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In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

theatlantic.com

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Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#11

Post by sofal »

[deleted] wrote: post #9
mynameishere wrote: post #4

Will having read Invisible Man make a police officer less likely to indulge in racial profiling? Will a familiarity with Steinbeck make him more sympathetic to the plight of the poor, so that he might understand the lives of those who simply cannot get their taillights fixed? Will it benefit the correctional officer to have read The Autobiography of Malcolm X? The author seems to think one aspect of education is to p…

[deleted]

Perhaps a police officer works with a somewhat skewed sample of the poor population in the same way that a TA for a class tends to deal personally with a non-representative sample of students from the class. They would both do well to remember the context of their occupation. Not that it would necessarily come from novels, but it's an argument for a general education.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#12

Post by hugh »

daveambrose wrote: post #5

"America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns." We tend…

Interestingly, most coal miners make a whole lot more money than, say, an adjunct lecturer in English. There's nothing wrong with being a coal miner.

Arts degrees are a luxury for children of rich families, not a good way to get ahead in life.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#13

Post by hugh »

tphyahoo wrote: post #7
Retric wrote: post #2

At my old school they tested incoming freshmen and sent many of them to a pass / fail English 050 class. It seems odd that most schools don't have such programs.

Agree. I, too, taught "literature" to people that could barely read. It sucked. If you can't read, you should learn the mechanics of how to read before dealing with things like "foreshadowing" "theme" "denouement." Just, basic stuff.Otherwise, it's just ridiculous. That's what these colleges should be doing, if they're taking student's money. Not raping them in their vulnerability, naivete, and ability to get a loan.

Just, basic stuff.Otherwise, it's just ridiculous. That's what these colleges should be doing, if they're taking student's money.

No, that's what high schools should be doing.

No wait, actually, that's what primary schools should be doing.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#15

Post by orib »

micah63 wrote: post #10

Very insightful view into the mind of an essay marker. I've always loathed the subjectiveness of English courses, that's why I took computer science :) I agree with the author, not everyone is cut out for English classes, but I think an alternative to these "trying help you an write essay" classes should be some kind of "just read a book and enjoy it" class. It would be a start anyway. In school, any hope of loving E…

The problem with dissecting a book is that -- just like dissecting an animal -- at the end of the exercise, the subject of the dissection is dead.

While mulling over a good book and discussing it can be enjoyable, the attempt to squeeze deep meaning out of something that the author put in by chance simply kills the joy of a good book.

Besides, I find that often the books that tend to be chosen for literature classes (at least in high school) tend towards empty, meaningless "classics" about empty, meaningless people. Reading this sort of book really ends up sucking the joy out of an English class.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#16

Post by weiser »

I can bet that woman must be good at something she has never been tested on and probably does not know about. Maybe if we start from the premise that most individuals have something they are really good at, we might be able to move beyond the educational system of As and Fs and take advantage of people's abilities to the fullest.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#17

Post by aggieben »

This really was a great submission. I also am an adjunct instructor (albeit at a 4-year university), and I can attest to this guy's experiences.

The line that really lit me up was this:

  Our dialogue had turned oblique, as though we now 
  inhabited a Pinter play.
This is golden. If anyone here has ever seen a Pinter play acted out, you know exactly what this means, and it is totally spot on. It's when you totally have begun to talk beyond each other, each sentence containing only enough of the subject continuum to keep you in the conversation, but apart enough to make it clear that nothing is being exchanged at all.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#18

Post by aggieben »

pragmatic wrote: post #14

I taught basic computer classes (Microsoft Office) and the lower level computer science courses as a similar institution. This article is so spot on, it's a little eerie. Do all adjuncts feel the same way?

Yup. I just had a class in which 15 of 18 I caught cheating, with 6 of those committing blatant acts of plagiarism.

When you try to talk to those kids, it's totally like a Pinter play.

I also completely empathize with the high-lows he described. Teaching is a high, especially if you allow yourself to be deluded into thinking your students are interested and learning; that makes the lows of having your delusions shattered at grading time that much lower.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#19

Post by joeter »

weiser wrote: post #16

I can bet that woman must be good at something she has never been tested on and probably does not know about. Maybe if we start from the premise that most individuals have something they are really good at, we might be able to move beyond the educational system of As and Fs and take advantage of people's abilities to the fullest.

as an economics guy, I can tell you the fundamental flaw is with the signal models higher education systems currently use.

It follows even on through to the wall street ibanks. "Ivyleague type with above 3.7 GPA."

look at the mess they are in now.

Re: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

#20

Post by scott_s »

hugh wrote: post #12
daveambrose wrote: post #5

"America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns." We tend…

Interestingly, most coal miners make a whole lot more money than, say, an adjunct lecturer in English. There's nothing wrong with being a coal miner. Arts degrees are a luxury for children of rich families, not a good way to get ahead in life.

Coal miners make more than an adjunct English lecturer because there is something "wrong" with being a coal miner: it's a dangerous and exhausting job.
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