students

[Steve Perry]

I've had the same experience of students, both as a graduate teaching assistant babysitting freshman comp students and as a guest speaker (journalist/editor) in any number of "advanced" high school classes. There are probably a hundred contributing factors that could usefully be discussed, but I can't help feeling that part of what's going on here is that kids understand what the score is in contemporary America. They know the game is fixed, that all the important questions have been settled in favor of the prerogatives of money and power--or so says the behavior of the adults they see. For working class kids, it means their exclusion has been decided upon prior to anything they might do, so why bother; for the children of more privileged parents there is the sense that everything but their own entitlement is a dead letter, a joke they're too hip to want to hear.

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From: 	Michael Yates
Sent: 	Wednesday, February 10, 1999 6:14 PM
To: 	marxism at lists.panix.com; lbo-talk at lists.panix.com; pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
Subject: 	students

Friends,

I have been a teacher for 30 years and by most accounts a good one. In
teaching economics and labor-oriented subjects I have developed hundreds
of concrete analyses, stories, etc. to make the material clear.  Now I
know we have discussed on these lists the state of education, the nature
of today's students, etc.  But I have to say that the level of
illiteracy and general stupidity seems to be rising among students. the
most basic words are unknown to them, and they never bother to look them
up.  I have to continually check myself when I am about to use a word I
know that they should understand but do not. 

	On a recent quiz someone said that the name of Adam Smith's famous book
was "Rivethead."!!  this after at least a dozen mentions of "The Wealth
of Nations."  They hear a word or remember a snippet of something I said
and put this down as an answer, no matter how preposterous.  Last year I
had a simple fill-in on a quiz:_____!,_______!,_______!, That is Moses
and the Prophets.  I had said the correct answer at least 20 times in
the preceding two weeks and explained why Marx said it and how neat of a
statement it is.  However, because I have arthritic hands, it is hard
for me to write on the board. So to save effort, after I had written out
the word "accumulation" several times, I started just writing
A_____,A____,A____ and saying the word "accumulation."  Sure enough on
the quiz at least a half dozen persons put "A,A,A" as the answer. One
student said that that is what she had in her notes!!!  Today a friend
told me that a student in an anthropology class had written the
following on an exam,"The Africans used Native American slaves to build
their railraod system."  Another, after reading the book about Guatemala
by the Rigoberto Menchu wrote in a paper about the "Finca" tribe of
Indians.

I really can't take too much more of this.  I mean I still take this
stuff seriously.  Any advice?  My advice to myself is to retire, and
soon.  If it were not for the working people I teach, I do believe that
I would have an emotional collapse more serious than the ones I  have
already had.  To make matters worse, students without a clue or any
desire to learn whatever will be bitching about their grades.

I have always tried not to an elitist academic.  I seldom lose my temper
and I always treat students with respect.  I am not telling you these
things as a joke or to  make fun of students.  But it seems to me that
capitalism has succeeded rather well in preparing young people to
believe just about anything and not to know how to analyze anything.

michael yates
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