College and Community

Of all the ways in which I've changed my mind since grade school, my opinion of community colleges is probably the most surprising.

When I was applying to schools, community college wasn't even on the radar. It seemed to me one step away from "taking a year off," which was itself one step away from not going to college at all. 

Then I married an adjunct faculty member at a community college, and within a year he had been offered a full-time position there. I listened as he told stories of second careers, rededicated focus and failures that actually taught more than they punished. He himself was a community college success story, having entered as an average student with very little direction and exited into a respected university and, later, graduate school.

Now, especially in this economic climate, I can't picture swallowing the tab for a four-year university, period -- but for a seventeen-year-old with little to no life experience? Unthinkable. She needs a place to experiment with learning, where she can try out classes and schedules and the Real World without the blinding fear on which so many university professors feed or the enormous debt that will almost certainly saddle her for a decade or more. Beyond that, if her parents have done their job, she still needs them as she navigates her first steps as an independent adult: the world of newly-unsupervised grown children is getting scarier with each passing year.

This lengthy piece about a new community college in New York (called, aptly, The New Community College) describes a sort of hybrid between a demanding prep school and the open-enrollment standard that has given community colleges their slacker reputation:

All students will take the same classes for the first year, though they will be separated into two levels of math. At other schools, students who need extra help can get it from skills labs, peer study groups, tutors or advisers. Here, none of those resources will be optional. “This is absolutely crucial because so many students appear at the door of community colleges completely clueless about what is required of them, or available to them,” said Ms. McClenney of the University of Texas. “They don’t know they need to do work outside of class. They don’t take advantage of tutoring and mentoring services. They don’t know about peer study groups or interacting with faculty.”

Students will be required to spend 90 minutes a week in “group work space,” working with classmates and building on what they learn in class, with help from peer mentors — more experienced students from other CUNY colleges. Much of that time will be devoted to writing and language skills, a particular weakness at this level. (When a professor in one information session asked for a definition of the word “urban,” she had to call on three applicants before getting a correct answer. One thought it meant “what’s going on now.”)

Students will also have mandatory weekly 90-minute group sessions with advisers, called “student success advocates,” addressing issues like study habits and stressful situations outside school.

“We’ve found that students usually try to confront problems alone, and they often make damaging long-term decisions, like dropping out, in response to temporary problems,” said Donna Linderman, director of a CUNY program that has tested some of the ideas behind the new college. “It makes an enormous difference to have them sit down regularly with an adviser who says, ‘O.K., how many hours are you working? How long is your commute? Let’s make this work and keep you in school.’ ”

I can't think of a better way to help introduce apprehensive and ambitious students to higher education, while simultaneously preparing them for the next rung on the academic ladder. (Well, maybe a privately-funded institution with the same goals. One thing time has not changed is my opinion about the perils of government bureaucracy and the ensuing mismanagement of funds.)

Interestingly, the college where Rob teaches has launched a very similar initiative, which the Wall Street Journal profiled earlier this spring (in fact, fast forward to 3:30 to see a glimpse of his department!) 

The difficult part about being enlightened later in life? Seeing students come through my classroom, and knowing they are just as I was -- totally unaware of what they really need, and totally unwilling to listen to someone who does.

A Certain Kind of Laughter

In his Preface to “The Order of Things,” Foucault writes of his laughter upon reading about something at once disturbing and hilarious: a Chinese encyclopedia that categorizes animals into (among others) “those that belong to the Emperor,” “those that tremble as if they were mad,” and “those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush.”

This laughter eventually inspires his own seminal work, “The Order of Things,” in which he attempts to make a little more sense of the science of taxonomy. It is the laughter, though, that I will always remember. His laughter expresses bitterness, insecurity, even horror, and helps him find control over a situation that seems ridiculous and inescapable.

It is for this reason that, in the wake of the recently-discovered child abuse tragedy in State College, I turn to The Onion:

After former Penn State defensive coach Jerry Sandusky was charged Saturday with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, indecent assault, and unlawful contact with minors, the national sports media sought out his victims this week to ask if they were worried about Joe Paterno’s legacy and how their molestations might affect the recently fired head coach’s place in the history books.

[Later]

“The victim I spoke to, who was 12 years old when Sandusky first took advantage of him, looked very upset throughout the entire interview,” Sports Illustrated writer Stewart Mandel said. “And when I asked whether he was concerned not just for how Joe Paterno would be remembered, but also for the football program’s ability to recover, he told me the interview was over and I should get out of his house.”

“Can you blame him, though?” Mandel added. “A coaching legend’s reputation hangs in the balance. I’m just as hurt and frustrated as he is.”

A more serious and logical summary of my personal opinion can be found in John Scalzi’s scathing and (justifiably) profane invective, certainly, but somehow I find The Onion’s story more compelling. Probably because it reassures me that there is a perverse humor in the reactions of the college community that have rendered me speechless with incredulity.

There is a certain kind of laughter that says, “This is funny precisely because it is not.” The Onion clearly established its ability to inspire that laughter with its first issue after the September 11 attacks: the three-word headline was succinct and incisive, echoing the thoughts of most of us. Holy ——ing ——.

I have heard many enlightened people say that sarcasm is poisonous, an unacceptable response in any situation; and indeed, its literal translation is “tearing of the flesh.” This is why I think it is perfectly appropriate for a situation this dark and ugly. At the very least, it could save you from tearing your own.

Ten Years and a Day

It’s hard to say what kind of a day it was, ten years after the most horrific tragedy I have ever known.  Two years ago I wrote about my experience on that day and the way it has never left my consciousness; yesterday was no exception.  It was a day of remembrance, tears and bleak thoughts.

It was also, in many ways, a day like all others.  Liturgy in the morning, bracketed by baptism and memorial services.  Two baby boys joined our family, neither of whom had waited for the hospital.  One was born on the bathroom floor, the other on the apartment steps — they were that eager to begin their earthly lives.  After communion I held the more placid of the two; he was a warm, firm lump in my arms, stirring every now and then to nurse an imaginary breast in dreamland.

The memorial was for all those who had died in the terrorist attacks and recovery efforts.  We did not read this prayer by Bishop BASIL (although I have visited the church Rod discusses in the introduction — a remarkable place); it was a memorial service like all the others we have served for parents, friends, cousins and co-workers who have left us, from our point of view, too soon.

We often spend time with friends on Sunday, and yesterday was no exception.  My high-school best friend had a baby shower and surprised me with two guests I hadn’t seen since our graduation; we spent time catching up and looking forward.  On the way home, I stopped to see the friends I had made ten years earlier when, in desperation, I fled my school’s campus in search of a safe place.  My goddaughter brought us peanut butter crackers as we talked over the noise of the football game.  We had dinner with our church family: melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork, velvety rice pudding, and laughter until our stomachs hurt.

But in between, and often during, these rituals of faith and friendship, I couldn’t shake the thought that this was a sad day.  During my hours in the car, I listened to the dedication ceremony at the United 93 memorial, which I was lucky enough to visit this past summer.  The speakers, each eloquent in their own way, gave messages of hope and inspiration, but also of grief.  One disagreed with the conventional wisdom about recovery — to recover, he said, would be to lose the bonds that linked us to those we had loved and lost.  The pain helps us remember, and in its own way, it is sweet.

Later, I heard the names at Ground Zero: two people read about a dozen names each, and ended with personal tributes to their own relatives.  It was almost too painful to hear, but it would have been harder to turn it off.  I listened, tears in my eyes, in rapt attention.

That night, I opened (for the first time in three months of delivery) a copy of the New York Times and read, cover to cover, a special section about the decade of rebuilding in the city.  Fiances who had not married. Children who had not recovered.  Buildings that had not been built — and some that had.  Photos of the moving memorial at Ground Zero, where waterfalls mark the footprints of the missing towers, framed by names of the dead.

Between rainshowers I drove home; I pulled over to take the above photo of a tribute on the roadside.  It would have to represent all the groups I had seen waving on overpasses, the flags flying at homes and churches, and the thoughts in my own heart about this ordinary, iconic day.

A Cautionary Tale

This story landed in my inbox shortly after it broke last week, and I've been sitting on it since then.  I suppose it's time to end my silence.

In a way, there's not much to say about it.  A teacher starts a personal blog, in which she lambasts her students in vindictive and vulgar terms.  A student discovers it.  Word spreads.  She is suspended for her actions, which she defends.  Public outcry is divided between supporters who believe kids really are as awful as she says, and a seething mob of parents demanding her head on a platter.  Much like any other celebrity scandal, minus the celebrity.

In another way, there's a lot to say -- perhaps more than can ever be said.  From the beginning, I've felt nothing but sadness about the whole situation, starting with the fact that, as a teacher, she is probably preaching the digital responsibility she's failed to model by including her name and location on the vitriolic posts that will most likely get her fired.  This is ironic, yes, but also (more so) sad.  Sad for her, and for her students.

It's sad that, although she obviously enjoys some aspects of her job (in one post, she congratulates herself for "kicking ass" by successfully instructing both gifted and remedial students in the same day) she has failed in many ways: to motivate them, to inspire them, to take charge of them.  Doing so is, undoubtedly, extraordinarily difficult.  Many days I fail at all three, myself.  It's sad that this failure made her angry at their indifference instead of determined to break through it.

Most sad of all were the comments left on her blog in the few hours between the students' discovery of it and her removal of the posts from the Web.  They displayed even more anger and vulgarity, denouncing her in crude terms, saying all kinds of nasty things about her and generally behaving like children. Which they are, still. Their words are reminiscent of preschool huffiness: "That's not FAIR!" and "You're not my FRIEND anymore!" with slightly different words.  Yet she is an adult, and she started this battle -- not directly, but deliberately, and it's sad that she felt she had no other option than to shout her anger at the world.

One comment stuck out to me above all the others: a student who said he had not hated the teacher "like all the rest" until he read what she had written.  His tone was so obviously injured that it struck a nerve.  Just like the first time we see a teacher outside of school and realize with shock that she is an actual person with a life and a family and feelings, he realized that teachers could be cruel, and that they didn't always act in the student's best interest.  They are, at the core, embarrassingly human.  And while I know it's best that he learn this now, the loss of innocence is still a loss, and it breaks my heart.

It may seem naive to hope for some good yet out of this awful situation, but that's where I am.  It doesn't look promising: probably a protracted legal battle will ensue, followed by an out-of-court settlement and / or a book deal.  The teacher has continued to post on a new website, saying things that are actually quite lucid and laudable (this post, demanding that teachers receive more public credibility, is a good example) but they still don't erase the insults she spewed at the world when she thought no one was listening.  Then again, I suppose it's possible that she hoped they were.

Now might be a good time to remind you of my privacy policy, and to share something I read on Dooce back when I first started blogging: when you write about someone on the Internet, you must be certain that your subject will one day read what you have written, and that that day will be sooner than you think.  It's true that I haven't directly told anyone at school about my blog, and for various reasons I'd be fine if it stayed that way (I'd hate to think that people would filter what they said to me for fear I might blog about it, for example.)  But if I were "outed" tomorrow, I'd be okay with that.  What I've said here is my own experience, for better or for worse; I've tried to be fair and positive about my thoughts and actions, and I think I've done that.  God forgive me if the truth is otherwise.

Older, Wiser

Off the grid yesterday and today, but I couldn't a bit more reflection around this milestone.  Having spent most of my first thirty years trying to prove my glorious autonomy to the world, it's awfully refreshing to read Sharon's insight about the false promises that kind of an ideal makes, and the comfort that comes from asserting your dependence on, and vulnerability to, those you love:

I hear all the time the idea that one doesn’t want to be dependent on other people – the idea is expressed in our society by the idea that we should all save a lot of money, invested in the stock market, to make us “independent” if we get old, or less than perfectly able bodied.  But of course, the stock market makes us dependent too – dependent on markets and governments and other people to invest where we have.  People talk about independence as emerging from their ability to pay people to help meet physical needs if they become old or disabled – imagining that an employer-employee/resident-caregiver relationship is inherently more equitable than a family dependency.

But there is no escaping dependency in the greater scheme of things – we depend on systems that break down sometimes whether in our bodies or out in the world.  At times in every person’s life, unless you are one of those rare folks who drops dead in full health (but that has its downside too) we will depend on another – sometimes for short periods when we are temporarily ill or disabled, sometimes for whole lives or for long parts of one.  Coming to terms with the idea of mutual dependency may be as essential as learning to be independent of institutions we deplore.

I say this often.  Every one of us will be dependent at one or more times in our lives.  Every one of us will probably need to give and offer care, and also to learn to accept it.  Learning to come to terms with this is simply a part of our lives, a part of our human condition.  Embedding ourselves in systems of reciprocity, kindness and respect is the only possible answer – there is no escaping the reality of needing others.

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Pink Girls and Beyond

One of the most frustrating things about being a writer is the lack of honest, blunt opinions.  People who love you tell you it's wonderful.  People who don't love you sometimes give you a limited compliment; sometimes they invent a platitude (I've actually heard that line at the end of Sideways, the one about "a great book" with "no place for it right now.")  But mostly, they just ignore you.  This is the worst thing they could possibly do, but I've come to expect and even accept it.  So when you get a real compliment, you hang onto it.

After my first year of classroom teaching, I wrote a piece for my school's alumni magazine.  It was a half-rant, half-rhapsody about teenage girls and how wonderful and frustrating they were to teach.  At the time, I wasn't at all sure I would ever teach again, so it was a sort of swan song, just in case.  A little like my friend Chris' (sadly, his piece has now been archived and costs money to view, but you can take my word for it that it was compelling and true-to-life.)

That summer, I asked my dear friend Terry for some advice.  I wanted to write more, but I was lost about how to do it.  Getting into the business is a lot like getting into acting or fine art: you have to know someone, or preferably, know a lot of people.  What should I do?  I wondered.

Terry is nothing if not direct.  "I think you should write more about the Pink Girls."

At first I didn't know what he meant.  Then he started suggesting reading material: Reviving Ophelia, A Return to Modesty, I am Charlotte Simmons, unhooked.  I read them all, but I had more questions than answers.  Mainly: What on earth was going on in the minds and hearts of these women, who were barely younger than me but appeared unable to take part in a healthy, normal relationship of any sort?

Of the four, I think unhooked resonated most clearly with me.  I could sense the author's concern, shock and bewilderment in every page, all emotions with which I could sympathize.  I wrote the author, Laura Sessions Stepp, and wound up in an extended e-mail and phone conversation that continued sporadically over a few years' time.

It's been simmering for several years now, boiling over every now and again when I hear another story of serial hookup followed by serious heartbreak.  So when I had the opportunity to write about an issue of social justice for my current class, Child & Adolescent Development, I jumped.  The paper is much too long to post here, but I'll give you a teaser in preparation for the next few posts, which will contain controversy-laden excerpts (having done my research, I'm prepared to be attacked, as has everyone who's written about this from a point of view I admire:)

It’s no secret that teenagers tend to be emotional, volatile and insecure, or that they take evident pleasure in flouting the rules set for them by parents, teachers and other authority figures.  The last decade, however, has revealed a disturbing trend among adolescents that persists well into young adulthood: the replacement of healthy short- and long-term relationships with episodes of unplanned, emotionally-detached physical contact called “hookups.”

Sex is easier than ever for teenagers; we live in one of the most permissive societies in history, in which sexual innuendo permeates even the children’s entertainment market.  As a result, teenage pregnancies are on the rise for the first time in over a decade. I believe this is because our sex-education programs (some of which begin in elementary school) are falling short in a crucial area: emotions and relationships.  We are failing our young women by denying them models of healthy relationships, experiences they can learn from and build on, and forums where they can define for themselves what they want out of a partnership.  In denying them the tools they need to negotiate in relationships, we as a society have essentially set them up for continual failure, and only through a focused effort to reverse these conditions can we hope to change the pattern for future generations.

How bad is it, really?  You have no idea.  Stay tuned.

The Changing Face of College

Everyone seems to be talking about college all of a sudden -- not just me.  The Times reports a very interesting trend: early college programs, in which students take five years to earn both a high school diploma and a two-year college degree.  There have always been schools who will do this for high-achieving students, but now programs are targeting first-generation college attenders:

With a careful sequence of courses, including ninth-grade algebra, and attention to skills like note-taking, the early-college high schools accelerate students so that they arrive in college needing less of the remedial work that stalls so many low-income and first-generation students. “When we put kids on a college campus, we see them change totally, because they’re integrated with college students, and they don’t want to look immature,” said Michael Webb, associate vice president of Jobs for the Future.

The article considers it a given that the last year of high school is a waste -- I guess because students have already made plans for college or a career or both, prime conditions for the ailment known as senioritis.  That was certainly not the case with me; I found my senior year very freeing.  I was finished with most of my course requirements, so I was able to choose courses I knew would bring success and enjoyment, like Yearbook and AP English.  I also experimented a bit, taking Anatomy and AP Civics, neither of which interested me beforehand, but both of which proved useful and fascinating studies.  And I finagled an independent study of classical piano, which basically meant I got to continue studying with my private teacher while practicing for a whole period on the school's sadly neglected 9-foot concert grand.  Someday I'll tell you all about that.  Besides, I got to play Liesl in The Sound of Music, I learned how to swing dance, and I had my first real boyfriend.

So I'm a big proponent of senior year productivity, however it can be achieved, and although I still object to the idea that college is for everyone, I can't take issue with an idea that expects a great deal of students out of whom  no one has ever expected much of anything.  I've never seen a study that didn't prove the link between expectations and achievement, and this is no exception: dropouts plummeted from the 38% state average to zero, and one college president said this performance, from a group of completely average kids, was the most exciting development he's seen "in 27 years."  The kids are pumped, too:

“I didn’t want to do it, because my middle school friends weren’t applying,” Ms. Holt said. “I cried, but my mother made me do it.

“The first year, I didn’t like it, because my friends at the regular high school were having pep rallies and actual fun, while I had all this homework. But when I look back at my middle school friends, I see how many of them got pregnant or do drugs or dropped out. And now I’m excited, because I’m a year ahead.”

Good for her.  Good for her mother.  Good for the school, for trying something different.

The New Master's Degree

Turns out I was right in saying that it seems like grad school is more commonplace.  In fact, according to the New York Times, the number awarded has doubled since 1980, and programs are becoming increasingly diverse and specialized.  If I had to rethink my choice of an MAT (unlikely, since my school pays my tuition and will increase my salary when I'm through) I'd be tempted by one or two of the following:

Cultural Sustainability is offered at Goucher College, practically in my backyard; dedicated to preserving the native customs of communities threatened by modernization and globalization, an admirable aim for education if ever there were one.  Ishi in Two Worlds was one of the saddest books I've ever read -- the story of an indigenous culture forced to normalize itself.

Construction Management is finally making it big as a more worldly and multifaceted alternative to "strict" architecture.  One of my good friends had a career in this field before starting to teach.  It's pretty fascinating: a combination of business, design and psychology.

Education Leadership, the first new degree program at Harvard in 74 years, would probably be my top choice.  Charter schools are one of the most exciting new developments on the educational horizon, but I've heard just as many horror stories as success stories.  And what about non-charter schools that just, plainly, need a lot of help?

I'll tell you what I would never, ever want to do: be a Cyber Ninja.  As cool as it would be to have any kind of ninja experience on my resume, I can't stomach the thought of using PCs on a regular basis!

The Cheapening of College

In case you don't know the story, or you weren't listening the first time, I think the SAT is a bit of a scam.  It's a very good predictor of success on future standardized tests.  It's not good at measuring creativity, discipline or intellectual curiosity -- three things that are, or should be, necessary for a college education.

Unhappily, we have set our standards too low.  The high school where I teach boasts that 100% of its students are accepted to college.  As much as I love my school and the students who attend there, there are quite a few who should never go to college, either because of low scholarly aptitude or because they just aren't cut out for academia.  (Sometimes these students are actually too smart for college, at least for the "college" they have their hearts set on.)  But they are told they have to attend college to be successful, so they do.  Then they drift off to careers in service industries or retail (both of which are trades that would be far better learned through an apprenticeship program) or get married and raise families and never look back.*

Grad school, I thought, would consist of a thinned crowd -- people who really do love to learn and think.  I've been monumentally disappointed.  Many of the students are fresh out of their undergrad programs without a day of teaching under their belts; they treat it like, well, school, instead of a community of learners.  In my first undergraduate experience, at Cooper Union's School of Architecture, we spent nights in angry debate about the principles of parti and racial violence.  Not because it was assigned, but because we were passionate about it, even at the expense of sleep and partying and sometimes our graded assignments.  After this experience, many people told me it "sounded like grad school," so I assumed it would be similar, but my classmates seem to treat school as more of a business transaction (tuition now for higher pay later) than an opportunity for intellectual enrichment.

And now we've stooped to a new depth of consumerism: pre-approved "fast track" applications that require, in some cases, only a signature -- no essay, no visit.  Sometimes, no joke, the university will throw in a free baseball cap.  All of this is guaranteed to boost the number of applicants, which helps the college look good (they're selective; they don't just admit anyone!) while hurting the students (those who really might want to attend have less of a chance, while those who are shoe-ins and never even intended to apply gum up the works.)

Bad.  On so many levels.  There are fewer and fewer who want to learn.

*I'm not trying to insult parents here . . . just saying that there are people who want to attend college and raise families, and people who want to raise families but attend college because they feel like they're supposed to.  Society would be better served if those in the latter group simply focused on their main goals.

How to Know When Something is No Longer Cool

This was the title of an e-mail from my mom to me that included this clip.

My response: "OMG.  Just, OMG."

One of the great things about teaching high schoolers is that you never have any pretensions about being cool.  Being a TV personality, unfortunately, doesn't come with that particular perk.