When one of the clerks at my local small-town store returned from college last spring, I asked her how her first year of college went.
“OK,” she answered cheerfully, and then added emphatically, “Only thing is, college professors just don’t care about you. High school teachers care; professors just want to collect that check, and that’s all they care about.”
I kept my groans and sighs internal. “What do you mean, exactly?” I asked. She just repeated the above. “Well, like what, for example?” I prompted. She didn’t know. Said she’d think about it.
I saw her again this week, back from school again. I didn’t recognize her until I heard her voice—she was at best “stocky” before, and in the past few months, she’s changed her hair style and color and gained at least 25 lbs.—now seriously obese. I was shaking my head about a few of my own students, students who had emailed me course work eight days after the last day of classes—no explanation, no excuse, no plea for clemency, just the blithe expectation that of course I could just accept it whenever they got around to submitting it.
“A problem with math skills, perhaps!” I joked with the clerk.
“Oh, I’m terrible at math—but I got an A, because my math teacher likes me.”
Still joking, I abruptly shifted my weight, placed my fist on my hip, demanding “And English?!”
“Oh—that was horrible!” she replied. “We had an adjunct.”
OK—not quite enough information (especially since she attends a community college—60%+ of the faculty are adjuncts)…
“What was the problem?” I asked.
“He hardly ever came to class,” she said calmly, and then with much more animation, “And he was the kind of professor who would assign a ten page paper on introducing wolves into the Adirondacks…”
I cut her off. “Wait a minute. He hardly ever came to class?”
“Yup,” she answered, “And he assigned this ridiculous ten page paper on introducing wolves into the Adirondacks…”
I sensed a pattern here, and sure enough, we repeated it a few more times.
“Never mind the paper,” I finally insisted. “Let’s stick with your first point—if he hardly ever came to class, why didn’t you talk to the department Chair? Or the Dean?”
She looked at me and shrugged, a bit confused. “Well, this paper was just ridiculous…”
A ten page paper. O the horrors. Probably involved research too.
“But why would you all sit there repeatedly when he didn’t come to class and not report it?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. We didn’t think of it, I guess.”
Critical thinking. Education in action.
Writer
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wiki World
A “wiki” is a collaborative website—it allows users to add and edit content.
In many ways, this is a wonderful development, one yet to be understood. Researchers have explored and are exploring how “group think” can yield better results than individuals. The idea is old—Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market place, for example, presented similar claims. However, Smith’s model demanded perfect knowledge for all players, an ideal not likely realized. “Group think,” however, starts with the notion that even “primitive” creatures, like ants and bees, possess the ability to make collective decisions far beyond the ability of any individual insect, and that yes, humans also can exhibit this potential. Management theory, organizational behavior studies and more all offer similar accounts of the phenomenon.
“Wiki” is also Hawaiian for “quick,” though, and I fear that’s the main attraction.
I visit a couple of discussion boards regularly. One of them, a Gorean board, frequently gets versions of the same question over and over—What is Gor? (or various attacks on Gor). The board has a search function, as members repeatedly note, but this is too much trouble for many users. Some do try, and then complain that they couldn’t immediately get the answers they sought. Not wiki enough.
A few even claim to be well versed while admitting they’ve never read a Gor novel—kinda like the student who reads e-notes instead of the novel and then bitches the teacher doesn’t appreciate student “work.” Even better—the student who raises a hand in class and says, “Well, I didn’t read it, but I think the character meant that…”
On a blogging board, one member asked how fellow bloggers conduct research. The answers were sad—most said they don’t research at all, and those who did, relied on other bloggers (who, apparently, didn’t research either). Easy, but isn’t that just gossip? Several of those bloggers want to be serious writers—yet have missed that publication after publication stresses that they seek “well-researched” pieces. Not wiki.
I asked a class experimenting with blogs which ones presented the best writing. “The short ones!” insisted a few students. So Harry Potter would be better if just a few paragraphs?
They don’t even “wiki” well—I have to show them how to use Google to narrow searches, how to search for blogs, how to find out how to add advertising to their blogs, even though these links all appear on Google’s home page, the first place they go for information.
Another class, struggling with interpreting an assigned article in group sessions, clearly dragged its collective feet, finally admitting, “We’re just waiting for you to step in and make it all right.” Apparently, I have all the answers?
But that is what many people want. Problems abroad? Bomb ‘em. Economic woes? Just cut taxes (why don’t we eliminate them—then the government can magically fund itself with no money!). Hey, why even have government? Surely we don’t need those annoying police, firemen, road crews…
And on it goes, while people vote for politicians whose positions contradict their own, just because someone fed them the right line, pushed the right button, making it all easy. Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Wiki World.
Writer
In many ways, this is a wonderful development, one yet to be understood. Researchers have explored and are exploring how “group think” can yield better results than individuals. The idea is old—Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market place, for example, presented similar claims. However, Smith’s model demanded perfect knowledge for all players, an ideal not likely realized. “Group think,” however, starts with the notion that even “primitive” creatures, like ants and bees, possess the ability to make collective decisions far beyond the ability of any individual insect, and that yes, humans also can exhibit this potential. Management theory, organizational behavior studies and more all offer similar accounts of the phenomenon.
“Wiki” is also Hawaiian for “quick,” though, and I fear that’s the main attraction.
I visit a couple of discussion boards regularly. One of them, a Gorean board, frequently gets versions of the same question over and over—What is Gor? (or various attacks on Gor). The board has a search function, as members repeatedly note, but this is too much trouble for many users. Some do try, and then complain that they couldn’t immediately get the answers they sought. Not wiki enough.
A few even claim to be well versed while admitting they’ve never read a Gor novel—kinda like the student who reads e-notes instead of the novel and then bitches the teacher doesn’t appreciate student “work.” Even better—the student who raises a hand in class and says, “Well, I didn’t read it, but I think the character meant that…”
On a blogging board, one member asked how fellow bloggers conduct research. The answers were sad—most said they don’t research at all, and those who did, relied on other bloggers (who, apparently, didn’t research either). Easy, but isn’t that just gossip? Several of those bloggers want to be serious writers—yet have missed that publication after publication stresses that they seek “well-researched” pieces. Not wiki.
I asked a class experimenting with blogs which ones presented the best writing. “The short ones!” insisted a few students. So Harry Potter would be better if just a few paragraphs?
They don’t even “wiki” well—I have to show them how to use Google to narrow searches, how to search for blogs, how to find out how to add advertising to their blogs, even though these links all appear on Google’s home page, the first place they go for information.
Another class, struggling with interpreting an assigned article in group sessions, clearly dragged its collective feet, finally admitting, “We’re just waiting for you to step in and make it all right.” Apparently, I have all the answers?
But that is what many people want. Problems abroad? Bomb ‘em. Economic woes? Just cut taxes (why don’t we eliminate them—then the government can magically fund itself with no money!). Hey, why even have government? Surely we don’t need those annoying police, firemen, road crews…
And on it goes, while people vote for politicians whose positions contradict their own, just because someone fed them the right line, pushed the right button, making it all easy. Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Wiki World.
Writer
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Stones
A few years back, I stopped by the network of forest trails behind Colgate University for a walk with Sasha, my shepherd mix. The parking circle surrounds a cemetery, some of the graves more than a century old. A smaller, new section sits just outside the circle, and when I parked, I noticed a young woman, late 20s or early 30s, standing before one such grave.
I didn’t want to intrude on her reverie, and since I’m a news junkie away, I opened the newspaper—but I couldn’t help watch her over the top edge. A few small stones lay along the top of the tombstone. She carefully touched each one, turning it slowly, arranging them just so. She stood and looked for the longest time, before she finally lifted her hand to her lips, kissed them slowly, and gently pressed the transferred kiss to the face of the stone. She held it there for a moment, then rose, turned, and walked away.
I was intrigued, so when she was safely out of sight, I let my dog out to run, walked over to the stone, and read the centered lettering on the polished face of the black granite marker:
IAN PORTER HALE
JUNE 7, 1998
FEBRUARY 4, 2000
A HUG THAT WON’T QUIT
Tears filled my eyes. Twenty months. Twenty months! To lose a child after just twenty months! What a horrible fate for any mother (as I assumed the woman to be). In the years that followed, whenever I passed that grave site, I always checked to be sure the stones on top were in their proper place (they always were). I didn’t know why, but I knew that somehow, they were very important.
I haven’t been by in quite some time (my current dog is much more feisty, and I didn’t want her to disturb the stones—although I could see from a distance a few additions), but I stopped to take a look today. Now nine stones line the top of the marker—one for each year of Ian’s age had he lived, his latest birthday just a week and a half ago. A small sculpture, roughly the size of a hand, depicts a moose in a boat fishing with his younger moose—something Ian would have done with his dad, presumably. To the right of the marker stands a log sculpture about two feet high of an animal—a boy’s dog, judging from the one cocked ear. To the left of the marker, a wreath of thin twigs is tied with a light blue ribbon. And in front of the stone—nine plants featuring small, red flowers.
A bit of research quickly turned up Colgate’s alumni newsletter, a wealth of information. Ian’s grandfather wrote a grateful letter thanking the community for their support through such a difficult time, noting that Ian’s death was sudden and unexpected. I learned that Mom graduated in ’89 (confirming my guess about her age), that both parents worked in Colgate’s administration, and that they met at the wedding of another alum. A community development non-profit organization newsletter reports about improvements to the town’s Village Green, noting, “A new pavilion, in memory of Ian Porter Hale, has provided a focus for events and a performance venue for visiting artists.”
Rest well, Ian Porter Hale. You are deeply loved and dearly missed.
Writer
I didn’t want to intrude on her reverie, and since I’m a news junkie away, I opened the newspaper—but I couldn’t help watch her over the top edge. A few small stones lay along the top of the tombstone. She carefully touched each one, turning it slowly, arranging them just so. She stood and looked for the longest time, before she finally lifted her hand to her lips, kissed them slowly, and gently pressed the transferred kiss to the face of the stone. She held it there for a moment, then rose, turned, and walked away.
I was intrigued, so when she was safely out of sight, I let my dog out to run, walked over to the stone, and read the centered lettering on the polished face of the black granite marker:
IAN PORTER HALE
JUNE 7, 1998
FEBRUARY 4, 2000
A HUG THAT WON’T QUIT
Tears filled my eyes. Twenty months. Twenty months! To lose a child after just twenty months! What a horrible fate for any mother (as I assumed the woman to be). In the years that followed, whenever I passed that grave site, I always checked to be sure the stones on top were in their proper place (they always were). I didn’t know why, but I knew that somehow, they were very important.
I haven’t been by in quite some time (my current dog is much more feisty, and I didn’t want her to disturb the stones—although I could see from a distance a few additions), but I stopped to take a look today. Now nine stones line the top of the marker—one for each year of Ian’s age had he lived, his latest birthday just a week and a half ago. A small sculpture, roughly the size of a hand, depicts a moose in a boat fishing with his younger moose—something Ian would have done with his dad, presumably. To the right of the marker stands a log sculpture about two feet high of an animal—a boy’s dog, judging from the one cocked ear. To the left of the marker, a wreath of thin twigs is tied with a light blue ribbon. And in front of the stone—nine plants featuring small, red flowers.
A bit of research quickly turned up Colgate’s alumni newsletter, a wealth of information. Ian’s grandfather wrote a grateful letter thanking the community for their support through such a difficult time, noting that Ian’s death was sudden and unexpected. I learned that Mom graduated in ’89 (confirming my guess about her age), that both parents worked in Colgate’s administration, and that they met at the wedding of another alum. A community development non-profit organization newsletter reports about improvements to the town’s Village Green, noting, “A new pavilion, in memory of Ian Porter Hale, has provided a focus for events and a performance venue for visiting artists.”
Rest well, Ian Porter Hale. You are deeply loved and dearly missed.
Writer
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