Children Left Behind, part 3
We have settled now. Two of the women who understood the assignment even before I gave it have finished, handed it in, and walked out. I am left now, with four women and they have taken to discussing their feelings about English classes as next year, only one section of their remaining required English courses is being offered—a class in literature. One wonders, briefly, how the school could have any difficulty staffing that course, but then, can you imagine these people trying to tell you what’s going on in a Wallace Stevens poem? Would you want to hear their interpretation of The Great Gatsby? Me neither.
A woman who I caught plagiarizing (one full page of a three page paper) says, “I don’t think it’s fair that an English teacher can just grade you based off of what they think about what you’re saying?”
Ahhhh….
“That’s not precisely what I do? I grade on whether you can stay on topic.”
They look at me, here in the final 1/3 of the semester in the last English course they’ll ever take as if I have said something so simple and yet so profound that it explains everything, but then skepticism sets in: no answer could really be that simple.
But it is that simple. The rhetorical flourishes of anticipating counter arguments, of propping up your own ideas with experts who agree, of finding theoretical frameworks in which to place your argument for added validity, of having an argument at all, of presenting your ideas so that they seem fresh and/or original—all of this is a pipe dream: Stay on topic, you get a B.
I continue, “if you, say for instance, are talking about school reform, and then on the middle of page two begin a discussion of the Flintstones, I mark you down for that.”
A women who is trying to turn in her paper on power relations, pauses to think about the possibility that she should take it home, re-work it a bit, hand it in late.
I say, “I really don’t care if you all agree with me or not. That’s sort of uninteresting to me. As a matter of fact, I’d rather hear something that is different than my thoughts on the subject. It’s more interesting to me, at any rate.”
It sits inside her head that maybe this isn’t a popularity contest after all. But it doesn’t sit there for long. The idea of not grading with a scantron is so absolutely alien that their can be no conversion. I don’t have the heart to tell her that if I really was grading on whether or not people agreed with me, I could easily devise some scantron oriented test and have it grade them. As it stands now, I take fifteen minutes a paper to grade—sometimes longer. That’s a long time with very bad papers.
Something sets off the women in the back who normally wears a kerchief on her head. “Are you bi-polar? Because I’m bi-polar.”
“No,” I answer. In my mind, I think of those old 1970’s sit-coms, afterschool specials, etc... Remember Blare’s cousin on “The Facts of Life” and how important it was for us to all know that people who had muscular dystrophy could be smart even though they talked a bit slow. All those various one time shows about people who overcame great odds to get an education and become a success story.
Those shows would never fly now. Every person is catered to such a degree that whoever you are, whatever your problem, you can get a bachelor’s degree.
One of the other women says, “I’m just glad that this is my last English class. They did tests on me and found out that I have a sixth grade reading comprehension.”
Kerchief retorts, “I’ve got an eighth grade. Like…when I read something, ten minutes later, I forget it.”
“I can’t remember anything I read; someone has to tell me.”
I suppose that somewhere in here, there needs to be some kind of message about education, but what in the world do you say? Should I comment that these women were failed along the way by some teacher who had no time for them and so they never learned some basic skill? I don’t know that to be true. If their behavior now is any sort of indication, why shouldn’t I just think that they have no desire to improve themselves? That they simply could not be bothered? If this is a failure on someone’s part, some missing push towards the desire to self improve, so what? These people are adults. Adults have to take some kind of responsibility for themselves, don’t they? They can’t honestly just remain dipshits because their second grade teacher never called on them to sing the alphabet song. They’re twenty years old. Some of them are older than that. What am I supposed to say when I know for a fact that people who cannot remember anything they read ten minutes after they read it will be awarded degrees in subjects like Criminal Justice and Forensic Pathology? Should diligence and the desire to not quit really count for that much, especially when just showing up will earn you a C?
I have nightmares now that I will have some physical ailment and go under the knife. My surgeon will be a retarded gentlemen who didn’t “test well” and who’s mental condition granted him extra time and extra help on every assignment and who is the pride of his department who now pat themselves on the back for “helping this one through.” Anyway, he cuts me open, pausing now and again to listen for the buzz like the “operation simulator” he’s been playing with in the back room.
A woman who I caught plagiarizing (one full page of a three page paper) says, “I don’t think it’s fair that an English teacher can just grade you based off of what they think about what you’re saying?”
Ahhhh….
“That’s not precisely what I do? I grade on whether you can stay on topic.”
They look at me, here in the final 1/3 of the semester in the last English course they’ll ever take as if I have said something so simple and yet so profound that it explains everything, but then skepticism sets in: no answer could really be that simple.
But it is that simple. The rhetorical flourishes of anticipating counter arguments, of propping up your own ideas with experts who agree, of finding theoretical frameworks in which to place your argument for added validity, of having an argument at all, of presenting your ideas so that they seem fresh and/or original—all of this is a pipe dream: Stay on topic, you get a B.
I continue, “if you, say for instance, are talking about school reform, and then on the middle of page two begin a discussion of the Flintstones, I mark you down for that.”
A women who is trying to turn in her paper on power relations, pauses to think about the possibility that she should take it home, re-work it a bit, hand it in late.
I say, “I really don’t care if you all agree with me or not. That’s sort of uninteresting to me. As a matter of fact, I’d rather hear something that is different than my thoughts on the subject. It’s more interesting to me, at any rate.”
It sits inside her head that maybe this isn’t a popularity contest after all. But it doesn’t sit there for long. The idea of not grading with a scantron is so absolutely alien that their can be no conversion. I don’t have the heart to tell her that if I really was grading on whether or not people agreed with me, I could easily devise some scantron oriented test and have it grade them. As it stands now, I take fifteen minutes a paper to grade—sometimes longer. That’s a long time with very bad papers.
Something sets off the women in the back who normally wears a kerchief on her head. “Are you bi-polar? Because I’m bi-polar.”
“No,” I answer. In my mind, I think of those old 1970’s sit-coms, afterschool specials, etc... Remember Blare’s cousin on “The Facts of Life” and how important it was for us to all know that people who had muscular dystrophy could be smart even though they talked a bit slow. All those various one time shows about people who overcame great odds to get an education and become a success story.
Those shows would never fly now. Every person is catered to such a degree that whoever you are, whatever your problem, you can get a bachelor’s degree.
One of the other women says, “I’m just glad that this is my last English class. They did tests on me and found out that I have a sixth grade reading comprehension.”
Kerchief retorts, “I’ve got an eighth grade. Like…when I read something, ten minutes later, I forget it.”
“I can’t remember anything I read; someone has to tell me.”
I suppose that somewhere in here, there needs to be some kind of message about education, but what in the world do you say? Should I comment that these women were failed along the way by some teacher who had no time for them and so they never learned some basic skill? I don’t know that to be true. If their behavior now is any sort of indication, why shouldn’t I just think that they have no desire to improve themselves? That they simply could not be bothered? If this is a failure on someone’s part, some missing push towards the desire to self improve, so what? These people are adults. Adults have to take some kind of responsibility for themselves, don’t they? They can’t honestly just remain dipshits because their second grade teacher never called on them to sing the alphabet song. They’re twenty years old. Some of them are older than that. What am I supposed to say when I know for a fact that people who cannot remember anything they read ten minutes after they read it will be awarded degrees in subjects like Criminal Justice and Forensic Pathology? Should diligence and the desire to not quit really count for that much, especially when just showing up will earn you a C?
I have nightmares now that I will have some physical ailment and go under the knife. My surgeon will be a retarded gentlemen who didn’t “test well” and who’s mental condition granted him extra time and extra help on every assignment and who is the pride of his department who now pat themselves on the back for “helping this one through.” Anyway, he cuts me open, pausing now and again to listen for the buzz like the “operation simulator” he’s been playing with in the back room.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
11:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home