| | In my Theories of Composition class last spring, I was known for always asking, "What about assessment? How do you grade this kind of assignment?" The prof was probably frustrated that I was more focused on the product than on the cool new process he was trying to teach us.
But this semester has confirmed that my questions were timely--if not ideal.
It seems that the current crop of incoming college students is fixated on grades. This is not to say they are all over-achievers, but instead that their anxiety is marked by a disturbing amount of hostility and belligerence. They think they should be able to order up an A as easy as a latte. The logic seems to go, "Satisfactory equals success, so doing the minimum required should get me an A." At the same time, the assignment, the syllabus, the instructor's feedback, the textbook are all extraneous and decidedly ignorable.
According to anecdotal evidence, this attitude is turning up in many classrooms across campus and at other universities as well. It might be written off as that generational condescension on the part of instructors that assumes those coming up the ranks behind them are lazy slackers because they don't have to walk to school in knee-deep snow up the hill both ways. But even if that plays a role, it doesn't explain the threats, the demands, the overt rudeness that some of us are observing.
Some say it's just the spring semester--by this time freshmen have a better sense of how to play the system and winter is making everyone cranky. This is very true, but spring semesters have been around forever.
In my experience, many students seem to be approaching writing with the expectation that fact recall is good enough--that stating the obvious is technically correct, therefore it deserves an A. This expectation is perplexing because the multi-media/multi-tasking capabilities of this generation should mean they are also the most mentally agile generation as well, able to question and engage with issues. But there's little evidence to support this supposition.
So why are students with so much unprecedented information available to them so disengaged?
It occurred to me that this infatuation with the obvious and unmerited As might be tied to No Child Left Behind methods. When your academic success is measured in pass-fail terms by the number of bubbles you correctly fill in, you learn to expect that all important questions in life have one simple answer--as if this developmental stage wasn't already marked by absolutist thinking (or non-thinking). Bubbles don't ask you to think critically or to make interdisciplinary connections, nor do bubbles give you feedback which you use to rethink and revise your project. Passing or failing a test becomes so monumental that learning a process is no longer important. Disappointing grades are no longer steps in the road to success, but barriers to be avoided by any means necessary. Instead of seeing tests as tools for assessment, they become meaningless hoops to jump through.
This morning I read an article written by a high school freshman teacher, Consumed by Failure. Apparently this condition bites long before college. Sarah Fine writes,
Failing and failures: The point I am trying to make is not about these words. It is about the way in which these words reflect a profoundly limited, and limiting, concept of school performance. When we define success as the lack of failure, we confine ourselves to mediocrity. When we define failure as the lack of success, we doom ourselves to despair. The binary vision of No Child Left Behind was useful when it came to exposing underperforming schools and establishing baselines for proficiency, but it has inhibited the ability of school communities to orient themselves around assets and progress—and this orientation is crucial.
I would like to think that I am not in an adversarial relationship with my students, that my assignments and feedback are useful tools for their academic and professional success. But what if I'm trying to give them tools they're simply not ready for--like giving microscopes to toddlers? How can I expect them to write thoughtful and reflective essays if they have no idea how to be thoughtful or reflective? Is it possible to teach them to think and to write in one semester? How can they learn at the college level if they don't come prepared to engage in larger issues in a meaningful way?
The bigger question might be-- How much more damage are we willing to let NCLB do to the minds of American young people? |
| | Posted 3/25/2009 11:13 AM - 42 Views - 8 eProps - 4 comments
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