School night
I just got back from class, and thought it might be worth another post.
My grad class at the moment is Child Growth and Development. It's a very interesting class as far as subject matter, but it demonstrates a fact about teachers that just depresses me to no end.
I've always thought that the expression "those who can do, those who can't teach" was absurdly cynical and probably untrue. Until I started actually hanging out with teachers. Trust me. There are a couple nuggets of truth there. And beyond that, there should be a third part added to that statement. "Those who REALLY can't teach teachers." I have no idea what this woman thinks she's doing, but I had many many undergrad professors who expected more of us than this woman does. Hell, I've had teachers in high school who expected more. If this is going to be the norm, getting my M.Ed is going to be a freakin' cakewalk.
Today, for example, I and the group of three others I'm in presented on one of the chapters in the text (rather than giving a lecture, the professor assigns one chapter to each group until she ran out, then started over). Groups get more credit if we include handouts or visual aids of some kind along with our presentations. Which tend to include things like posters, collages, and copied and pasted handouts from websites. All of which are to some extent relevant to the topic on hand, but very frequently end up looking like they were made by 10th graders.
Beyond that, we've been given some other "bigger" assignments along the way. Including a "film analysis" that was worth something like 20-30% of our grade. Mine, I freely admit, read like a book report. It was, in fact, a glorified book report. Which for reasons which are beyond me earned me an A. Which made me think our professor was just a really easy grader. Until I started talking to some of the other members of my class. Who somehow managed to get substantially less than an A.
WHAT???
I used skills that I've had since 8th grade to earn that A. How is it possible that people who are going to be in charge of educating the next generation of Americans can't do that?
Possibly I'm being needlessly cynical here. But really? I don't expect perfection by any means. I'm certainly not perfect. I have issues that I'm sure would appall other people. For example, I can't spell worth a damn. If I don't have spell check running, I'm sure I look illiterate. I also barely remember basic math. I have someone else (usually Andre) figure out the tip whenever we go out somewhere. But there's a difference between that sort of thing and a grad student not being able to produce a decently written 5 page paper for a grade. If I were being graded on basic math, I'd damn well make sure I'd figured it out before turning it in.
Okay, now I am just ranting. I'll stop and move on to more exciting news.
My batshit crazy roommate is going out of town for a week!
*happy snoopy dance*
She's leaving tomorrow afternoon. I'm so thrilled about this I actually agreed to give her a ride to the airport, despite having vowed to myself that I'm done dealing with her in any way. I decided that the pros outweigh the cons.
My grad class at the moment is Child Growth and Development. It's a very interesting class as far as subject matter, but it demonstrates a fact about teachers that just depresses me to no end.
I've always thought that the expression "those who can do, those who can't teach" was absurdly cynical and probably untrue. Until I started actually hanging out with teachers. Trust me. There are a couple nuggets of truth there. And beyond that, there should be a third part added to that statement. "Those who REALLY can't teach teachers." I have no idea what this woman thinks she's doing, but I had many many undergrad professors who expected more of us than this woman does. Hell, I've had teachers in high school who expected more. If this is going to be the norm, getting my M.Ed is going to be a freakin' cakewalk.
Today, for example, I and the group of three others I'm in presented on one of the chapters in the text (rather than giving a lecture, the professor assigns one chapter to each group until she ran out, then started over). Groups get more credit if we include handouts or visual aids of some kind along with our presentations. Which tend to include things like posters, collages, and copied and pasted handouts from websites. All of which are to some extent relevant to the topic on hand, but very frequently end up looking like they were made by 10th graders.
Beyond that, we've been given some other "bigger" assignments along the way. Including a "film analysis" that was worth something like 20-30% of our grade. Mine, I freely admit, read like a book report. It was, in fact, a glorified book report. Which for reasons which are beyond me earned me an A. Which made me think our professor was just a really easy grader. Until I started talking to some of the other members of my class. Who somehow managed to get substantially less than an A.
WHAT???
I used skills that I've had since 8th grade to earn that A. How is it possible that people who are going to be in charge of educating the next generation of Americans can't do that?
Possibly I'm being needlessly cynical here. But really? I don't expect perfection by any means. I'm certainly not perfect. I have issues that I'm sure would appall other people. For example, I can't spell worth a damn. If I don't have spell check running, I'm sure I look illiterate. I also barely remember basic math. I have someone else (usually Andre) figure out the tip whenever we go out somewhere. But there's a difference between that sort of thing and a grad student not being able to produce a decently written 5 page paper for a grade. If I were being graded on basic math, I'd damn well make sure I'd figured it out before turning it in.
Okay, now I am just ranting. I'll stop and move on to more exciting news.
My batshit crazy roommate is going out of town for a week!
*happy snoopy dance*
She's leaving tomorrow afternoon. I'm so thrilled about this I actually agreed to give her a ride to the airport, despite having vowed to myself that I'm done dealing with her in any way. I decided that the pros outweigh the cons.