "developmental classes"--what, in a less enlightened era, would have been called remedial English.  Frequently, we tutors would lament the dearth of skill among our tutees, bemoaning the quality--or lack thereof--of K-12 education in New York City that had brought us to this desperate pass.  Invariably, though, when our supervisor--a transplanted Chicagoan by the name of Dennis Paoli--heard us kvetching about, say, our students' inability to write at even the most rudimentary levels, he would harangue us in an eminently imitatable adenoidal tone, "Well, then, why don't you all just teach them?!?"

A fair point.  It was, after all, what we were ostensibly there for.

At the beginning of every semester, I am reminded of Dennis's advice.  Sadly, though, the people I now hear complaining about their students' shortcomings are not exclusively student tutors--who are, after all, in a sort of apprenticeship position and thus may be forgiven their judgmentalism--but often full-fledged writing instructors.  I cannot tell you how often I have heard professors complain about a student's inability to compose clear thesis statements or another's tendency to write run-on sentences.  And when I hear these complaints, I hear Dennis's voice clanging around my skull, "Well, why don't you just teach them?!?"

To be sure, some students are seriously misplaced, registered in a college-level composition course when an assessment reveals that they truly belong in a class two levels below.  But this is rare: maybe two students out of a class of thirty (and there may just as likely be two students who truly belong in a higher level class).  The vast majority of the class--the middle of the bell curve--consists of students quite appropriately enrolled.  Sure, some will struggle, and some will breeze, but all will get something from the instruction, provided the instructor approaches the class with the proper mindset.

When I hear teachers complain on Day One that a number of their students "can't write"--often based on nothing more than a quick diagnostic exam that a majority of students choose not to take seriously anyway--I always wonder what, exactly, these teachers were expecting.  It would be lovely to have a class filled with Ernest Hemingways or Kurt Vonneguts, but those guys don't need to take basic writing classes.  And besides, they're dead!  Far better to work with the live students you have in front of you, even if they do occasionally misplace a modifier.

Advice for New Teachers (Jobhunting Edition): Engage, Engage, Engage

If you apply for a teaching position, you can expect to be asked to do a teaching demonstration.  Generally, the interviewers will ask you to treat them as if they were students--and many will act like students, too, with all the challenges that implies.  When you find yourself in this situation, take it very seriously: It's often the make-or-break moment of the whole application process.

Look, anyone can say the right things during the question-and-answer portion of the interview, and anyone can put together a lesson plan.  These things are not overly impressive.  If you want to impress, the demo is your chance.  It's your audition, your chance to show what you would actually do in front of an actual classroom.  So act accordingly.

I am always amazed when an interviewee spends his or her whole teaching demonstration at the blackboard lecturing.  When I'm interviewing someone, I want to know how that person will engage students.  I don't care if she makes it through the whole lesson plan (or portion thereof) that she prepared for the interview; indeed, an applicant who is doing a good job probably won't get through her whole lesson: She'll be too busy answering the questions I'm peppering her with.  She'll need to take a moment to alter course when she realizes that I'm just not getting it, or she'll have to remind me not to text during class.

Teaching is all about communication--about interactions.  Show your interlocutors that you know how to interact.

Advice to New Teachers: Never Underestimate the Motivational Power of Laziness

Today we began discussing "argumentation" in my writing class.  I tried something different.  It needs some fine-tuning, but overall I think it proved fairly effective in introducing the topic.

When I walked in, I told the class that, having looked at their work thus far this summer--and considering that we have only about two weeks left before the final exam--I had decided that they needed more practice with high-stakes, in-class writing.  Tomorrow, therefore, I was going to give them an in-class essay exam that would count toward their final grade--unless they could convince me not to.

Well, all of a sudden, these students--who constantly protest that they cannot come up with any ideas when given a writing assignment--began barraging me with reasons why they shouldn't have to take an exam tomorrow: They already have too much work to do for my class, as well as any other classes they might be taking.  They had just taken an essay exam, so there was no need to do another one.  The class syllabus says nothing about the possibility of additional exams (the most compelling reason, actually).  And besides, Mr. Solipsist, you don't really want to grade another set of essays, do you?  (OK, that was the most compelling reason.)  And not only did they have these reasons, they also had support for these reasons--logical, relevant support!

Need I say that there never was going to be an exam tomorrow?  ('Cause I'll be damned if I was about to grade a whole 'nother set of essays!)  I imagine that some of my more perceptive students, who knew we were going to discuss argumentation today, figured out that I was bluffing and merely wanted to demonstrate the uses of argument in everyday life.  One thing I need to think about for the next time I try this is whether I actually should be prepared to give a test if the class's attempts at persuasion fall short.  Nevertheless, today anyway, the whole class participated in a discussion, for a change, and with minimal prodding from me.  If nothing else, I enjoyed seeing a real-life demonstration of the idea that writing is easy if you have something important--important to you--to say.

Failure of Admissions

I swear this has never happened to me before!  I mean, I know it happens. . .  It's a fairly common problem and not anything I should feel particularly embarrassed about. . . . It happens to guys all the time. . .  Still, until it happens to you personally, you just feel like you're invulnerable and then. . . .

What?  Oh, this class that I was supposed to teach got cancelled due to low enrollment.  Why, what did you think I was talking about?

PERVERTS!!!!

And, no, that has never happened to me, thank you very much.

(WOS: [sigh])

But the whole class-cancellation thing is humbling.  Probably the first step on my inevitable downward slide to professorial irrelevancy.    No more "Cool Professor S."  Soon I'll just be "Old Prof. Solipsist."  ("Don't take him! He makes you read paper books!")  I feel this overwhelming urge to go sew elbow patches onto something.  C'mere, cats!

Not Rotten to the Core

Coming soon to--or perhaps already arrived at--a school near you: The Common Core State Standards.  As the name implies, the Common Core comprises a set of academic requirements (in math and language skills) that students are supposed to master in each grade through high school.  While adoption of the Common Core is, strictly speaking, voluntary, the vast majority of states have committed to using them, not least because adopting the Common Core was a pre-requisite to qualify for federal funding in the "Race to the Top" program.  Conservatives dislike the Common Core, seeing it as unwarranted federal intrusion in an area--public education--historically reserved for the states.  Liberals are uneasy about the Common Core's reliance on standardized testing and its potential use as a bludgeon against teachers.  ("Mr. Smith, your students' scores on the Common Core exams fell 3% this year.  What do you have to say for yourself?")

First, to the conservatives: You are absolutely right that the Common Core represents a federal mandate.  (Yes, technically, as mentioned above, the curriculum is voluntary, but since so much funding depends on its adoption, the Common Core is voluntary in much the same way that eating is voluntary: One doesn't have to do it, but one will probably not enjoy the results of such a choice.)  But, seriously, folks, haven't we outgrown the notion that education policy should be left to the states?  It's a truism that the world is flat--that Americans are competing for jobs and opportunities not only with people within their own communities but with people from across the entire country and, indeed, the world.  Can anyone truly argue that the educational needs of a child in New York differ fundamentally from those of a child in Mississippi?  When educational researchers and policy experts lament the fact that Americans consistently lag their peers in South Korea or Germany (or the Czech Republic, for Pete's sake!), they are implicitly or explicitly calling for a national educational policy.  There is no reason a high school student in Arkansas shouldn't have to suffer as much with trigonometry as an 11th grader in Massachusetts.

A more liberal-leaning complaint bemoans the Core's emphasis on measurable skills, which do not take into account the need for students to experience the more intrinsic rewards of learning.  These complaints deal mainly with the language-based standards.  According to public school teacher Claire Needell Hollander,

"The writers of the Common Core had no intention of killing literature in the classroom. But the convenient fiction that yearly language learning can be precisely measured by various “metrics” is supplanting the importance of literary experience. The Common Core remains neutral on the question of whether my students should read Shakespeare, Salinger or a Ford owner’s manual, so long as the text remains 'complex.'"

Well, again, yes.  Certainly, I would personally encourage students to read Shakespeare rather than a repair manual for a tractor (unless we're talking about Cymbeline, in which case it's a toss-up), but as I mentioned in a previous post, the point is that students should read and, by reading, develop their reading skills.  When it comes to testing students' reading abilities, the more they have been exposed to the written word--in whatever form--the better they will be able to perform on standardized tests.  Now, we can argue that standardized tests--especially of the multiple-choice variety--are not the best way to evaluate a student's knowledge, and we can and should look for other evaluative mechanisms.  But again there is nothing inherently objectionable in the idea that all students--regardless of which state they live in--should possess certain literacy skills.

I do share some concern about Common Core standards being used as a weapon to punish teachers and teachers' unions.  Especially in the early going, one can expect that students will struggle with some of the Common Core's requirements--particularly if these students have not been adequately prepared in the years that have preceded the Core's implementation. If a fifth-grade teacher is suddenly responsible for teaching certain material that the students are not ready for (based on their suddenly "subpar" fourth-grade instruction), it seems unfair to punish that teacher when the results are less than satisfactory in the first few years.  Once the Common Core has been around for some time, though, it stands to reason that teachers and students will adjust.  Ultimately, I am not against the idea of teacher accountability or even using standardized test scores as a part--a PART--of a teacher evaluation system.  And frankly, a Common Core could make life easier--or at least more predictable--for a teacher facing evaluation: No matter where the teachers are working, they know what they need to teach and what standards they will be held to.

A Common Core--a common body of knowledge--is a logical development in education.  There is no reason to oppose it reflexively.