MORE ON GRADES

I went out for a late walk today because Passover is upon us and I had to help my wife prepare for the evening’s seder. As I sweated along in the hot, late morning spring sun, I was still thinking about grades, how as some have indicated that the hiring bean counters in both business and government, contrary to what they say, for the sake of expediency, or laziness, or sloppiness, rely so heavily on the grade transcripts for their judgement of a prospective employees abilities. How unfortunate. The grade will not tell them how that student will perform in his/her future vocation, social, and personal lives. It does not even reveal what that person might have learned in class. I know all the components of “the system” demand grades. That’s fine, as long as we recognize grades for the approximations that they are: subjective, relative, arbitrary, distorting, inconclusive, contrived, socially segregating, weeding out, thinning out, and educationally divisive instruments. But, that’s not the signal we send out to the students. And that started me thinking once again about Mary (not her real name) because I saw her last week on campus. She walked right by me without uttering a word, even refusing to acknowledge me, though I gave her a warm hello. She still is mad at me and refuses to talk to me. She is not one of the success stories in my class, and I hurt that I couldn’t have done anything to have made it otherwise.

Mary, a third-quarter first year student, an only child coming from a high-achieving and demanding family, was in my spring quarter class last year. She always came to class with a smile on her face and a cheery greeting in her voice in obvious attempts to warm up to me. But, she barely did what she thought was minimally required. “I read the material,” she would always say, “but I didn’t study it.” “I don’t want to talk,” she replied to my comments about her lack of class participation. “I’m not going to rely on anyone else for my grade,” was her explanation for her lack of cooperation with the other members of her triad. But, when it came time for the triad to take the weekly quizzes or to hand in the daily written assignment, she was more than willing to let the others do the work and share in the credit. I talked to her on more than one occasion, even offering her any alternative means of expressing what she was understanding and learning to that of class discussion. Nothing.

About five weeks into the quarter, she came to me at the beginning of class with a drop form in her hand. With the other students looking on, we had this conversation. I remember it like it was just an hour ago:

“This far into the quarter?”

“Yes, just sign where you are supposed to.”

“See me after class and we’ll talk.”

“No, we’ll talk now. I don’t have time. Just sign.”

“No ‘please’?”

“Please! Just sign now.”

“Why do you want to drop the course?”

“Well, I’m going to medical school and need to get all good grades.”

“What’s stopping you from making one? You certainly are capable. It’s your attitude that’s holding you back, not your intelligence.”

“This course is too hard. It’s not cool. There’s too much work. I’ll probably only get a ‘C’ with you. That’ll kill my chances of being a doctor. I’m going to wait to take an easier professor so I can make sure I get an ‘A’. Are you going to sign?

“Will you learn as much in that kind of class?”

“I don’t care. I just want an ‘A’. Are you going to sign?””

“Well, I’ll sign, but it will be with a failing.”

“No, I want you to give a withdrawal with a passing.”

“I’m sure you do, but you don’t deserve it at this moment.”

“I need a withdrawal with passing.

“Don’t you need the signature of your adviser first?”

“He’s the one who told me to drop your course so I can be guaranteed an ‘A’.”

“Well, unless you want to drop with a ‘WF’ on your transcript that’s the same as an ‘F’, I’m not going to let you drop it. I don’t think I’d be helping you one bit. I’d be hurting you if I let you tuck tail and run at the slightest challenge. I know you can do it if you want. What are you scared about?”

“I’m not scared and I don’t want to.”

“Well, I’m not going to sign. You now have a few choices to make. I suppose it’s crunch time. You can stop coming to class and get an F; you can cruise like you’ve been doing and probably get a ‘C’; or you can rise to the challenge, do what you are capable of doing, and get that ‘A’.”

“If I stay in the class and work, will you guarantee me an ‘A’?”

“I’m not going to guarantee anything. Only you can do that.”

“I don’t want to think or talk or do any of that stuff. I just want to read, take notes, memorize and get my ‘A’!”

“That’s the easy way. When are you going to start trying to do things the right way?”

“I’ve done all right through high school.”

“Do you think that’s good enough to get through med school. Will you only try the easy way in med school or when you become a doctor? You’re going to have to use your judgement, analyze situations and come to a decision. How are you going to develop those skills? When are you going to start?”

“I will.”

“Do you really want to be a doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you wrote in your journal?”

“My parents want me to. Will you sign?”

“What about the other members of your triad?”

“I don’t care about them. I don’t like working with other people. I like being alone. You going to sign?”

“What kind of doctor are you going to be?”

“A surgeon.”

“And to be a surgeon you don’t think you have to learn about getting along with people, with other doctors, with other nurses, with the patient, with the patient’s family, and with god knows who else?”

“I’ll learn.”

“When?”

“I’ll learn. Are you going to sign?”

“No! You have no choice. You’re stuck with me. I’m not going to let you come into a class, dip your toe in the water for almost half of the quarter, and then decide you want out and that you’re not going to take a swim. At least, not in my class. That’s a lousy habit to develop.”

“I’ve done it before each quarter, and no one argued. I’ve done anything I had to get that ‘A’.”

“Well, this prof doesn’t roll over and play dead. Does that include cutting corners?”

“That’s the cool thing if you can get away with it. You going to sign?”

“I appreciate your honesty, but I told you, no. But, remember this. If you want to do it, it can be done. And if it can be done, do whatever it takes to do it. And I’ll be there to help you all I can in any way you wish.”

“You can help me by signing this drop form!”

“Sorry, I care enough about you that I won’t sign.”

“If you really care, you’ll sign. Or, I’m going to your bosses, to the president, to force you to sign!”

“That’s your right,” I answered in the same quiet, calm voice I had used during our conversation, “but answer is still, no.”

Her voice had been getting ever louder and all the students were watching. With my last “no,” she stormed out and I started class. I later found out from her acquaintances that Mary was ready to try to embarrass me into signing that drop form if I refused to do so voluntarily. It didn’t work. I guess that was one reason she got increasingly annoyed as our public conversation progressed.

Anyway, a few hours later, I got a call from her adviser. “Louis, who do you think you are to refuse to let her drop?” he berated me in no uncertain terms. I think he used the words obstinate, arrogant, pompous, and self-righteous. Our conversation went something like this:

“Do you care about Mary?” I asked quietly.

“Of course I do.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Well…ah…I don’t know that much. But she’s a good student. I got her transcript in front of me. She got all As in her high school and during her first two quarters here.”

“Well, I know a lot about her from her self-evaluations and her journal. You ought to read her journal, if you were really interested. Ask her to show it to you. You might find it interesting. She knows she can do it. She’s just scared to try for a whole variety of tough reasons. What do you think will happen to her in med school if you steer her only into the crib classes?”

“If she fails your course, there won’t be any med school. It’ll be your fault. Will you sign the drop form?”

“She won’t come anywhere near failing it if she doesn’t want to. Maybe if we work together we can help her get on track.”

“I don’t have that kind of time. Will you sign?”

“Well, I’ve got that kind of time. You sound like Mary. And, I don’t think so?”

“I’m going to your department head and the dean.”

“That’s your right, but I’ll tell you this. I won’t sign even if they tell me, and they won’t after I tell them what you said to Mary.”

Well, to make a long story short, no one went to the department head or the dean except me. I let my department head, the other department head, and my dean know of my “displeasure” of this professor’s attitude not just towards me and my class, but towards education and learning as a whole, and especially towards Mary. More importantly, Mary refused to rise to occasion. I talked with her, still offered her any alternative means of expression she might wish to choose, asked the other members of her triad to help her when they came to me with complaints. Still, nothing. Out of spite, and I suppose for other reason, she just would not bet on herself, continued to perform minimally, received a ‘C’ in the course, blamed me, and spread the word that I was a thoughtless son-of-a-bitch. I think of her often. It hurts, and I wonder what I could have done differently to help her.

As I was walking and thinking of Mary, as well as the comments about hiring practices, a word she kept using in the conversation, “cool,” haunted me. I hear that word frequently uttered by students on my campus when it comes to grades; I see it reflected too often it in their attitude and actions. I think it is regrettable, but there are too many Marys and too many of the likes of her adviser on our campuses receiving and sending signals that promote the idea of the self-centered purpose of getting good grades at any cost, and that grades are absolute indicators of achievement and success.

Well, I started feeling lyrical again. This time I was asking the question, what students are considered the “coolest” ones on campus by their fellow students:”

Mirror, mirror on the wall
who are the “coolest” students of them all?
Replied the Mirror,

an answer I can deliver
without hesitation,
reservation,
equivocation,
or the slightest quiver.
I can say
without delay
that it’s the students who get an “A”.
But, not the students you might think.
What I am about to say will make you shrink.
It’s not the students, the so-called bookworms,
the nerds,
who in small herds
roam the library throughout the terms.
It’s not the students who do not cheat
just to be in the academic elite;
or who cut a corner
to receive that collegiate honor.
It is not the students who could boast
that they struggled to do the most;
whose midnight candles always burn
doing whatever it takes to learn,
and whose light
is always on late into the night.
It is not the students who could say
that they received that “A”
the hard and honest way.
Those students are not thought as coolish
because everyone thinks they’re foolish.
These are students who often feel ashamed,
embarrassed,
derided,
emotionally maimed.
They are made to cry
merely because they always try.
Each is labelled a silly jerk
just because they’re dumb enough
to do the work,
just because they wish to grow
with the knowledge and experience
an education can bestow.
No, no, no, no.
It is not them other students laud;
it’s not their actions other students applaud.
The students who are the envy of them all;
who receive the academic game ball,
are the students who are secretly sleazy
and take the professors who were easy
so that their elbows would not be greasy.
Their noses have no hone ’cause
they never used a grindstone.
On their shelf lie some dusty books,
uncracked,
unmarked,
and never given the slightest looks.
They will cut a corner here and there,
and argue that no will care
how you got there,
for in the rat race all is fair.
To seek the grade they resort to guile,
as well as to a fraternity or sorority file.
They enjoy all the campus fun
without regret for what they have done.
And contrary to what you might have thought,
in the spirit of sport,
they’re the sort
who are proud that they were never caught.
Oh, everyone thinks they’re “coolish”
for having made the system look so very foolish.
So, with slight remorse
that they got little out of a course
except the high grade
that they made
with its taste of honey
as the sweet pipeline to job and money,
they will loudly boast
and raise their beer mugs in a toast
that they got away with the most.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
who are the “coolest” students of them all?

Replied the Mirror,
an answer I can deliver
without hesitation,
reservation,
equivocation,
or the slightest quiver.
I can sadly say
without delay
that it’s the students who take the easy way,
who do the least
to get the A;
who passed the test and
ignored the rest,
but graduate with a high GPA.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

GRADES

I slept in this morning and went out a bit later than usual. After all, it is the break between winter and spring quarters. It was very nice outside, a tad on the warm side, enough to break into a slight sweat. The entire route was lined by a sun-bathed nature bragging with a dazzling display of fluttering yellow butterflies, azaleas blooming in a variety of colors, flowering white and pink dog woods, beds of daffodils, and an amaryllis and bearded iris or two poking through here and there. I walked this morning with a sense of hesitant and reflective relief. The Quarter is over. Grades are in. The Judgement Days are over. The week-long dark and depressing period of senseless life-threatening torture on campus that contrasts with the surrounding beautiful reminders of renewed life has come to an end. My mortality has returned. My cloak of supposedly divine infallibility, now wrinkled and tattered and stained, once again hangs in the closet; my reserved seat on Mount Sinai once again stands empty.

During the last week of class, many of my students had been making their final exam presentations, displaying that awe, wonder, curiosity, risk-taking, knowledge and personal growth that education should be all about. There were Mickie, Eric and Christy singing their original song, music and lyrics, on slavery and racism; Mike, Sarah and Janice discussed their sculptured figures depicting their answer to the question, “What is an American?” Two triads ran an impressive bingo-type game called “Histo”; two other triads put together a takeoff on Hollywood Squares which they called “Schmier’s Squares”; four triads presented a great Jeopardy show. Lamonica, Stacia and Travis involved the class in a profoundly realistic role playing skit that taught what it was like being the brunt of prejudice and hatred as a minority throughout American history. Brad, Tim and Mandy made a video tape of their original four-act pantomime play on the influence of religion in the American experience; Pat and Jaime presented their original, interactive computer program on religion in American history; and two triads sent the class out on a scavenger hunt all over campus that required a knowledge of the religious experience in American history.

How to grade that. How to take all that exciting and daring creativity, imagination, understanding, and accomplishment, and convert and compress it into an unexciting, impersonal, and inadequately revealing letter grade. My eyes still sting, my brain still hurts, my back still aches, my heart still tugs. I am mentally tired, emotionally drained, physically worn out, and just numb. It takes me a lot of time and effort and concentration to issue a final grade for a student. No computer grading programs for me! For six days, including a Monday all-nighter to meet the registrar’s deadlines, for each of my 120 students, I have been struggling to “get a feel” for the “big picture,” to see how far each student has come from where he or she was. I poured over their journals; pondered their weekly self-evaluations, final self- evaluations, and peer evaluations of each other; went over my daily class notations; reflected on the final exam presentations; recalled conversations with them; factored in both academic and character development during the *entire* quarter; balanced effort and performance; assessed just what it was each student learned; juggled quiz grades and weekly written assignment evaluations; thought about the nature of participation in daily class discussions and contributions to the triad. I pushed my “blueberries” perceptions to the edge. Then, second guessing myself, I went through the torturous process again. For more than a student or two or three, I called upon the “Schmier factor” for an adjustment here and there. Progress, development, improvement, growth, and process are words that reflect my guiding criteria for evaluation; not calculation or compilation.

I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that there were times I was tempted to envy so many of my colleagues who with great ease coldly, distantly and quickly add, divide, calculate, record, hand in, and go off; or who let a mindless, heartless, computer program do the calculations for them. It would be so easy to agree with those who comfortably argue that their grades reveal unbiased judgement, consistent standards, impartial evaluation. I could avoid all of my inner turmoil if I accepted the fact that grades present precise instruments of evaluation, offer irrefutable evidence of performance, are scientifically arrived at, and provide absolute truth. Each time, I realize that handling an arithmetical compilation is so much simpler, easier, and safer than handling the unpredictable and extremely variable human equation. So many people place so much stock in something that is so arbitrary and means so little. They get so nervous thinking that there may exist things that are beyond standardized or absolute measure that they tend to measure only that which is measurable. I can’t, however, in good conscience be intellectually or emotionally imprisoned, or immobilized by numbers, or shirk my responsibility by hiding behind scores, or feign innocence by proclaiming, “I had no choice. The grades made me do it!”

Those kinds of grades don’t say how far each student has come, with what they had to struggle, the barriers they had to overcome. I wish you all could read some of these students’ journals. If you did, you’d be gripped by the sincerity of Robin saying:

I have never ever relied upon anyone else or trusted anyone for anything. What I have painstakingly come to realize is this: no one could possibly do everything themselves all the time. Sometimes one has to depend on others to help them accomplish their goals. To not trust others and depend only on myself was cheating the other members of my triad of their responsibility. I learned much about myself and others during my time in this class. I believe now that was, aside from learning history, the main purpose from the beginning.

When I grade Gary’s performance, I factor in his growth. “I learned a lot of history,” he wrote in one of his last journal entries. “But that was only because you showed me how to take chances, how to believe in myself, not to be average like everyone else, but be different and take the risks to be the best.” Rebecca’s grade is influenced by that the fact that “grades mean a lot to me and I got a pretty good knowledge of history, but I think I learned that life is all about working for each other, learning to deal with people, to cooperate with them and respect their differences. That’s almost as important a lesson as history.” There’s Wayland who wrote: “I learned to express my thoughts… I’m better or should I say I’m more at ease with myself…I’ve learned not only to explore history, but also my inner self.” Carrie’s words ring as I contemplate her grade: “I learned a lot about myself. It has helped me develop my learning ability and my sense of purpose. I didn’t just learn history, I grew as a person in this class.” You’d be amazed at Amy’s realization: “It was like waking up from a social and education coma that I had been in for so long. I finally realized that getting by just gets you by, but going all out will get you anywhere you want to go.” You’d be surprised at Angela’s development: “I’ve learned not to be embarrassed of myself or so afraid of failing. I am not as easily intimidated. I’ve learned how to study the material. I no longer read words, I look for things behind the words.” Or Kim’s, “I have seen myself change… I am not afraid to voice my opinion anymore and it feels great….I have learned self-respect, to think for myself, to improve my study habits, as well as a lot of history.” And, you’d be haunted by Alisha’s unforgettable words:

Thanks to this class I am starting to realize that education is not just taking tests and getting grades. It’s about life and what each of us can accomplish on our own. It’s like when we get in class, everyone is like a family who will stick up for each other and work with each other instead of stabbing each other in the back to impress you. When we walk into the room its like we had a special bond that no one , no matter how hard they try, will ever forget…My ride is going to leave me here Friday. But, I’ve decided that no matter what it takes, I’ll be in class at 9:30 a.m. sharp Monday. I’ll find a way to get home. Having this class be disappointed in me by me not showing the respect I should toward them during their final presentations would hurt me and them. I’m not coming back to school next quarter, but I hope to God this class stays with me wherever I go and whatever I do.

Alisha was in class. I thanked her and asked if she had a ride home. When she replied that she didn’t, I asked the class if anyone was heading down Florida way and had room for her. One girl answered that she was going to Florida for the break and if Alisha had felt that much obligation to the class and had made that kind of sacrifice, she could go a few miles out of her way and a take a few hours out from her vacation. She would make room for Alisha and drop her off in front of her house. Everyone applauded both of them.

I racked my brain trying to figure out how to quantify fairly the immeasurable, how to gauge a numerical or letter value for those ethereal feelings and those accomplishments. I despise having to take the human quotient of my class and reduce it to cold, impersonal numbers and letters. It’s like sucking the spirit out of the students and reducing them to the proverbial $1.47 cents worth of chemicals. I will not accept the assignment of the role of an academic meat inspector staining the rump of each student as they emerge from the class at the end of the quarter like so many sides of beef coming out from a meat-packing plant with a purple stamp of approval segregating them into: premium, choice, commercial.

I think that the personal growth the students take with them out from the classroom is far more important than the quizzes and tests they take and leave inside the classroom. The simple truth is that the more I get involved in the humanity of each of my students, the harder it is for me to ignore their humanity and the humanity of the classroom experience. And so, I admit a lot of non-measurable intuition goes into my evaluation because a lot of what I think should be factored in defies the quantative demands of the slide-rule. I just do what I tell my students to do. I take the risk, jump in, rely heavily upon my gut feeling, that “blueberry” sense, call it intuition, and issue a grade swearing under my breath, “never more, never more, never more.”

Needless to say, that I have been agonizing about grades on most of my walks this past week. I can’t say that any of the walks were easy. The rhythmic beats of my feet touching the asphalt during each walk, however, have made me feel increasingly lyrical about the subject, a phrase here and a phrase there. This morning, about a mile from the house on the return leg of my walk I felt it all coming together. I couldn’t wait to finish. I gathered speed with increasing elation. A few blocks from the house, I started running. I rushed inside the house before the spirit left me. So, here I am with rivulets of sweat streaming down my body in a very giddy, “‘Poe’-etic” mood:

Grades. Grades. Grades.
The tintinnabulation of grades. grades, grades.
Letter grades. Numerical grades. Pass/Fail grades.

The student’s chests are palpitating
by the cold, inhuman calculating
of passing grades, failing grades, average grades.
From the juggling and the tinkering
of professorial hankering
with curved grades, sliding grades, adjusted grades.
You can listen to the fuss
over the minus and the plus
of grades, grades, grades.
Student spirits afluttering.
Their tightened lips amuttering.
Their tortured minds acluttering
because of grades, grades, grades!
Student moods are somber
waiting for that number
fighting for that letter
that lets them think
they’re better.
Just see their grades, grades, grades
Telephones are ringing
with the melancholy singing
of desperate desire,
rising higher, higher, higher.

What a world of solemn thought
these computations bade!
What a tale of terror
these recordings made!

Hear muted voices groaning
in their sleep amoaning.
Their bodies tossing and turning,
their fevered hearts aburning
about grades, grades, grades
Bodies bolt upright
in the middle of the night
dripping drops of sweat
wondering what they’ll get
with an awful cravin’
for that assuring haven
of a passing grade, grade, grade.
In the silence of the night,
students shiver with cold fright
of the coming light
when the judgements on the door
are posted
of the ones the prof has hosted.
Through the halls the students ramble
to see if they had won their gamble.
Afraid of that fateful blow;
yet, all wanting to know
“What have I made?” “What have I made?” “What have I
made?”

What a horror grades outpour,
tho few can say what they’re for
There is nothing discerning
that grades reveal any learning.
It truly is a wonder
that no one thinks they blunder
when they kill that glorious awe and wonder
With the drowning tintinnabulation of grades, grades,
grades.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

CRAMMING

What a walk this morning. I went out a bit later than usual. The sun was up. The bird were singing. The temperature was an inviting 57 degrees. No humidity. The bugs haven’t figured out that winter is over. I glided through the streets bare chested in my grubby shorts. There was as much spring in my step as in the air. It felt great. I don’t remember touching the pavement: not a heavy breath; not a feeling of the slightest muscle twinge. I felt like I was Mercury with wings on my feet. But, if I thought I was fast, I was a tortoise compared to what’s been happening on campus this past week.

It’s the end of the quarter! That means it’s sprint time! Off goes the academic regalia, on goes the racing shorts and track shoes. Like Alice’s hare, so many professors have been anxiously running and exclaiming, “I’m in a bind. I’m in a tight bind because I’m so far behind. No time to say hello, goodbye. I’m in a bind. I’m in a bind. I’m in a bind.” For almost a week, so many have been in a panic, racing around at a blinding speed to finish the course: running from office to library to secretary to copier to class; making assignments in rapid fire “read chapters 29 through 43 for tomorrow” fashion; running between desks like Speedy Gonzales and throwing reams of hand-outs in the air while yelling, “grab one. You need this for the test;” fanning textbook pages as they scream “ignore that paragraph, omit these pages, skip that chapter,” sliding transparencies on and off the overhead projectors so fast that they create motion pictures, scrawling on the blackboards in a blurring speed, lecturing at sixteenth note pace and sounding like a 78 record being played at 45. In fact, the whole place has been looking and sounding like a VCR on fast- forward.

Today is the last day of the quarter. I assure you that when I leave campus this afternoon the place will be sprawling with bent over professors, painfully heaving as they hold on to their knees for dear life, with professors struggling for breath as they lay prostrate out on the grass in total exhaustion, with professors slumping over their desk drained of all energy as their lungs cry out for air. But, all of them are whispering with great satisfaction between their heavy gasps, “Whew, I made it. I covered all the material. Am I good or am I good!” Then, with a great sense of dedication and accomplishment, their eyes roll, their heads sway erratically, and they faint dead away.

And we say students cram? Ah, but our cramming is so different. We can go to sleep comfortably thinking we have been academically honest because we have left nothing out. We have covered everything required. We have prepared the students to take our exam or the department’s exam or to move on to the next course or to take the standardized exit or entrance exam. We have done our duty. We have offered them a mastery of the subject.

I don’t think I am being impish. I was in the English department Monday morning, sipping a cup of coffee talking college basketball with some colleagues when a junior faculty member quickly walked by muttering, “I’ll never finish this course.”

All this helter and skelter reminded me of a conversation I had with a professor last fall who had participated in one of my workshops at a conference. He asked me: “With all the time you spend in class on journal sharing, exercises to help the students learn how to critically think and study, to develop a sense of family, to do evaluations in class, how do you finish a course? If I did all that I’d never cover all the material. As it is now, I’m always so far behind that I have to race to catch up at the end of the semester.”

“I never finish a course and I don’t try to,” I assured him. “I’m always cutting stuff out during the course and changing the syllabus’ calendar as the students get into prolonged discussions. During a ‘good’ quarter, I usually cover only about two-thirds of the stuff in the textbook, whatever that’s worth.”

“But,” he replied nervously, “they won’t learn everything they have to.”

“They won’t anyway, so why sweat it.”

“But, that’s history. This is microbiology. I’ve got to cover a certain amount of material because they need certain material to take the next course in the sequence.”

“How much of that material do you think they remember afterwards?”

“I don’t know. I’d guess about 80 or 85%.”

“Not in your wildest dreams! Try somewhere around 30% to 40%, if you’re lucky, real lucky, 50%.”

“But, they can’t pass the next course without this content.”

“Which is better, that your students learn twice as much material half as well or half as much material twice as well. Why not take time out and get them to appreciate the impact and influence of microbiology. Let them read articles about the moral issue of human genetic engineering and discuss it in class. Make the course an exciting, meaningful and fun course. They’ll remember more of it.”

“That’s asking a lot.”

“Look, if you cover all that material just to say you’ve covered it and little or none of it is retained in the first place, it’s the same as if you never covered it at all. The only difference is that now when someone asks ‘Why are the students doing so poorly?’ We can say, ‘Hey, don’t look at us. We covered all that material. It’s not our fault they don’t know it now. It’s their fault for not learning it.'”

So, in this academic Daytona 500 whom have we really served? It seems to me that we often cram all that stuff into our courses more for our benefit than that of the students. We seem to think that it is some dereliction of duty, some indictment of our ability, some demonstration of incompetence if we did otherwise. We seem to think, to paraphrase the Bard, that it is better for the professors to have said it than never to have said it at all; that it is better for the students to have heard it than never to have heard it at all. I sometimes get the feeling at this time of the quarter that professors lapse into the belief that all they have to do to teach is tell and all the students have to do to learn is hear; that if they mention it, the students get it and if they don’t, the students won’t.

But, have the students really learned all that material we crammed down their throats for any purpose other than vomiting back to pass a test and get a course grade? Have they really retained the material in a way that is purposeful or have we merely perpetuated the talk-listen-memorize-test-forget patterns?

I once had a professor, Dr. Birdsall Viault, my mentor at Adelphi College who set me on my course when I was adrift, who replied to a student protest that the class hadn’t finish the textbook and asked if omitted material the would be on the final exam, “Mr. Schmier, only geniuses and fools finish the course. I can assure you without fear of contradiction that you and I are neither. But, I can assure you that whatever we have covered, we have covered well.”

“But,” I continued in my subtle protest, “I’m taking the GRE next month. What if the material we didn’t cover is on it?”

Dr. Viault replied with a twinkle in his eye, “Mr. Schmier, I am confident you have the ability to learn that extra material on your own if you so wish.”

Personally, taking my cue from Dr. Viault, I’d be happy if students really learn a few key concepts about history, get an appreciation for it, maybe acquire an understanding for it. If they become history majors, they can get the finer details when they get sufficient background. If they become historians, they can rise to the level of sophistication that they can wrestle with the latest controversies in the field, grasp them, and see their ramifications. For now, I would much rather my students learn a lot about how to assume the responsibility for their own learning, how to learn on their own for the rest of their lives, and learn a lot about themselves. Whatever we cover, let’s make sure we cover it well and that it serves the student rather than us well.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

CHEATING/LEARNING

Dickens opens A TALE OF TWO CITIES with: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That’s how I felt as I started my walk this morning. I thought a good walk would be soothing and cleansing. I was wrong because I felt the same way when I finished. It was a very strange walk. Very strange. I felt like there were two people inside me, each moving at a different pace along the darkened asphalt, side-by side, each in a different dimension, distinct yet bound together. Because of the events of the last three days, it was as if each of those two people inside me were in Dickens’ different time warps.

One of me was walking along crisply with excitement thinking Monday had been the best of times. I had just returned from the four day Lilly conference on college teaching. It was something else. The site at UCLA’s conference center at Lake Arrowhead 5000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains was idyllic. The atmosphere at this altitude may have been thin, but in the conference lodge it was densely relaxed, congenial, familial, collegial. There were no stiff and stuffy formalities, no egos, and no professional posturing among the over 150 teaching faculty, staff, and administrators. Everyone, initial strangers and friends alike, was on an instant first-named basis and quickly started talking on a very personal level. Everyone really cared about teaching; everyone listened carefully to each other; everyone was truly interested what each had to say and what each was doing; everyone was supportive and encouraging.

When the conference ended, it closed with warm hugs and sincere handshakes of comradery. For many of us, what had initially entered into our brains had traveled to our hearts and had become part of our spirits. I flew home Sunday physically tired, emotionally fulfilled, and intellectually exuberant. My brain was as stuffed by the flow of ideas as my stomach was by the unending serving of sumptuous food. I was thinking about all I had learned, about how I could introduce some ideas and techniques into my classes, and about how I could electrify some of my colleagues. And, excite them I did. A professor in the English department was stirred by a service\learning concept. The head of developmental studies was enthusiastic about the idea of merging two developmental studies reading and writing classes with one of my intro history classes in order to offer the students something substantial and purposeful with which to learn reading and writing skills. The director of the university’s struggling first year experience program ate up the idea of creating an advisory body of concerned senior faculty to revive the program. The students in my two intro courses had demonstrated their responsibility and my trust in them by discussing their reading assignment on Thursday and taking their quiz on Friday without a hitch, without a monitor, and without me. Monday did in fact seem to be the best of times.

The other me seemed to walk slowly, finding each step was an agony, because Tuesday had been the worst of times. I had left campus Monday afternoon with a nagging feeling. I had asked one of the students in my first intro class how the quiz had gone. After a moment of silence and obvious hesitation, she quietly answered, “Fine.” My “blueberry” sense said something was awry, but I chalked it off to her natural reluctance to talk in class.

Late that night, about 11:30, the telephone rang. At the other end of the line, an agonizing, nervous voice said, “Dr. Schmier, this is John (not his real name). Sorry to bother you so late, but I’ve got to tell you that there was wide-spread cheating in the class Friday. I left the room and didn’t take the quiz because I refused to violate your trust. I wasn’t in class today because I was afraid. But, something won’t let it go. I feel that if I didn’t talk to you I would be violating your trust as well.”

I felt like I had been hit by that proverbial ton of bricks. We talked for about an hour. As I nervously pranced around the living room, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, he told me what had happened. The students who had finished the test quickly pressured the student I had left in charge to go over the test so they could leave early; the students who had yet to finish the quiz were ignored or told to leave when they complained, and as the answers were read out still others, many others, copied or changed answers. Finally, he asked for advice about what to do next.

I asked in return, “What do you think you should do?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I just don’t want to accuse anyone. I don’t even want an apology. I just want everyone to know that I felt that I was not given respect, and hope that they would realize what they had done to me and to themselves and to you.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I guess I have to tell them. But, hey, that’s tough.”

“The right things to do are never easy.”

“I’m going to me in there alone with maybe one or two others.”

“They’re also lonely. I know. I’m where you are now in a confrontation with the President of the university over class sizes.”

“Will you be in the class when I say something?”

“Of course. Do you want be to be there?”

“I do, but no. No one will be honest with you around. I don’t know if I’ve got that much guts. I’ve got lots to think about tonight.”

“You do whatever you think you have to do.”

” Thanks. See ya tomorrow.”

As I got back into bed, my wife asked with quiet understanding, “What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” I quietly answered with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know, but I think I’m going to print up a sign: ‘Caution. the Surgeon General says teaching can be dangerous to your health.'”

I fell into a troubled sleep that night feeling betrayed, violated, raped. It hurt; it broke my heart. I won’t deny that. The successes and joys are easy to handle and write about. It’s the pain that offers the challenges. It’s situations like this that remind me that teaching is easier to talk than walk, that assault my identity, that challenge my values, that heighten my sense of vulnerability, that put my outlook and philosophy to the test. After all, when I talk about teaching, I am talking about an “inner labor.” A course, an approach, a technique, a concept, an assignment, a test, or a discussion is really me. That course and all of its parts are inside of me. They’re a part of my being, and if students do not respond to the spirit of the course they are, in fact, jilting me.

Tuesday morning I was having coffee with some colleagues and reluctantly told them of the situation. I was ready for a barrage of “I told you sos.” I got some of the “what did you expect” stuff. As for advice on what to do:

“Flunk them all for the entire course,” advised a colleague with a callous firmness that was in the spirit of the Queen of Hearts screaming, “Off with their heads.”

“You did your best. It’s all their fault. I’d read them the riot act and ream their butts and give them all zeros,” another asserted.

“You at least have to fail them on the quiz,” a third suggested. “Technically, it’s within your right to have them expelled.”

“Right. But the administration wouldn’t back you up. You have to make them an example. They screwed you good. If you don’t want to give them all “Fs” for the quarter, I’d give them a make-up and make it so hard they’d fail. At least, they’d think you were being fair.”

I went back to my office, closed the door, dimmed the lights, shut the computer off, and took the phone off the hook. For the next two hours, with my feet popped up on my messy desk, leaning back on my chair, occasionally sipping a quickly cooling cup of coffee, staring at the ceiling, sometimes closing my eyes, I just thought. Somehow it didn’t seem right to spurn the students, to distance myself from them, to undo everything I’ve striven for, to wield the power of the grade as retribution for being spurned at a time when they seemed to need guidance and support the most. That’s almost always been the traditional academic knee-jerk reaction: blame the students; proclaim them intellectual invalids; declare them morally corrupt; pronounce punishment; wash your hands; and walk away. That seemed to be the safe thing to do, and so many of us do it. But, I knew it would make me feel less as a teacher and a person.

I was facing a challenge. I knew when I started my triads and developed my character-based curriculum everything was not going to be peaches and cream. There were risks. There were going to be setbacks. I knew there was a big risk in letting them run the class. There’s no quick cure for the “Learning Dependency” that infects and debilitates so many of the students. If I want to teach well, I have to keep myself and my integrity exposed to both the joys and pains. If I started being open only to the good experiences and shutting myself down to the possibility of having to taste less palatable ones, I would become isolated and my teaching would become defensive. My techniques might not change, but I would start walking the road of shutting myself off from all experiences for fear they would be threatening and painful. That fear would forever destroy the possibility of creating the bond of trust between me and the student; it would cut the connectedness of intellect, emotion, attitude, and purpose between me, the student, and the subject. I knew if that happened I would stagnate. I would be so distanced, so shut down and shut off, so isolated in a personal ivory tower, that I couldn’t feel either the joy or pain of my craft. I felt like a doctor’s needle was pricking the soles of my feet to see if there was feeling in my legs. The moment I stopped feeling, I’d stop caring, stop growing, and be dead!

Then I thought: Carpe diem! That’s my life’s motto. Seize the day! Realize that not every day was going to be sunny and warm. Not every love making with my wife would be magnificent. Not every effort would succeed. But, I believe I have to find something bright in even the darkest of days because right now this is the only day I have. I’m not a Scarlet O’Hara thinking tomorrow is another day. I took my feet off my desk and went to class thinking about how to seize the day.

I slowly entered the classroom. There was no music this day. No joking with the students. Disappointment, pain, was written all over my face. No smiles. No frowns. Just an emptiness. My movements around the classroom were slowed. I could see the students knew I knew. I stuttered a few words when John nervously stood up and asked me to leave the classroom so the students could talk. I sat on the steps in the hallway, deliberately sipping my coffee, concentrating on the liquid swirling my mouth as I tried to think about how to make this worst of times into a best of times. For the next thirty minutes, students came and went stunned, hurting, angry. Some needed a smoke to calm down. Others needed a drink of water to wet their parched mouth. Still others just walked aimlessly around, tightly clutching themselves, trying to quickly recharge their batteries. Some didn’t want to go back into the room. I quietly told them that they were part of the class and had to return. Each time the door was opened I could hear the cacophony of voices, at times raised and at times deliberative. I didn’t know whether the class would explode into smithereens or come together as a family in crisis. One young man just crunched down on the lower steps and sobbed. He turned to me and said tearfully, “I’m sorry.” “You hurt yourself as well as me,” I quietly said. “I guess we’ve got to help each other now.” As I said those words, I realized that if that sense of a supportive community was to be saved in the class, I and the students would have to revive each other. As I came into the classroom, Wanda, one of the non-traditional students, was rising to speak.

“Before Dr. Schmier says anything, I have something to say. I’ve been listening to all your excuses. I wasn’t here Friday. If I had been, I would have tanned your selfish bottoms like I feel like doing now. You’re nothing but selfish children! I wasn’t here Friday because my sixteen year old daughter tried to commit suicide on the school bus while all her friends looked on. Not one had the guts to try to stop her because it was none of their affair. That’s what they said. You who just looked on or the other way are just as guilty as the ones who cheated or violated the rights of some others. If you look on now and do nothing when your fellow students are cheating on an exam because it ain’t your business, you will learn to look on and do nothing as you go on in life convincing yourselves nothing is your business. I know my daughter’s friends could have stopped her if they had the guts to do more than look on.”

In the few minutes left I spoke to students about helping each other. Classroom community can exist only if respect and the exercise of power–real power–is a two-way street. I asked them if they realized the power they wielded in the class, that when they use that power improperly, as they did, I can’t help but get turned off. And, I and my teaching and their learning suffers, just as when I use my power improperly they and their learning and my teaching suffers. “Journals are due tomorrow. Let’s all of us journal about this, and think about what consequences you should impose on yourselves.” I said to close class.

The next day, Wednesday, we read our journals to each other, I included. Here’s a sample of the full range of what some of the sixty said:

“I’m a whore. We’re all whores, and damn cheap ones at that. I figured I sold myself out for .34% of my final grade. A drugged up whore downtown gets more than that for a lousy quickie! My honesty doesn’t seem to be worth much of a f—!”

“The real tough test Friday, the test of trust, we failed ourselves.”

“I’m here for myself. No one here is for me. If anyone wants some [sic] to care for them, let their mother enroll in class! I’ll do whatever I have to do to pass. Read, study, discuss, cut a corner or two, whatever. I need the grade to get into the nursing program! I don’t see where anyone did anything wrong except get caught.”

“When am I going to learn to work harder at learning rather than just working at making a grade? No one has ever taught me the difference except you. I thought I had that licked. Habits are hard to change. I’ve got to. But, how do I get that to sink in. Really sink in. I’m really scared. No bull shit.”

“I’m not guilty of cheating, but Wanda is right. I’m just as guilty because I didn’t try to stop them from cheating.”

“I’ve been cheating my way through all my school life to get the grades because it was easy. What you’re asking me is tough.”

“I just followed the crowd like I always have done all my life. I guess I have some growing up to do and need to speak up for what I feel is right and wrong. It’s easy to write this in my journal. I don’t know if I can do it outside these pages.”

“I’ve always been content to sit in the shadows, but I think maybe that’s not enough. I have to have the self-confidence and determination to stand up for what I believe. I am truly as disappointed in myself as you must be with us.”

“I didn’t cheat, but I should be punished because I looked the other way and didn’t do what was right. I sure admire him (John) for taking on the class almost alone. I don’t have those balls. I’m going to talk with him.”

“All I’m going to write is that I think people who tattle on others are weaklings!”

“For 13 years I’ve been taught that grades were the most important thing on earth. Grades, grades, grades at any cost. I looked into your hurt eyes yesterday and now I wonder.”

“I once wrote in my journal that you can’t climb to the high ground if you settle on the middle ground. Who am I kidding. It’s easier to climb down than up. I took the easy way. Now I have more to climb.”

“I don’t think what we did was all that bad since that quiz only counted for 1.5% of our final grade.”

“I was just too much of a coward to do anything about it. I’m tired of being a wimp, a nerd. Next time, I’ll stand up for what I know is right. I hope.”

“I thought what we did was cool. I’m just sorry we just got caught. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out here. We have to make our GPAs and all that to graduate.”

“How can you ever trust us again.”

“—– said in class what we were doing was cool. I thought so too. That’s chilling.”

“You gave us 200 per cent of yourself and we threw shit at you. I guess it would serve us right if you threw us to the wolves. The way I feel now, I think even they would spit us out.”

The overwhelming majority of the class decided that everyone should get a zero on the quiz.

I think I and many of the students, not all, came out from this experience beaten and bloodied, but, hopefully, being sufficiently courageous to use this trying episode and to face those issues yet to come and to keep growing into the kind of people my university and society so badly need.

As I write this thought, I remember something one of my colleagues said Tuesday morning. “Louis,” she said sympathetically said, “why do you get yourself into these things? What you’re doing is great, but you’re at the end of your career here. It’s not going to make a difference because no one is going to give you any pat on the back or awards or salary increases. Just decide and have done with it, and stop torturing yourself. Relax.”

For me, one lesson is that in spite of the fact that teaching is not easy, that it’s frustrating, time-consuming, challenging, irritating, and, when things go wrong, demoralizing, I remained undaunted. I felt the painful prick of the doctor’s needle on my sole which told me I cared and was alive. I reaffirmed to myself that I don’t care if anyone else knows what I did or if I’m going to get some payoff or if it is going to make a difference in my career. What I do has little to do with getting a salary increase. I’m a tenured full professor with three years left to go for my 30 years at this institution and retirement. I don’t have to do it because it will look right on my vitae or evaluation. I admit that there was a time when I did these things to be important and look important. Now I do what I do, I have to do it, because it is important, because it is right and just, because I have to try to do what is the right thing for no other reason than that. I’m not out to change the world. I can be satisfied with making a difference in the life of one person. That may sound self-righteous and idealistic. Maybe a bit preachy, but I’ve found this to be the most satisfying of all reasons for teaching. When it goes right, there’s nothing like it. No prize, award, recognition, promotion, salary increase can match a student going out of his or her way to tell me that I had a significance influence his or her life. The most wonderful returns I receive for teaching are those letters and conversations with students some of which I have shared with you.

So, I think my very best answer to my colleague and to myself is by example. To be me, to be what I profess, to fight the good fight in the defense of the value of teaching whomever may approve or disapprove.

You know, now that I look back on this entire week, it may just have been the best of times.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–