Feeling Festivals in the classroom.

If I were to become a college professor, could I make students put money in a jar each time they use some horrible platitude to justify an argument?  I would make so much money!  

Sigh.  

I suppose platitudes are better than certain statements.  Statements that make me want to smack people in the heads with yardsticks.  Like, in Interpersonal Communications we're asked to give characters or people we know who either exemplify interpersonal competence or interpersonal incompetence.  A student said Martin Luther King jr. exemplified interpersonal competence, where as African Americans of "this time" represent incompetence.  That's it.  So, then when a few people (not the professor) call her out on it she said "I did not mean to be offensive or stereotyping.  End of discussion."  

Ugh.  Why do college courses so easily become what I like to call "feeling festivals."  

A FEELING FESTIVAL is where students don't use any logos or ethos, but rather pathos, and draw upon their own "feelings" to justify something.  These "feelings" don't even involve personal anecdotes, rather than just some gut instinct, such as: "I FEEL that someone who wasn't born in the United States won't have our best interests at heart, like someone born here would."  Then, when presented with evidence of traitors like FBI agent Robert Hanssen or, say, ALL OF THE SOUTHERN MILITARY LEADERS DURING THE CIVIL WAR, they say: "I understand what you're saying, but I still FEEL . . ."  

Last semester I was in a really good course with fairly smart peers, but there was still someone who FELT something so much that she continued to write an essay about a religion that doesn't even exist.  After she was shown proof that it didn't exist, even by the professor, she still wouldn't acknowledge the truth.  Her FEELING that it existed was just that great. 

A feeling festival also means that a student can say "I did not MEAN to do/make/say . . ." thus, they didn't do/make/say it, and so whatever dumb or offensive thing they did/said simply didn't happen. The weird thing about this type of feeling is that functions purposely to dismiss the feelings of others who may be hurt by the statement or action. 

And, of course, what is a platitude but a feeling.

So, why does this happen? 

Well, from my observation this happens primarily in courses where there are no guidelines on discussions or no instruction on how hard a student needs to work to be considered "participating" in a course.  My best online courses always involve at least a minimum word count that someone must write in order to receive full participation points.  It's rare, although not impossible, that a student can stretch out a feeling or platitude for 250 or 500 words.  Even better classes will have stricter guidelines that involve using source material to construct arguments or offering more specific ways to respond that is constructive and actually forces you to put some sort of effort into the course.  

Although a minimum word count wouldn't work as well in person, the idea of having some standards for participating and constructing responses or arguments can still exist and help avoid so many damn feelings.

Classes without these standards usually leave me remembering one reason why I dropped out of school in the first place--not to mention bitter, annoyed, and with this suspicion that school is worse for my brain than television.  

At least I enjoy television.  Well, some television.  So, okay, I guess school is a lot like television. Sometimes you get quality programming, and other times you get The Jersey Shore. 

Recipes for Success

Whoopie Pie with coconut frosting filling

So, I've been tasked to chair my group's committee for our annual charity fundraiser at work.  I'm so excited that I will finally have so much control over the campaign.  I'm also excited that we broke away from our usual group where only two people decide what we're going to do without asking for anyone else's input.  Inevitably, they can't do it all by themselves, and it becomes a disorganized mess, and they never try and engage and excite anyone else into action.  I mean, it's bad enough that it's ran like a dictatorship, but an incompetent dictatorship just doesn't make sense.  

But this year will be different.  This year I am bringing everyone on board.

So far I've asked everyone's opinions, taken notes, complimented people, and I even baked cookies to bring to the committee meeting.  One of the managers in the group repeatedly made remarks about her pay and perks being less than the manager who's our competition, so I think I can channel her hostility and frustration into something wonderful.  This time around everyone will be heard and we will crush the competition like a Ritz cracker beneath my boot!!!!  

Also, I finally finished something to give to my professor.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time to make a coffee cake, the cranberry orange bread didn't turn out too well, and by the time I had to leave for work my brownies were still too undercooked or warm or something.  (This new oven will take some getting used to.)  So, I only sent peanut butter filled whoopie pies and chocolate chip cookies with sea salt.  I also sent a card which looked pretty horrible because I re opened after forgetting to put the Mat's gift card in with it.  So. . . I ripped the envelope through the middle and taped it.  Also, I wrote the card with a pencil.  Also, I ran out of space on the card.  Also, I was ten minutes late to work so I was kinda in a rush.

Later I took my lunch break at work and made a phone call to the school.  The conference with the accreditors that visited JCC was weird.  The number I was given must have been wrong because I held on the line forever...I hung up and redialed a few times trying to make sure I was dialing right.  I listened to horrible music while considering the possibility that maybe this was a scientific experiment to see how long a student would wait.  I used my other phone to call up the school and figure out what was going on.  After dealing with one very nice but unhelpful person (about three or four times), I was finally on the line with them after they called me.  I'm not really sure what the point of the call was though.  It reminded me of work where people ask general questions that don't reveal much of anything at all.  Also, the students who I could hear talking all seemed to like easy courses.  I hate easy courses; they're insulting and boring.

It wasn't the best day but it wasn't the worst. 

I can't believe it's almost time to fill out college applications.  The idea fills me with dread!

Carbonized Coffee Cake

So, I bought a Thank You card to send to the English professor who has helped me with my writing outside of class for some time.  I debated over what to send at this time because although he said he'd be happy to write me a letter of recommendation I wouldn't receive it for months from now.  So, after gathering information on him (the places he likes to eat, his lack of allergies, etc.) I decided I would save a gift certificate to one of his resteraunts until after I'm totally done with JCC, but that I would still send a Thank You card now with a small gift certificate to Mat's (because in my research no downtown restaurant came up and I insist that everyone, even those in the sticks, receive an education about the actual city of Jackson), and I would send baked goods. 

On the one hand, I am excellent at making cheesecakes, tarts, tortes, and all those fancy high end items, but none of those travel well, so I decided I would make simpler things.  I nixed cookies because those seemed too simple.  I decided to try making Whoopie pies for the first time, hand pies, and an apple crumb coffee cake.

Oh yeah, and last week I installed a brand new oven to replace the oven that hasn't worked in five months.  Unfortunately, this oven doesn't turn off unless you turn it off at the gas valve.  The company that made it was supposed to be out here last week but after not showing up and not calling the customer service rep said the tech was hung up at another job, but half an hour later they claimed they had shown up and no one was home.  I don't know where the hell they showed up to, but it sure as hell wasn't here.  SO, I continued to use the oven to make a small test batch of whoopie pies.  Those came out pretty well, although they were much larger than I thought they'd be.  It's like carrying around a double whopper.  The hand pies were a complete and utter nightmare to make because they were so time consuming.  Putting the dough in and out of the freezer and refrigerator around five times was a little much.  Then when I finally tasted a hand pie I thought it would have been a lot better if it had been a regular pie with more filling. 

SO, on Sunday before making the large batch of whoopie pies, I made the apple crumb coffee cake.  I stuck it in what was supposed to be a 325 degree oven for 45 to 55 minutes, and I left it in order to do geology homework.  At forty minutes I came upstairs and smelled something burning.  Of course it was the coffee cake.  The top didn't look too bad, but the bottom was totally black and crunchy.  The oven decided that it would operate at about 400 degrees instead of 325, hence the carbonized coffee cake.  Well, that was too high to do whoopie pies, so after an entire day of work I gave up at nine o'clock at night.   I was feeling a little angry and feeling a whole lot of defeated. 

So now I'm going to try this all over again on Sunday, minus the ridiculous hand pies.  I'm also reconsidering adding cookies because they are harder to mess up, plus they travel well. Supposedly, a tech will be out this week, which means I need to ask for time off of work.  Suckfest.

Especially suckfest because I received the most awesome email I've ever received: an invitation from JCC to attend a discussion with some sort of VIPs who are coming to evaluate their online courses.  One of my former professors recommended me as a student who might be willing to attend, apparently.  Of course it's during my normal work hours, so. . . we'll see.  And by "we'll see" I mean that I'll see what kind of mood my boss is in today.  Work is a little stressful for everyone right now because about five different people have crawled up our department's ass to evaluate it or investigate it, or whatever they call it when they get five clueless people in a room to analyze data that will take them weeks to understand, rather than just asking one of us a simple question.  Efficiency in the private sector?  Yeah right, don't believe the hype.   

Endless "Education"

Tonight I saw both my brothers for the first time in a long time.  My oldest little brother is back from 14 months in Australia.  He gave me a bracelet he picked up on his trip to Bali.  My youngest brother is a sophomore at MSU's James Madison and he is kicking butt.  I watched them both force feed themselves "Endless Pasta" because they're always trying to put on more muscle mass.  

Anyway, I was seven minutes late to dinner and when I came in I saw one of my favorite teachers from high school.  His dark brown hair has gone gray, and he's shaved his beard, but I recognized him instantly.  About five years ago, during the busy Christmas shopping season, I ran into him at Meijer.  This time I avoided him completely.  The idea of him asking me what I was up to was too excruciating to consider. What would I have said?  "Well, I'm at JCC (Yes, I really have been going to school for that long), and I'm working a dead end job that I have no interest in."  Yes, I could have said that, but I didn't want to tell my favorite teacher -- a teacher who I worked my ass off for -- that ten years after graduating high school my life was just a disappointment. 

So far this semester, school is painfully dull and underwhelming.  I am learning things in Geology, but that's it.  I'm hoping Art History turns out to be worthwhile because otherwise this semester is going to drag on forever in the worst way.  At first I couldn't figure out why my communications class seemed so easy and so pointless.  Then, when I started listening to my classmates, I realized that it really seems as though I'm in class with middle school students.  This lack of intellectual maturity actually seems to make it worse considering that so far the only comments our topics receive are shallow and non reflective.  

Sometimes I start thinking about the holes in the bottom of my running shoes, and the medicals bills that need to be paid, and the oil that needs to be changed, and I grow really frustrated with how much I pay for classes that leave me feeling like I'm still in junior high.  Yet, I am not going to blow it off; I am going to be patient and try, try, try, try, to learn something or help my classmates with their learning experience.  The very least I can do is mix things up a bit since everyone else seem to share the same underdeveloped and unsubstantiated opinions.  It's weird; anytime I'm in a course where I'm not learning anything, I always want to take on the role of teacher. Someday, I know I will spend less time going through the motions of getting an education, and spend more time actually learning.  

Oh yeah--I joined Phi Theta Kappa.  So. . . goodbye $80.00 I'll never have back.  I hope I made a wise decision.   

suckfest fall 2011

So far, this semester bites, HARD.

First of all, there are way too many good books to read and such little time.  I want to read all of the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Jeffrey Eugenides (from Michigan!!) has a new book out called The Marriage Plot.  (That reminds me, since when did we switch from underlining books to italicizing them?  I was really out of the loop for that one.) 

Secondly: money, money, money!  I was signed up for fifteen courses, but then I dropped some credits in order to pay for it.  I set up a tuition payment arrangement, like I do every semester, but my fifteen credits payment was adjusted to be $825.00, which I definitely couldn't afford.  So, after dropping the courses I called and asked to have the payment plan updated which puts me at a cool $360.00 a month plan.  A week after updating it via phone I received an email confirming the update.  But a week after that I am debited for $825.00 smackers.  This put my checking account well into the negative.  That's totally awesome considering the number of other bills I owe this month. 

Thirdly, there are courses I can't take for a number of reasons.  One reason is money, another reason is that I didn't obtain the permission for a late sign up until it was SO LATE that there was no way I was going to be able to catch up in a five credit math course, and another reason is that my work changed their hours and there was no way I was going to be able to attend an early morning class I sortakinda wanted to attend.  Sortakinda because I could have used the letter of recommendation that would have inevitably come from enrolling in the course.  But sortakinda not because of so many reasons, including the fact that I've taken more literature courses than I need.  Plus, I have the syllabus and can read everything that would have been assigned, much of which I've already read, and I doubt I would have learned anything in that course, anyway. 

What I mean to say is that I am beyond that course.  Once upon a time I took a course with that professor and what first seemed great turned out to be really disappointing, like, disappointing on an existential level -- if that makes any sense. After that, I dropped out of school.  So, there's that.  Plus, I have dreams about the whole experience.  Maybe it's better to call them nightmares.  It's funny; there's no violence and gore, but everything in the dream always moves so slowly.  I'm always being stalked by something or someone, and I'm always filled with a sense of dread and despair.  I'm also uncomfortably aware that part of why I want that letter so badly is because I want some sense of closure.  I'm always after closure and I almost never get it.  I guess I want my closure to be this moment where I prove to myself that I can do really well in the class, and that I'm smart, and that any praise I received before wasn't utter bullshit.  I have this fantasy of being this deadly serious student who is absolutely relentless in this class, humorless and without mercy.  The idea of trying to leave community college without that is . . . difficult.  I've spent more than a year thinking about the moment I'd receive that closure and now the end of that arc has crumbled from between my fingers, leaving something less like closure and more like an abrupt and anti-climatic ending, one of those endings that leaves you saying FHAT THE WUCK??

Fourthly: work, scmerk!  Basically, I have every reason to believe downsizing is going to happen in a few months from now.  At first, I was really freaked out, but then I psyched myself up for a layoff.  I was going to quit in August 2012, anyway, and it's not like I make that much more than I would on unemployment.  So, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I started thinking about the things I could do with more time on my hands.  If layoffs occurred it'd happen right around the time when I start working on my college applications.  I could write a novel!  I could become a boxing champion!  So on and so forth.  Then I psyched myself up so well that when I started to see signs that at least *I* would not be let go, I started to feel sort of. . . disappointed?

See, I took a couple days off of work this month for my anniversary.  Then I signed up for early morning volunteer work on the day of my anniversary because it's what I want to do.  It's not that I want to sleep in all day and be lazy.  Instead, I'd like to do something I'm passionate about. 

The problem with having a job that you don't dread going to is that it's hard to get away from it.  Awhile back there was a job opening at a local nonprofit that I care about.  It was just doing clerical work, but it would have been a foot in the door.  Even if it didn't lead to anything, at least I would have been working for a group that I believe in and care about.  Yet, I didn't apply.  I just figured, well, I have a decent paying job with benefits now so why mess it up?  Not only am I not messing it up by not applying elsewhere, I don't even apply to move up at work.  I don't apply for higher paying positions.  I just stay in the same place because no one bothers me too much that I can't deal with them, and because I am in that dull numb zombie place where it's easier to just deny my desires than fluff up my feathers and pretend that I actually want to move up.  Really, moving up at work is the last thing I want to do! 

A lot of people would love to trade places with me, I know.  But I can't help but want so much more. 

Sometimes I think I shove my soul so far down into myself that one day my insides will explode and everything inside me is going to cover the entire city.  But instead of having guts and organs I'd be filled with red, green, and gold paint, peacocks, pinwheels, James Dean, a fedora, the three Stooges, malted milkshakes, a zebra, Tom Waits' piano, Mae West, and maybe the Golden Gate Bridge.

So, basically, I've decided that this year I'm going to pop my collar.  ALL MY COLLARS.  It'll be my signature look.  People will see me, recognize me, and say to their friends, "Hey, there's that douche bag who's always popping her collar."  Yeah.

Secondly, September and October will be devoted to getting my finances in order.   And thirdly, I will try and take my cool professor's advice and write everyday.  I'm going to try for at least 1,000 words -- not this crap!  Real, literary, nonblog writing.  Non-diary writing.  Non-censored yet non-gut spilling. 

Also, I didn't receive an invitation to the honor society, even though I have the GPA for it.  I'm not sure how all that works, but I emailed the professor in charge because I've decided to end this habit I have of being a passive student outside of the classroom. 

People who pop their collars should be aggressive or they might as well not pop them at all! 

 

This transformation is going to involve listening to copious amounts of old Ani Difranco songs. 

Michigan: Destroying Education One Good Teacher at a Time.

                       

My Aunt has an MA in special education and for more than twenty years she's worked in a public high school teaching "emotionally impaired" students.  Most of these students live in poverty, many have been abused, some are foster kids, and many of said students have one or more parents who are incarcerated.  In the past some of her students have gone on to prison themselves for crimes like rape and murder.  Obviously, her job isn't easy.  Recently, she's taken an administrative position, even though she never wanted to be an administrator, simply to get out from under the thumb of a principal who has it out for her.

Why?  Good question.  Her peers and friends have speculated that perhaps he hit on her once and she rebuffed him, and maybe she didn't even know it.  Sound like they're reaching?  Well, if you knew her you'd be reaching too.  Simply put, she is an amazing teacher and an amazing human being.  Not only has she been a teacher for more than twenty years, she's also been a coach, a youth group leader, a mentor, and served on countless committees for her school. 

Her principal -- a person with business experience, NOT experience in education -- actually evaluated her in front of his cronies and began this evaluation/interview by asking her to repeat what he says are her shortcomings, allegedly prompting her with "and. . .?" when she stopped.  Obviously, he is an encouraging and sensitive leader.

So, with the educational overhaul in Michigan, she got out while the getting was good.  It's sad because without her in the classroom many students will suffer.  She was a great teacher (after twenty-plus years the principal allegedly said to her "someday I think you'll be a good teacher"), and she had a great rapport with students, and anyone who knows her knows that.  Of course, she's also been teaching in a school district where a huge portion of the students are failing their standardized testing.  The reasons for this are numerous.  As I've discussed with her before, her school budget is pitiful and she rarely has access to the type of technology that students love on the rare occasions she's able to utilize it.   And, again, she's teaching in an impoverished district, where her own students tend to be the most impoverished or coming from the worst situations at home.  To expect that they wouldn't experience a disproportionate struggle is absurd. 

As Michigan moves closer to privatization and using high-stakes standardized testing to put a choke hold on tenure and teachers, I think we should all be questioning the legitimacy of using testing as an accurate evaluation of teacher performance.  The entire premise of evaluations these days rest upon the all-mighty standardized test.  Yet the evidence that high-stakes testing EVER produced results is in a constant state of unraveling.

Before the stylized and emotionally manipulative Waiting for Superman hit the box office its star, former DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee was promoting the success of high-stakes testing using the supposed success story of the Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus whose proficiency in math went from ten percent to fifty-eight percent in two years.  The narrative of the poor inner city school district that thrived under high-stakes testing was everything Rhee and like-minded school reformers needed to appeal to politicians and the public in order to end unions and tenure. 

But here's the problem: Recent evidence indicates rampant cheating, not better teaching, was responsible for the dramatic increase in test scores. 

The news of cheating at Noyes hit the news on the heels of a report issued in Georgia that documented the systemic cheating that took place in forty-four of the fifty-six schools.  The report went beyond the statistical analysis in previous cases, and delved into the culture that was created after No Child Left Behind was enacted.  The report also shows that it was administrators forcing teachers into cheating, even gathering them into rooms where they spent the day erasing and rewriting answers. 

One would think that when supposed success stories used to prop up high-stakes testing turn out to be lies that some bright member of government would take notice, or perhaps an education reformer would admit that maybe they were wrong or, at the very least, more study is needed. 

Well . . . not if you're Michelle Rhee.  If you're Rhee you simply blame your "enemies" for somehow gathering every union sympathizing statistician to claim that the odds for  "winning the Powerball grand prize"  are better than the odds of having such a high number of erasure marks without alteration.  One problem with this conspiracy theory is that the developers of the tests actually have machines that are set up to recognize erasure marks and flag tests for an unusually high number of erasure marks.  So while Rhee and like minded defenders would like to explain this away as some sort of union driven character assassination, the facts don't support her delusions. 

Okay, so maybe it's really hard to let go of something you were once so sure of.  But even that theory doesn't make sense when you consider the cheating problem with high-stakes testing even before NCLB. After all, it was only 1996 when the Chicago Public School cheating scandal hit the fan.  Chicago had embraced high-stakes testing, before it became a national mandate, and it didn't quite work out.

So, where's the proof that high-stakes testing works?  In these cases a teacher who didn't cheat could have easily been fired, where as a cheating teacher could have been heavily compensated for producing inflated scores.

This idea of replacing the traditional education model with a business model has infected higher education as well, as evidenced by the growing for-profit college industry that churns out graduates with high debt and little hope of gainful employment.

Promoters of high-stakes testing and privatization fail to recognize the negative effect the high turnover of teachers has on students.  For many of the students in my Aunts course, they need solid long-term mentors because they already have enough failed relationships in their personal life.  Young transients spending a few years in Teach for America, or local college volunteers, aren't going to be around long enough for many of these students to create the stability so desperately needed.   

Since when has big business ever been good for children, anyway?  Remind me again, was it labor laws that stopped dangerous child labor, or did all the robber baron industrialists simply decide it was against their moral codes?

I'd like to be more hopeful, but it seems to me that Michigan is intent on killing public education, and the best I can hope for is resurrection, someday, when these so-called reforms fill us all with regret.