On Fri, 21 Oct 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Isn't there something seriously wrong when kids get to college - a name-brand
> college, like NYU or the University of Virginia - and can't write a
> grammatical sentence or know when the Civil War happened? Sure, they're the
> product of a dumbass history-hating society, but it's easy to understand why
> it bums teachers out. Drove me out of the profession, that's for sure. I
> don't know how people stand it, in fact.
>
> Doug
I've been doing it for about 15 years now. I can empathize with Michael's stories about sketchy notetaking, "did you cover anything important yesterday", and utter lack of intellectual curiousity. I think two things keep me going: (a) I am a patient person; it doesn't bug me to go over things time and time again, especially if the students are making an effort to understand, and (b) I will run into former students years later and they tell me that my class was important to them (it prepared them for later classes, influenced their career choices, changed their worldview). So yeah, students can drive me nuts, but it is wonderful when you help (some of) them learn.
Miles