kitchen table math, the sequel: Parents Day

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Parents Day

sigh

Colleges are even less accountable than K-12.

If that's possible.
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19 comments:

ChemProf said...

Absolutely.

October 23, 2012 at 6:39 PM
Anonymous said...

I found that colleges I dealt with were wiling to have their people lie directly to your face.

FERPA is a law with terrible unintended consequences.

October 23, 2012 at 7:50 PM
Anonymous said...

Has C. read "I am Charlotte Simmons" yet? Have you?


Everything in the book is correct. Everything. There are several lessons in it for a young man.

October 23, 2012 at 8:36 PM
Anonymous said...

What are you thinking they should be more accountable about? I'm confused. I've had three hit rough patches in college, but my take on it when I finally found out was, this is between you and me, not between me and the college. You're an adult.

October 24, 2012 at 5:23 AM
SteveH said...

I don't look to Tom Wolfe for lessons in reality. There is a whole world of people out there who are "off the bus". Those who read Wolfe might just look for a better seat.

October 24, 2012 at 5:48 AM
SteveH said...

Are you talking about accountability to students or to parents? I know that colleges try to isolate parents using helicopter anecdotes. Is that the message you got on Parents Day? Did they spell it out? Back when I taught college math and CS, I had to be able to justify all of my grades to students AND parents. It happened.

At best, the separation helps students become adults. At worst, it forms a cult-like disconnect from one's family. Then again, at the place where I taught, many students went home on the weekends. So much for the "college experience".

October 24, 2012 at 6:01 AM
Hainish said...

Accountable to who exactly?

October 24, 2012 at 6:03 AM
Anonymous said...

Was that supposed to be a link to something? I'd love to slag colleges for no particular reason, but it'd be more fun if there were something interesting there.

Ooh, and let's slag Tom Wolfe while we're at it. Who needs to read his books to criticize them? Him and the rest of those dirty hippies should just get haircuts.

October 24, 2012 at 6:19 AM
Anonymous said...

Steve,

I don't know what you have against Wolfe, but it is the most accurate description of college life for young people anywhere to be found.

i found it too painful to read except in small doses, because it was so true.

Bonfire of the Vanities was prescient, to say the least.

October 24, 2012 at 8:29 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I actually wrote a real post -- i.e. a post with details -- and then thought better of it. So this is the post I put up.

I'm referring entirely to accountability for results. Is what you're doing working?

October 24, 2012 at 8:32 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I'll give into temptation and say this.

We spent approximately 5 hours listening to administrators (all administrators, not one professor) talk about the university.

The word "knowledge" was not mentioned once.

Not even once.

Instead it was 5 hours of Initiatives, Global this that and the other, 21st century, etc.

October 24, 2012 at 8:34 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I am now extremely cynical about the influx of foreign students to U.S. colleges.

When you go on your college tours, and the tour guide regales you with statistics about the huge numbers of foreign students attending the college, a big red blinking question mark should pop into your mind's eye.

Just saying.

October 24, 2012 at 8:37 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

The one good thing: parents seemed to be in no mood.

October 24, 2012 at 8:38 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

Accountable to who exactly?

Accountable to people spending 60K a year to send their kids to the school.

I think the only school on the planet that treats parents as customers --- valued customers --- may be Morningside Academy.

(I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but still....)

October 24, 2012 at 8:44 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

Back when I taught college math and CS, I had to be able to justify all of my grades to students AND parents.

wow

This reminds me: C. has a writing T.A. (an undergraduate, I think, which means he's being graded by another student just one or two years older than he) who has told the students they are never to use passive voice.

Or 'be' verbs. Don't use 'be' verbs. That's the rule. The path to good writing wends through the land of the Banished Copula.

Passive voice, of course, is essential to good writing; pv is a critical component of cohesion.

Ed and I are both published writers, I teach writing, and Ed is on the faculty of the university C. is attending ... but nobody's going to be justifying his or her views on use of pv - or his or her grading of composition - to us.

October 24, 2012 at 8:51 AM
B.J. Kerwin said...

Was that supposed to be a link to something? I'd love to slag colleges for no particular reason, but it'd be more fun if there were something interesting there.

You're not exactly innocent of slagging either, are you?

October 24, 2012 at 9:20 AM
SteveH said...

"Instead it was 5 hours of Initiatives, Global this that and the other, 21st century, etc."

You have to make a distinction between what the administrators say and what the professors say as representatives of their departments. On one hand, I just got in the mail something from the College of Engineering of U of Michigan where the dean talks about 21st century, online, blah, blah, woof, woof, whereas some of my old professors tell me that they go out of their way (as department policy) to help students survive their classes; which, for the most part, are traditional lecture classes.

October 24, 2012 at 9:42 AM
kcab said...

The parents were in no mood for what? No mood to swallow the blather?

October 24, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Anonymous said...

I agree with Allison about I Am Charlotte Simmons. It's a horror story if there ever was one. The funny thing is that a lot of that crap was going on when I was in school. And that was the 70's.

I believe Wolfe's daughter was going to Duke at the time. The school is supposed to be some hybrid of the Ivies, with Duke thrown in, or something like that.

I Am Charlotte Simmons really drives home the point that you may not be handing your child over to the fine institution you think you are.

I wish they'd make it a movie.

SusanS

October 24, 2012 at 11:11 AM

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