Ashley, Ashleigh and Ashlee

In high school during the late 80s, my friend had Mr. Jewett for 10th grade biology. Over twenty years later, I was working as a historic site tour guide where “Toby” was one of the veteran guides. Although I recognized him immediately as being one of the teachers from my high school (he had always been bald and grizzled), I couldn’t remember his name. I couldn’t remember if he taught math or science. And while I knew he hadn’t been my teacher, I had no idea who I knew who did have him.

He remembered MY name.

HOW?!?

Granted, in high school, students are trapped in (usually) a single building for (usually) four years instead of spread across a sprawling campus with thousands of students, but, still! I was never his student, and it has been nearly twenty years since I last saw the inside of my high school.

So how come I can barely remember my students’ names when they’re sitting right in front of me?

I blame baseball caps and bleach. How can I tell one boy from another if they all look the same under a fashionably mutilated baseball cap? How can I pick out an individual girl in a sea of bleached-blonde hair?

The black kid, fine, I’ve got him down, but I can’t call on Casey all the time. It’ll look suspicious. All the minorities I manage to remember because there are so few of them in the sea of pale. In addition to the brown, tan and ecru students, I know the old lady, the guy who wears camouflage every day, and the midget. The exceedingly zaftig students I can pick up, too (not literally). But you don’t want these “unusual” students to know you remember them because of their port wine stains, their wandering left eyes, or their unibrows.

It’s those average, white, hip (but not glaringly hip) students that I just cannot pin down. And when there are three Ashleighs… I’m toast.

Have Money, Will Admit

Ask a college professor if he believes incoming students are getting dumber every year and chances are he’ll give you a desperation-tinged, “Yes!” If it is true that this year’s incoming college freshmen’s pencils are even duller than last year’s, then why?

• Blame the high schools for not preparing students properly?
• Blame the government for forcing high schools to “teach to the test”?
• Blame television, e-mail, texting, Xbox, YouTube, I-Pods and godless music videos for distracting our young people, wiring their brains differently and making them incompatible with traditional education?

There’s probably plenty of blame to spread around, but I believe the major reason college students are T minus dumb and counting is because of the colleges themselves. Not that college has become more difficult or that professors aren’t as good as they used to be, but rather because of the way society looks at college: the idea that college is for everyone.

Society has been pushing the idea that a college education is a requirement, and even a right, for everyone. I say it is neither.

Colleges, however, benefit monetarily from this idea and are loathe to go against it. Financially-strapped institutions see each student registered as a walking pile of cash. If you have the money, they’ll let you in, whether it’s best for the student (and the school) or not.

I begin my freshman writing course with an in-class journal entry. It’s not graded, and the four questions are fairly easy to answer. The first question is, “What are the main reasons why you write (or why you don’t write)?” The answers I get most often are variations on, “I write when I have to for class.” I also get, “I don’t like to write. If I have something to say, I will just tell the person.” I have also gotten, “Writing is boring/stupid/worthless.”

If you believe advanced education to be worthless, then why are you here?

The last question is, “What are you most looking forward to in college?” The most popular answer is, “I’m looking forward to socializing and getting the ‘college experience’,” i.e. parties, alcohol, sex and, most likely, recreational drugs. When she finally came back to class, one of my students needed to wear sunglasses for three weeks because she had thrown up so much from drinking, she had broken all the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes.

If living on your own means a weekly stomach pumping, then why are you wasting tens of thousands of dollars on classes you’re not attending?

These students should learn a trade. These students should live in an apartment on their own for a year to get their newfound freedom out of their systems. These students are not meant for college—and that’s not a bad thing. What’s bad is forcing them to go to college anyway and wasting somebody’s money and everybody’s time.

Let’s make the university more exclusive. I don’t mean barring anyone by race, creed, religion, gender, or social status. I mean only accepting those students who have the brains AND the willingness to get an advanced education. Let’s value other life paths more. Let’s change the attitude that college is necessary for everyone.

Remedial College

College should definitely not only be for white, upper-class men. It should also not only be for whites, nor only for the upper-class, nor only for men. College, however, should definitely NOT be for the retarded.

I don’t mean people with learning disabilities; I mean retarded.

During my first stint at the prestigious private university where I work, I taught two sections of “developmental” college composition. Although you could argue that college is no place for “developmental” anything, there are some very intelligent, hard-working students who, for one reason or another, need extra writing help to bring themselves up to the college level. Think: the math whiz. Think: the ESL student. Think: a brilliant people person who has avoided the inevitable. Think: students from low-income families who may not have had the best college preparation in high school, but they’re very willing to learn and work extra hard to catch up.

However…

In one of my “developmental” sections was a retarded student. Re-tar-ded. In college. Don’t picture Rainman, this student was not a savant, he was simply retarded. He couldn’t answer questions or participate helpfully in discussions. He was terrible at reading and if you looked at any of his writing his retardation was crystal clear. He spoke out of turn, he didn’t listen, he was combative and rude. He read a newspaper (or at least held it up in front of his face), blocking other students and turning pages noisily. When asked to put it away, he refused. When asked to leave, he got angry and refused. What does one do with a 200 pound angry, retarded man?

How do I know?! I’m a college teacher. I’m not supposed to be a tard-handler.

I’m all for people being allowed to reach their full potentials, but this student had reached his in the 5th grade. What he needed was to learn some basic job and life skills so he could, hopefully, live on his own someday. Maybe he could learn to sort pencils or silverware, but he did NOT need to learn how to cite a research paper in proper MLA format.

Why was I (as well as his fellow students) subjected to Robbie the Retard? A university accepting the retarded is an extreme example of a larger problem I will discuss in my next posting, “Have Money, Will Admit”.