Until recently, I taught at a community college just outside of Boston,
where I encountered much of the same frustrations as Michael Yates.
I, and all my colleagues, tried every sort of pedagogical innovation that
came down the
pike -- daily quizzes, group-based learning, discovery learning, field
trips, movies, guest
lectures. I gave only take-home assignments, encouraged study groups and
spent a considerable portion
of class time having students work in groups.
Nevertheless, we encountered a hard-core of young recent high-school grads
- probably a third of
our student body - whose ignorance and alienation were profound. They
knew nothing about
current events, save what they picked up from Howard Stern, Jerry Springer
and the 30-seconds-on-the-half-hour
news updates on KISS 107. Teachers, no matter how cool, hip or caring,
intimidated them, and they fought back with pointless and self-defeating
acts of mini-rebellion, like giggling over last night's debauchery when
they were supposed to be figuring out how a new construction ban would
impact rents. Many of them could barely write and had great difficulty
reading anything more challenging than a junk-novel, a fact of which they
were ashamed.
I have to say that I hated teaching these students. I was also shocked
that people, apparently, can make it through 12 years of public schooling
with no knowledge of the world, no experience of abstract critical
thought, not to mention limited skills in basic math and english. The
good news, however, is that these students were, in our college,
surrounded by people just like themselves, only 10-20 years older and
wiser. Its amazing what lessons one learns after 10 years of shit jobs in
dead-end industries. I often advised the young students against
continuing college. I suggested they drop out, work for a while and come
back when life had knocked them around a bit. Then they'd be ready to get
serious.
Ellen Frank
