These Aren't the Trusted Adults You're Looking For

Well, I've recovered from the AHA. Good for me, because now I have new problems.

Look, I was raised in a time and place where "tell a trusted adult" was pretty much the response to anything that could possibly go wrong. Bullying? Tell a trusted adult. Creepy person approached you? Scream, then tell a trusted adult. You ate a battery? Tell a trusted adult, which may include a Poison Control worker. My school went to extremes with this, even parading in a bunch of friendly-looking police officers and firefighters to show examples of trusted adults. In my young mind, there were two kinds of adults: Strangers (Danger!) and Trusted.

Of course, it is never that simple. I used to work at a place where I was a mandated reporter, required to report certain things that people mentioned. Now I'm in the opposite place, trying to avoid being the recipient of misplaced personal information from students.

So, are we instructors trusted adults, or not?

There's a lot of evidence supporting the position of "we are". If kids were brought up to believe that teachers are the ultimate trusted adult, that assumption may extend to college lecturers, TAs, and professors. At large institutions, the TA might be the only instructor to know each student's name, or the only instructor students get any real face time with, which ratchets up the points on the Trusted Adult scale. I myself have said, and have heard others say, "Come see me as soon as you're having trouble with the material", which for me translates to "avoid giant problem" but often ends up as "let me tell you about a giant problem".

But there's evidence on the other side as well, including but not limited to actual mandates from various college offices instructing professors to avoid being drawn into the personal dilemmas of their students. Don't ask questions, don't make suggestions -- in many places a professor or TA can't advise a student to seek medical help or counseling. Nobody wants to enter lawsuit territory, so maybe "we aren't".

I struggle with this. I don't have answers. I wish I did, since next week the students will pour back into my classroom and onto campus and I know somewhere, somebody will be immediately dealing with these issues, and we'll all be hoping it isn't us. They will probably struggle silently, doubly afraid to get involved and admit any involvement at all to others. They probably won't have a trusted adult, either.

You Should Never Open the Door. Or Split Up.

This will scare TAs and faculty everywhere:

Holy Cheating, Batman!

Here's some instructions straight from paper comments -- read this for content, not style. I'm not particularly impressed with the author's quasi-sad explanation for his descent into this business. I'm truly shocked by pretty much everything else he has to say.

So I guess it's time to start worrying about cheating we can never detect or otherwise do anything about!

Read for Banned Books Week!

I'm a little late, but there's still plenty of time for us all to pick up some Challenged Books.

This, from the American Library Association Website:

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

September 25−October 2, 2010

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

You can read more about it here.

I perused the list of some of the top challenged or banned classics and this list of books challenged or censored in the past decade. Due to scholarly duties I decided to focus on one of my longtime favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird. The ALA reports that this book is most frequently challenged for racism, offensive language, and being inappropriate for the age group.

Remember yesterday how I said I try to rein myself in sometimes? Yeah, well, not today.

First off, I am absolutely against these challenges. I love books rather mightily, as you might have guessed from my photo. But often these challenges don't even make sense. One of the reasons people consider To Kill A Mockingbird an important piece of literature is because of Harper Lee's treatment of rabid racism and the various methods of defiance of the racist regime employed by the Finches. The "offensive language", namely the n-word, is absolutely in context and used purposefully. And it is only inappropriate for the age group if there is no guidance from adults. With a teacher in the classroom, this should not be a problem.

I think many of us in academia take freedom of reading and of book choice for granted, but clearly that is a mistake. If you decide to read or reread a book on this list, leave the title in the comments. I'm always looking for recommendations and these lists are as good a place as any to start.

College Graduation Rates. Where to Start?

I believe the only beneficial part of Facebook's NewsFeed is that I can steal content my friends find and post it here. And that's what is happening today. Grad school survivor Jack posted this article about Obama's take on graduation rates. As with most things, I reacted with a mixture of excitement and fear.

Where this might go right: If financial aid reform increases access to universities by students who under the current system can't afford to enroll or finish a degree.

Where this might go wrong: If the burden falls onto the schools and professors to graduate out any and all students accepted and enrolled.

"The nation's education system", as the article calls it, does encompass a huge number of programs for preschool-age kiddies all the way to college and post-grad ed. I'm always shocked at the number of people who don't think that secondary and higher education are intertwined. Students gain acceptance to college based on their performance as reported by their secondary educational institution. If students aren't finishing degrees because they don't possess the necessary skills, it isn't enough to overhaul the college system.

Speaking very generally, I think a lot of college educators are tempted (even if they don't actually) to brush deficiencies in high school curricula off as not their problem. But when students enroll in your class, their problems are also your problems. I admit that I'm probably quite out of touch with what junior high and high school classes are like today. I was forced to admit this after learning that students in our classes might have been paddled by teachers. (The first quote in this article is fantastic, by the way, but the rest of it makes me sad.) What the heck else is going on in schools that I don't know about?

The bottom line is that I hope this call to increase graduation rates results in real changes and not quick fixes. Only time will tell. Also, I don't know whether to be concerned or relieved that my degree didn't make this list of college degrees that don't pay...

Opp Choice: To Inflate, or Not to Inflate

I was just going to skip June entirely, what with the Africa trip, the post-trip recovery session, and the pageant that is celebrating a birthday when friends and family are far-flung, but then a fellow grad student dropped this on my desk, which snapped me back to grad student reality.

Law School's Employment-Boosting Strategy: Grade Inflation

At first, I wasn't shocked, because I don't think this is particularly new, even leaving aside UofC's bucket of oddness. But then I thought about it again, because this article isn't just about grade inflation; it is about a variety of institutional coping mechanisms in the midst of rising debt and unemployment among recent graduates.

I'll tell you that I have never been ordered to raise or lower a grade based on an agreed-upon standard designed to boost students' post-education job opportunities. But I'll also tell you that I've seen graduate students, professors, and students themselves have radically different opinions on what a B paper looks like, let alone if any Ds or Fs should be handed out. We've all had instructors who love to give B-minuses on every assignment, and we've also probably had instructors who dole out the As for simply showing up and staying awake. Getting these instructors to agree on a grade scale based on the actual work would seem futile, but rallying them behind a "cause" to inflate might work.

I have to wonder if law schools have been doing this for awhile, and now the trend is just strong enough that more schools have to jump on the bandwagon just to keep up. I imagine that in law schools, where rankings are important and students often burden themselves with debt, managing expectations is important. In some academic positions where 6 spots open a year, a program can throw their hands up in the air and blame the hiring process, which is shrouded in much mystery. Law firm hiring may also be shrouded in mystery, but if you go to a school that will pay a firm to hire you, things might be a bit clearer.

Does this vary between programs, or between schools? Is grade inflation, at any level, becoming a problem? What do you think of some of these solutions to increased job competition? And, what will this mean for those of us who missed this mass inflation?

**For those waiting on an update on the trip, it will come after the 4th of July, once I can upload the billion pictures of elephants we took! Stay tuned.

Puppet "Masters" and Other Nutty Higher Education Ideas

All right folkses. Disillusioned with your program of choice? Thinking that you might rather be a balloon animal artist than a physicist? I have some suggestions, by way of CNN and Mental Floss:

Funky Degrees! Here's a little sample:

_____________________

Wood & Paper Science, North Carolina State

North Carolina State University's College of Natural Resources offers a variety of masters and doctoral programs through its Department of Wood & Paper Science.

According to the program's Web site, students' coursework can included classes on such specific topics as wood-moisture relations and lumber drying, paper physics, and wood tool design, performance, and wear.

_____________________

Well, there you have it. Points to whoever figures out which of these programs I'd be enrolled in, if I weren't happily working away in archives.

Room for Debate: College Costs

An issue which affects us both as students and future educators. Let's hear from some experts.

Here's something of a round table on skyrocketing college costs, and the panelists' take on the solution.

How Much Student Debt is Too Much?

I will say that I think one of these people is wholly incorrect, and I suspect another may also have missed the boat, though their argument is somewhat defensible. But that's all I'll say, so you can make up your mind and then sound off in the comments.