Learning in Creative Chaos

My response to "Are Colleges Failing?"

I've given it time, but this is still going to sound like a knee jerk response and a lot of people would disagree with me. However, I'm going to say it--Bok's stance and suggestions seem to miss the big picture, at least from what I've experienced and seen personally.

Colleges and universities are only part of the educational problem in this country. When I taught Freshman Composition, I could not believe the level at which some of my students were writing. I had students who claimed to have graduated with honors (two who said they'd graduated at the tops of their respective classes) who could not put a structured paragraph together. When the public schools are putting this level of students out into the realm of higher academia, how are we at the college level supposed to correct in four years what they haven't learned in the prior 12 (or more, if they attended pre-K and kindergarten)?

While I believe everyone CAN learn, I think that all too many students on these levels enter college because its expected of them or because getting the piece of paper (degree) will further their employment opportunities. What they don't see is that education is a process, not a product. This "wrongsightedness" can easily be witnessed in the level of plagiarism running rampant on our campuses. For students who use this method as an "out," it's not about learning to write correctly, but getting the grade they need with the least possible effort. For students with this mindset, I would suggest that a four-year college is not for them. Technical schools are designed to get the training people need for solid careers with the least amount of time and effort (or at least that's what their commercials lead one to believe).

I think, as universities, we do a disservice by accepting those who obviously are not "cut out of the academic cloth." This makes me sound as an elitist, but hear me out. When its obvious via test scores, class ranking, HS course loads, grades, interviews, etc. that a perspective student may not be prepared for university level coursework, why is it that so many universities are willing to take these students in, fully knowing the high probability that these students will fail? Is it money? If the universities truly believe that they can bring these students along, why are there classes that are known as "gatekeeper courses," usually at a freshman or sophomore level, with coursework specifically designed to "weed out" the weakest students? Isn't it time we stopped talking out of both sides of our mouth?

And isn't it time that this country actually changed its education system so that those students who do not have a penchant for academic subjects had the opportunity to learn a trade before leaving high school? What has happened to our vo-tech and trade schools? When I graduated in 1990, the school I attended was quickly dismantling the vo-tech center, program by program. The 4-H club and ag classes had been disbanded four years prior, replaced by courses on psychology, communications, sociology, etc--and this in a community whose main sources of income were farming, trucking and lumber! The department of education has to get real and match the public school offerings to the local community needs.

Otherwise, what ends up happening is a lot of students who aren't trained well enough to take over the family business but never really thought about going to college until they had to. They're ill prepared, both academically and mentally for the challenge put before them and, all too often, fail before they've really gotten started. As university-level educators, we can put in place all the programs we want to, but until the broken lower rungs of the ladder are fixed, these "high risk" students are not going to reach the same level of achievement in the same numbers as their counterparts.

Just my two cents...

posted by Stash @ 11:18 AM