Confessions of a University Teaching Assistant

In the margins of one paper I was grading I wrote, “The plural of ‘woman’ is ‘women’.” In another I underlined “lead” and wrote, “The past tense of the verb ‘to lead’ is ‘led’.” On almost every paper I wrote, “Weak thesis”, “Unclear organization”, or “Needs topic sentence”. I was not grading papers from fifth graders, as one might expect from a lesson on proper plurals of common nouns. I was not grading junior high, or even high school papers. Rather, I was grading college papers as a teaching assistant at a top California university.

After three years as a high school teacher, I was eager to experience teaching at the university level. As a doctoral student, I was responsible for leading discussion sections and determining grades for thirty to forty-five students each quarter. I looked forward to teaching the best and brightest students in California. After all, I was at the University of California, and according to the California Master Plan for Education, the UC system was “to select its freshmen students from the top one-eighth (12.5%) of the high school graduating class.” The average high school GPA for students entering the nine UC campuses in fall 2006 ranged between 3.58 for UC Merced to 4.17 for UC Berkeley. These are students used to succeeding in school.

The students I taught were bright, some of them exceptionally so. They worked hard, attended class, and came to office hours for help. They grasped complicated ideas and asked good questions in section. But they could not write. Somewhere, at some point, California’s public education system has failed these bright and motivated students.

I should not have had to teach college students basic plural forms, or the past tense of commonly used verbs. They should have had rigorous writing instruction in junior high and high school, so that such mistakes would be the exception rather than the rule. But in class after class for which I have served as teaching assistant, the students have lacked important writing skills. From the level of organization to the execution of individual sentences, students have required long hours of class work and individual coaching in office hours. And despite my most valiant efforts combined with dedication and hard work by students, their writing still needed work by the end of the quarter. Quarters last only ten to twelve weeks. Writing should be taught and refined over the course of years. By the time students reach college, they should have a basic command of grammar, syntax, and style.

I’m not arguing that all students should write perfectly. After all, graduate students and professors still work on their own writing. But the ability to organize thoughts coherently and to communicate effectively does not require literary genius.

As a high school teacher I also noticed this problem. But I taught at an urban school in a district with a notoriously bad track record. I wasn’t surprised to get high school students who had not been familiarized with thesis statements. Then, at least, I was able to work with students for an entire year. By the end, they could all develop a thesis and a well-organized supporting argument. There were still many gaps, but I hoped as they moved on through high school these would be filled in.

I assumed that by the time California’s best students reached college, they would be able to write. So I was stunned by my first round of paper grading, where I saw the same mistakes my high school freshmen made, and sometimes even more egregious errors. For this, there can be no excuse.

These students are bright, and most are highly motivated and hardworking. They can’t know what they haven’t been taught. They have been getting As and accolades throughout their high school careers without being held accountable for the knowledge and skills necessary for success. It is not that these students are incapable of possessing these skills. It is not a matter of ability or desire. It is a matter of education.

I’m not blaming individual high school teachers. I was one myself, and I know how hard that job is. I’m blaming a system that has encouraged mediocrity in the name of self-esteem and allowed for grade inflation that masks serious holes in knowledge. That system serves no one but the bureaucrats and politicians who depend on it. It certainly doesn’t serve the bright and capable students who it has failed to educate.

Source: Not as Good as Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice