I was trying to say that it was silly to bring up as relevant to any issue we are discussing either that (a) many working class kids are disadvantaged with respect to almost any college kids, and (b) that over a generation ago a small minority of college kids took advantage of their relatively privileged position to try to make the world a better place (this is not a bad thing, btw).
I've been both a professor and a student. I can share lots of stories about cluelessness and laziness. My own purely personal point of view was that it was harder being a student and dealing with these problems than being a teacher, even if when I was a teacher, they created some frustration.
I understand that the experience of others is different and no less valid. I agree with those here who have said that if you are a teacher or professor who cannot stand the foibles of your students, then if you have other option, early retirement or whatever, you should use them so that those who aren't driven crazy by those shortcomings or characteristics have a chance to teach.
I no longer do, moi; I'd happily trade the frustrations of uninterested, grade-grubbing students for those of litigation document review.
Generally speaking I'd say, what do you really expect of students? For the most part very little in their lives or background, or future prospects, exists to have stimulated intellectual curiosity, love of learning, or doing hard work that doesn't produce extrinsic rewards. In the humanities and social sciences, lots of students take classes as distributional requirements, and without these, there'd be even less demand for philosophy, english, history, political science, sociology, or anthropology professors -- maybe even less demand for economics profs. Occasionally you get the student with a live mind or the ones who mind you can help to spark. For the rest, you try to impart some basic skills that will help them in their endeavors.
jks
--- Michael Hirsch <mmh655 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nobody is "condoning the contempt and disgust of
> teachers." But Joanna (and
> now Andie, it seems) is shifting the focus away from
> the real frustrations
> teachers have with blase students to alleging
> bilious attitudes on the part
> of faculty. The answer to Soviet Era incompetence
> was not, as the old joke
> went, "look at the racism in the United States."
> There are burnt-out profs
> who've given up on teaching and there are students
> wasting their own time in
> college. Both statements are true. Both need to be
> remedied.This isn't a
> contest over whose class wounds are deeper.
> Mike Hirsch
>
> On 10/20/05, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Your point? Relevance to anything? We are supposed
> to
> > condone the contempt and disgust of teachers for
> their
> > student's ignorance (when, after all, if they
> weren't
> > ignoerant theyt wouldn't have to take the class)
> and
> > even laziness because some kids thirty-five years
> ago
> > had the leisure to demonstrate while others had to
> > work?
> >
> > --- Gary? <slade.g at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 10/18/05, joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> > > > Man, I hate it when profs dump on students.
> > > Sudents are students. They're
> > > > big kids, just hardly starting to disentangle
> > > themselves from their parents,
> > > > while looking into the looming abyss of the
> 9-5.
> > > >
> > > > C'mon.
> > > >
> > > > Joanna
> > > >
> > >
> > > let's shed a tear for the poor student, back
> when
> > > Tariq Ali was a
> > > student, sitting-in and generally demonstrating
> like
> > > some pompous ass
> > > working class Britain was leaving school at
> fifteen,
> > > little kids
> > > already in the abyss of 9-5.
> > >
> > > Gary?
> > > ride si sapis
> > >
> > > ___________________________________
> > >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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