edumacation RR#4

The author’s central claim in this article grows from his experience while performing the role of a sieve in the education system, a system newly thronged in the increasing trend of education-led upward social movement. This trend is founded upon the timeless American dogma that increased education leads to a better life, a sentiment that is not reciprocated by the findings of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, in Australia, that suggest higher levels of education actually often lead to lower levels of wellbeing. But anyhow, he reveals that because of this invigorated feeling that education will set you free, colleges today are becoming increasingly flooded with academically inept people as they open their doors wider to the general public. These people do not posses the basic skill levels required to perform academically, and thus, they are unable to pull even Ds out of introductory classes. This experience led the author to his central claim, in contrast to wide-spread feelings about entitlement, that not everybody deserves a place in higher education. That education is a privilege for the qualified, not a right for the great unwashed.
An important subsequent claim the author makes is the purported symbiotic relationship between the open-door colleges and the general public who are optimistically pursuing education, and how this unavoidably intersects with a grimmer reality. The professor admonishes, ”although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.” Thus, this cycle we are seeing of a massive education migration of the general public is enabled by the combination of the profit motive of colleges who do well by increased admissions, and by the profit motive of the students who enroll to get better jobs down the road, etc. This model that he claims exists, reveals the underlying social structure of this phenomenon that he is observing in the classroom. It also brings to light how these forces governing these circumstances unavoidably collapse upon the point of “irreconcilable conflict,” as he calls it. This conflict is the moment in time that the profit motive which essentially underpins the existence of the education system, can also become a device that devalues the purpose of its existence, when it allows in otherwise under-qualified students, that moment of collision between profit and standards that ensues is the “irreconcilable conflict.”
The next significant claim he makes is regarding students: “they are in some cases barely literate; so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.” I think many if not most students returning to community college after years have some expectation that their utter academic deficits will be conscientiously taken into consideration. The notion that there is some specific level of academic prowess expected at the secondary level is probably taken for granted by a lot of said students. However, many of these students who are presumptuous about this standard or slightly behind still manage to excel academically after sometime adjusting. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere between the slightly slower learner and the ineducable, the latter probably being sufficient as a disqualifying factor for secondary education. The professor claims these “ineducable” students are hopelessly and despairingly resilient to his best efforts. This lays the foundation for his claim that some students simply don’t belong in academia. Because if we lowered the standards so much that these students actually walked out the door with a degree, it would be in effect reducing the status of the school to a veritable diploma mill, whereby the degrees of all students became equally valueless.
I agree with Professor X‘s reasoning that because more people are pursuing degrees in community colleges today, in conjunction with these schools not selectively admitting students, a more broad spectrum of academic ability is being represented in classrooms today. Therefore, more under-qualified students are present. This is definitely a problem as he suggests, as I believe that learning should entail unapologetically high standards, and that the pace of the classroom should not be set by the lowest common denominator. However, I think his assertion that they are “so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions”, is a little premature. Though I admit that these students are probably deservingly receiving such bad remarks in the context of his classroom, I still advise more leniency in the face of such decisive generalizations about their general intellectual capacity. English is a nefarious subject that frequently brings students who otherwise excel in other areas, down to size, because it better than any other subject illuminates the holes and disorganization in one’s thinking, which easily goes unseen in other subjects. It is also very tricky because unlike many other subjects who simply transmit information within the format of language, English attempts to reorganize that very format, a most uncomfortable process for most. This is why English is probably the subject that is most difficult to imprint a change in someone because it involves changing a lifetime of habits. So, they might not be able to write a lick, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their intellect is entirely lacking structure to acquire information. The author says that most of his students are doing 100-level introductory classes and are failing repeatedly, and so should be jettisoned out of the system. He never mentioned if any of these students attempted to drop down to a 90-level course and do remedial work upon failing. I would claim, that this approach might be better suited to these 40 year olds who haven’t heard the word “thesis” in over 20 years, and instead of abandoning them and effectively telling them they‘re not good enough for the American Dream because they can‘t write a thesis, they should attempt to lower the volume load. Community colleges should be dedicated in principle to the service of the community, a community that is unfortunately the product of a failing primary level education system. But as it is intended to be a conduit between this general public and the four year universities beyond, they should attempt not to filter, but to try to provide the means necessary to represent the breadth of the spectrum of academic ability found in the community. This is a lofty goal, but it’s better than colleges simply kicking out people who don’t hit the ground running. This might be the best solution to allowing in all sorts of backgrounds in education while not affecting the standards of the college. However, if they somehow manage to be completely resilient to repeated remedial education, lines should be drawn.