All true. Every single word. My daughter graduates cum laude next week. But it wasn't without pitfalls. There is piss-poor teaching at the lower levels of university core courses. Too many TA's and grad students treat their teaching stints as chores and do little or nothing to address the needs of their students or to improve their own pedagogy. I can't tell you how many times my two oldest kids, both honor students, ended up learning more from the learning center than from the class. Add to that professors that treat their own class times as something based on whims and little recourse for students to complain and you have a money pit. It took my daughter five years due to bad advising and the need to work full time. It will take my son the same amount of time. Right now, colleges see students as cash cows to be ravaged. They add ridiculous and unnecesary requirements for the sole reason of making more money.,
At the high school level, vocational programs are gutted to make way for more technology and college prep. So we end up with either watered down upper level courses or students dropping out to get GED's. Nobody wins. We must change this ludicrous system. We are losing people who can be our technicians, our electricians our plumbers and our mechanics because of the blind snobbery of having everyone prepared for college, whether they want it or not. (sorry for the rant, it's a pet peeve of mine)
3 comments:
All true. Every single word. My daughter graduates cum laude next week. But it wasn't without pitfalls. There is piss-poor teaching at the lower levels of university core courses. Too many TA's and grad students treat their teaching stints as chores and do little or nothing to address the needs of their students or to improve their own pedagogy. I can't tell you how many times my two oldest kids, both honor students, ended up learning more from the learning center than from the class. Add to that professors that treat their own class times as something based on whims and little recourse for students to complain and you have a money pit. It took my daughter five years due to bad advising and the need to work full time. It will take my son the same amount of time. Right now, colleges see students as cash cows to be ravaged. They add ridiculous and unnecesary requirements for the sole reason of making more money.,
At the high school level, vocational programs are gutted to make way for more technology and college prep. So we end up with either watered down upper level courses or students dropping out to get GED's. Nobody wins. We must change this ludicrous system. We are losing people who can be our technicians, our electricians our plumbers and our mechanics because of the blind snobbery of having everyone prepared for college, whether they want it or not. (sorry for the rant, it's a pet peeve of mine)
Ellen, your rants are welcome here any time.
Darren, we also have a discussion of this at Chicago Boyz.
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