Ms. J of Tustin alerted us to something she read in the Times. It was in the sports section! ("Summertime, and the grading is easy.")It reports that USC has acted to “disallow” grades that their athletes received in Spanish classes they took at a local community college.
Uh-oh.
Last June, students flocked to the college to sign up for Spanish. Among the flock:
three 300-pound Trojans linemen…[, a] beefy linebacker son of television’s “Incredible Hulk”[, and] millionaire ex-USC receiver Kreary Colbert…They all wanted the same class—a shortcut around the tough advanced foreign language courses required at USC.
They didn’t want just any course at the community college. No, they wanted Ms. Senora Rose Mary Ross's Intermediate Spanish course.
Ross has a reputation as an easy grader.
The Times interviewed her. She's no easy grader, says the 73-year-old. “I’ve never given an easy grade in my life."
OK, sounds good.
“You come to my class and work, and I see you want to learn, I’ll give you an A,” she declares.
—Well, all right. I guess.
She continues: “I see some lazy ass, coming late all the time, acting like he doesn’t care, I won’t give him an A.”
No? You sound mighty tough, lady! I like your style! Whatcha gonna do to that lazy ass?
Here's what:
“I’ll give him a B”!
The Times checked, and it turns out that, of the 25 students in Ross's summer Intermediate Spanish class, 20 received A's. The other 5 were lazy asses. Yep, all B's.
3 comments:
from http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/
Friday, February 02, 2007
Customers
The administration at my university (and many other schools as well) has started referring to students as “the customer.” I understand the need to attract, recruit, retain and grow our student population. Of course, we have to have students to teach, duh. But this student-as-consumer attitude is folly.
Treating the student as consumer creates an atmosphere where they begin to believe they are paying for a degree, not earning a degree. They start to tell us that we have an obligation to pass them. We do not. We have an obligation to teach them how to learn. That is it.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not the jerk professor who just says, “deal with it” when a student comes to me for help. I will work with them one on one, as much as I can, to help them when they are stuck. They must be willing to work at it and not expect me to just throw some information at them that they can memorize and reguritate onto exams. The worst thing a student can say is “I don’t get it,” or “I am lost.” At least come to me and say, “I’ve read the chapter, and the first thing that I do not understand is…” That shows me you are taking me seriously.
Do I have an obligation to pass a student just because they say they are working very hard? No.
I got so tired of the student-as-consumer that I added a line to the contract my students sign in order to participate in my class. It says that they understand that purchasing the materials and paying for the class in no way guarantees a passing grade.
But what really annoyed me about the LA Times article was the bad press this will give to community college instructors in general and foreign language teachers specifically. It is hard enough to be charged with making silk purses out of sows ears without having some lame instructor decide that sows ears will do just fine.
"We have an obligation to teach them how to learn. That is it."
An anachronistic way of thinking.
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