Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.
Singing the Accreditation Blues
At the campus where I teach, we are now at a crucial point in the accreditation process. Whether we want to or not, we are called upon to consider where we are, where we want to be, where we are going, and other such existential issues, especially related to gaps that emerge. Certainly at the core of all this is a reflection on our purpose of existence, individually and collectively.
When I was teaching overseas (see a previous post for details), I would relax by reading some of the “pleasure” literature not included in my college coursework. When I read John Updike’s novel The Centaur, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the description of a scene involving George Caldwell, a high school teacher. His son, Peter, relates an incident when his father had stretched out on the floor in the center aisle of the classroom and shouted out to the students: “Walk all over me! You’re going to do it anyhow!” Certainly the incident resonated with me, teaching in a totally foreign environment, but I also recognized how much many public and private school teachers could understand what the father was experiencing.
It’s been about 40 years since I read that and jotted it down in the list of memorable quotes I always kept handy in those days.
As I now reflect upon my location in the current accreditation process, the reality is – things don’t seem so different now. Here are some major components of the student population of the various English classes I teach:
v The 18-20 year-old-year graduate of a local high school needing academic skills to transfer to a program for a bachelor’s degree elsewhere.
v The local graduate with strong skills but not able to afford the costs to study elsewhere.
v The 16-18 year-old high school student in the Running Start program.
v The more advanced student working on an “Applied Bachelors” degree on this campus.
v The adult needing retraining after being displaced from the workforce.
v The adult single parent returning to school after several years away.
v The “developmental” student who did not acquire many basic skills in the K-12 education system.
v The military veteran returning to school after several years of service.
v The immigrant student with limited language skills and cultural knowledge.
v The international student with strong academic skills from a different cultural system.
v The international student of affluence with poor or average academic skills from a different cultural system.
The list could go on with many of the students overlapping into several categories based on age, income, ethnicity, experience, etc. As I consider my “purpose of existence” I cannot help but wonder how I can be the right person for all these students at the same time. They all need something from me, and they expect me to deliver it.
As a professional educator at the college level, I am grateful to have some leeway in how I structure my courses and select my materials depending on classroom demographics. On the frontlines of such battles, I appreciate the shared governance that respects my experience, good and bad both, resulting in wisdom and insight into the fulfillment of my sense of purpose. It is the body of the faculty as a whole, through professional development opportunities, informal discussions, peer observations and feedback, etc. that is my biggest asset as we deal with issues and challenges we face together in partnership with the administration regarding community expectations and demands. Funding is always an issue in education, and most funding comes with “strings” attached. Essentially, this is pulling the teacher in still another direction.
Thus, which do I sacrifice in the quest for the greater good for the greater good? Are the “problem” students most deserving of the investment to try to help them navigate into the “greater good” of society? I watch Robin Williams in The Dead Poets Society or Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds and see how much effort goes into just one segment of the population – privileged or unprivileged. Even when the inspiration comes from “real life”- what cost does this demand for sacrifice by the teachers as well as their families and personal lives?
As Updike’s George Caldwell has stated, often it is the students themselves who put up major resistance. In one recent “informal discussion,” a colleague shared about the difficulties in reaching a particularly “distracted” class of students. This instructor decided to put the question to the students themselves: Why weren’t they more involved in the course and the class discussions? What could be changed or improved? The discussion with one student went something like this:
“You need to make the class more entertaining,” said the student.
The instructor asked for further explanation.
“For example,” explained the student, “on The Daily Show Jon Stewart talks about current events every day, but he makes it entertaining. You should make our discussions entertaining like he does.”
“Jon Stewart has a staff of writers who prepare all the material for the show!” The teacher replied.
“Yeah,” answered the student. “It’s really interesting what they do each day. I hardly ever miss his show.”
“I don’t have a staff of writers who can prepare new material for me everyday.”
“Well, I’m just saying that it would be more interesting for me if you would make the class more entertaining like he does.”
“How am I supposed to do that if I don’t have a staff of writers and I’m the only one to grade papers and teach the class?”
“All I’m saying is you should make it more entertaining. If you don’t want to listen to my answer, why bother to ask the question in the first place?”
Unfortunately, that’s as much entertainment as I can provide as I sit among the piles of papers while singing the Accreditation Blues, to the tune of the Assessment Blues:
Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
