Can’t or Won’t: The Culture of Helplessness
By Lori Isbell
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We now have courses at my college, under the label of “student success,” that are designed to teach (and award college-level academic credit for) things such as time management and a sense of self-awareness.While I certainly value such skills and traits, and hope that my students have them or develop them over time, the very existence of such classes lends credence to the proposition that students lack these basic elements of young adulthood when entering college.
The rest:
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/03/14/professor-examines-why-her-students-seem-act-so-helpless-essay
Anytime I used to pull this helpless shit, my Mom would without warning give me a good, swift, solid SMACK in the HEAD. It cured me of this very early on.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame one can't do this over e-mail. Life in the real world after graduation will do it soon enough, of course.
The real pisser here is that if you tell them, "Look at the front cover of the book, the author's name will be listed there," chances are quite good this student will react resentfully, throwing a hissy fit and making far more fuss than any effort expended to just look at the goddamn book could possibly justify.
I'm surprised to hear an astronomer use the "in my day" retort. In Galileo's day you'd have been thrown in jail.
DeleteWhen I was a kid, I was labeled "retarded", and paperwork was started to send me to a "special school". It wasn't a school, it was a hybrid between a day care and psychiatric hospital. They thought I was coloring when we took the end of kindergarten placement exam. Instead I was getting a perfect score, except for the MC question I skipped because it had no right answer. They let me stay and I went on to be an honors student. They finish that paperwork 1 day sooner and I wouldn't have been there for the placement test. So fuck how education was "in our day", it was bullshit.
Nowadays, of course, you'd be chock full of Ritalin or Adderall. This is an improvement?
DeleteIf not for a clerical error I would have been institutionalized. So the fact that my clever, fun, autistic son gets to go to public school with his friends instead of sit in a diaper in a rubber room is DEFINITELY an improvement, and if you have to put a question mark on that, then I'd suggest we cease with any future exchanges.
DeleteI have four kids, 4 with ADHD and 2 with autism. 1 of them is on Ritalin. Know why? Because without it he walks in front of cars. It's not always a cop-out. My other kids got extra scaffolds that were slowly taken away and now they're in science club, the honor roll, college bound with scholarships etc.
I don't know if you're jealous that I don't smack them like your mother did you, or my 3rd grade teacher did me, or what, but how you could respond to being told "I was called a retard" with "well now you'd be on drugs" blows my mind.
My kids are successful because of the things the schools do for them now that wouldn't have been done 40 years ago. College is different from HS. One credit courses in metacognition aren't ruining students. What's ruining our students are people who do astrophysics yet scoff at empirically supported educational strategies because they prefer the "good solid smack" method.
Um, WotC, it's a joke, you see? Ha, ha?
DeleteI don't know about you, but smacking my students in the head wouldn't achieve much, aside from hurting my hand. And the lawsuits.
Believe it or not also, I staple dicks to the floor only relatively rarely. I was called a retard too, you know.
Being Able To Supply Holistic Invitations To Understand Deeply Often Empowers Students, Thus Harnessing Individual Success.
ReplyDeleteRight now I am hiding, *hiding* from students who had WEEKS to care about their projects and who are now trying to get me to do their homework. I know Bubba stashed some booze in here somewhere....
ReplyDeleteI once answered all of the "rank these in order of reactivity" questions on an orgo exam "1, 2, 3, 4" "1, 2, 3, 4"... and then drew benzene rings for everything else. The professor gave me partial credit whenever I accidentally got something right.
ReplyDeleteIf we think this is new, or that we didn't do this shit ourselves, we're wearing memory correcting lenses. It's normal human development. Dealing with it is the drudgery part of a job that otherwise lets us indulge in something we love on a full, but flexible time-table.
WotC, it sounds like your kids worked hard and made good use of the scaffolding they were offered. I don't think anyone wants to go back to a time when autistic/disabled kids were considered uneducable. I have had great students who used their accommodations from Disability Resources wisely, worked hard, and did well. Likewise, I have had many neurotypicals that behaved exactly like the students described in the article. Lots of students email me questions that could be answered by simply looking at the syllabus. I think supporting students with disabilities is very different from enabling helplessness and irresponsibility. Like Frod, I know that if I call students on their behavior and tell them not to email me without first checking the syllabus, they'll throw fits and I'll be in trouble.
DeleteAnd I definitely botched some assignments and tests... I remember getting a C on a lab about uniform circular motion. I was mortified and even apologized to my lab instructor. She dealt with me compassionately and told me I usually did good work, but she also didn't change my grade.
DeleteI'm not a professor--but I have been a student during the years of both traditional education and today. Also I was a vet and had to teach our soldiers and local nationals of all sorts from a different country, and now work as an older person in a US military who still learns when I can. I've been seeing the frustration from all sides. Mostly, I am frustrated with the smarter types who want me to do their paperwork for them and explain things I've already clearly explained in the military equivalent of a syllabus because they don't want to do a lot of work. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt but I've been burned too many times to assume every person who has what appears to be basic difficulties to understand basic directions or who just has a different learning style or background. I'm willing to spend some time with them (with the caveat that they pay attention and to help others who ask the same questions).
ReplyDeleteThe lazy, manipulative ones? Heck to the No.
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To ZoosetheHorse; I think it would be interesting on this site to ask high school teachers to contribute to your blog.
V/r, Grumpy Sergeant.