Things That Need Saying

My daughter started college in the Spring semester. I came to realize soon after that I needed to blog about it.

Background: In her junior year, she decided that high school was not serving her educational needs. Being utterly unlike me in key ways, she did not decide to simply spend a lot of time goofing off, obsessing about boys or partying. She came to us—both sets of parents—and proposed to quit high school and immediately enter community college, thus saving a lot of frustration and time. None of us could think of a good reason that she should not do so, and even if we had, I don't think we could have forced a decision on her. So, in that way, she's my girl!

It worked out well, with a small glitch which meant she could not start in the fall, but she did save half a year of her life anyway.

But like all college students, she was disappointed in some of her classes for reasons that are very germane to my line of work. I am adjunct faculty at the college where my daughter is a student, and I have a masters in educational technology. This seemed like a unique opportunity and lens through which to filter our ideas and experiences. So far I have not been able to interest her in helping me write this, but perhaps if I screw it up enough I will force her hand.

At some point, I will recap her last semester, but I thought I'd toss this up while it's fresh in my mind.

Honestly, I think this is going to become a blog about what not to do. I wish it were otherwise. Sorry to spoil the ending.

Through various snafus involving her bicycle, Daughter was unable to get to her first class of the summer on time without my help. (Oh, how I am hoping the lesson of preparation is sinking in, but I think it's gonna take awhile) I offered to get her there on time, which is not as simple as it seems, as she is taking courses in an outreach center 15 miles away at the same time I am working on the main campus. But this class was one she was thinking of adding, so it worked out. I dropped her off and told her to text me to let me know if she got into the class or not, then I went to In-N-Out for a burger, as one does.

So, the call came. She was not going to take this class. My inner parental grump was annoyed. Seriously, why was she so picky? (Oh, yeah, totally my fault. That's not the point. Focus!)

Prepare yourself for this stupidity: the professor grades students on the notes they take, among other things. I was gobsmacked.

I had run into this problem in another form back when I was taking the second chemistry class I needed...for a career that never happened, but that's another story. The prof had insisted that we write out all the labs longhand and not on the computer. Which would have been fine if the labs were a few pages long, as they were the previous class. But she wanted us to write out all the instructions that she had typed for the lab. This was pure busywork for no reason whatsoever. The factory model of education. Punishment, in my view. I dropped the class.

And to both of these women I say, "What the hell is wrong with you?" What possible goal is achieved through requiring this sort of thing when we have computers, and recording devices, and the magic of the internet at hand? How does this positively affect student outcomes, and even if it does, at what cost? At what cost to the students for whom note-taking is an arduous task: those who are non-neurotypical, those who have figured out that paying attention matters more than writing down what the prof says, and, hell, how about those who just want to be treated as adults who are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves how they best learn and study? And how about you stick to actually doing your job of teaching, hmm?!?

It's a shame, really, because both of those women have valuable content knowledge. Daughter said this prof has been involved in all aspects of her field, and had a lot of interesting things to say about it. She regrets not being able to take the class. But, as she said, "I'm not going to college so I can submit to a binder check again!" She will take the class from someone else.

On a mostly unrelated tech note, she said there was a smartboard in the classroom, which is great, except that it's positioned so that only part of the class could see it. <headdesk> This is a brand new building. This is why the tech needs to be integrated, people. It's not a sticker you put on after the building is complete. It needs to be a part of the process.

And really, it's not so unrelated. It really speaks to the lack of vision—and the lack of involving those who do have vision—into designing the educational process from start to finish, from the buildings to the technology to the professors. It's late not to have this figured out, and young people suffer for our attachment to the past.