Reviewing the Situation

I'm reviewing the situation

Can a fellow be a villian teacher all his life?

All the trials and tribulations!

Better settle down and get myself a wife PhD.

Today in my class, the one that I am a TA for, I gave a “review” for the midterm exam next week.  I put review in quotes because my students expected me to go through the exam and give them the answers.  My version of a review involved explaining to them general things to look at to study and make sure they knew that if it was assigned to them to read then they needed to read it. 

After doing my version of a review, I had a student ask me if I could give them a “real” review.  This student wanted me to go through all the material already covered this semester.  I explained to the student that it had taken half a semester for Dr. Coley and I to go through all the material so far so I really wasn’t sure how I was expected to cover it in 50 minutes.

I know that the students mentality of what a review should be comes from their experiences in high school.  The students in my class told me as much today in class. I reminded them that college isn’t high school and welcome to a new way of learning. Now, I don’t blame high school teachers for their review techniques.  I have family and friends who teach in public schools and frankly they are amazing people to put up with the crap they get from students and the administration.  Teaching high school is like fighting a war in the trenches.  As soon as you stick your head up to check the all clear you get lobbed with another missile. Thoroughly reviewing students before an exam helps the students and helps the teachers.  Less failures means less flack from the administration.

Luckily or unluckily depending  on your perspective university professors are not pressured by administration to ensure passing grades from their students. Which, when you think about it is a ridiculous notion.  All a teacher of any kind can do is give out information and hope to sweet baby Jesus that the students will care enough about themselves to retain that information and maybe, just maybe learn it. 

The more we blame teachers and coddle students the more harm we do to those students because at a major university there is no coddling.  Freshman enter college and 2 tons of responsibility come crushing down on them. They have to quickly learn how to adapt to a world where professors expect them to do their homework without having to beg and plead. A lot of the time students end up failing a class or two before they finally catch up. The difference here is that the university administration and the professors expect the students to take responsibility for their own education and learning.  Public schools administration and students put that responsibility on the overworked and underpaid teachers.

I speak from a place of experience who as a high school student was at the top of my class and never struggled to pass a class. I honestly barely broke a sweat in high school. Even when my mom was my teacher ( she was the only honors computer science teacher) I took a B in the class because it was easier then taking responsibility for my own education and asking my mom (who I lived with) for help.

(Sorry mom)

My freshman year in college I skipped class, didn’t do a lot of homework and 2 tons of responsibility crashed down on me.  My grades were low and my scholarship was put on probation.  I lost $5000 because I didn’t want to take responsibility for my education.  I figured it out, got my scholarship back and learned that the public school institution that I came out of, which was constructed by an administration that was backed by the state of Texas, did me a disservice.

I don’t blame the teachers, they were simply trying to keep and do their jobs the best way they knew how. Getting my PhD. allows me to help those future freshman cope when that responsibility comes crashing down and it all starts with teaching them that I will not give them the answers to the test.