Comments on: Reforming Community College Education: David Brooks on Obama’s Community College Plan

By: Reforming Community Colleges « Perverse Egalitarianism

Reforming Community Colleges « Perverse Egalitarianism — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:14:53 +0000

[...] July 22, 2009 by Mikhail Emelianov Cool take on Obama’s proposed reform of community colleges at Savage Minds: [...]

Report this comment

By: Justaguy

Justaguy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:07:48 +0000

T9: I am a grad student at a UC school, and I have two observations. First, a large percentage of the students there have substandard writing skills. Second, I have frequently heard professors and other TAs comment that their best students are those who transferred in from a community college. I’ve noticed that myself – I have no idea why that is – perhaps many of them are paying their own way, and see going to a UC as a step up from their first college and work harder as a result – but its definitely worth noting.

And I would second the idea that what we really need is better K-12 education. By the time you get to college you should know how to use an apostrophe – its frustrating to have to try and teach students course content at the same time that you need to teach them basic punctuation.

Report this comment

By: Pamthropologist

Pamthropologist — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:47:27 +0000

LL Wynn,

Thanks for the kind words but in all fairness my first response on my own blog was fairly self-centered. I do resent the attempts to measure my “success” through the completion rates of my students. I have been facing increased tracking for the last few years and will be facing more in the coming years. We just had the new plan unveiled last week. *sigh*

Pam

Report this comment

By: Pamthropologist

Pamthropologist — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:54:39 +0000

Let us hope I don’t have as many typos this time around since I am not running out the door.

T9, I think one of the things Brooks got right was the diversity of our student population at the Community College. I think its a bit sloppy thinking for anthropologists, of all people, to be lumping students into monolithic categories. Dustin will no doubt agree that you never know what will show up in your class. It is true many of my students are not ready for college-transfer and may never be. However, I, also, have many first generation students who can’t afford to go elsewhere or, perhaps, haven’t even thought that a possibility who can compete with the students at State U or even Ivy U. Or some of them have led some very interesting lives and are coming back to get the degree. Let us not sell Community College students short by shoehorning them into the unprepared/slacker category. Many have enough barriers to overcome without adding to them.

My own daughter just finished up her first year at a major 4 year institution. Her cultural anth course was no more nor less rigorous than the one I teach at my Community College. And by the sound of it, her Prof had just as many difficulties with disengaged, texting students with poor writing skills as I face.

As long as we continue to provide opportunity, I can’t help but feel it is all worth the effort.

Report this comment

By: Dustin (Oneman)

Dustin (Oneman) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:24:47 +0000

T9: I don’t think anyone (other than community college chancellors) wants to make 2-year colleges into 4-year universities. Unfortunately, given the failures of high schools to produce college-ready students, community college’s missions have to include remedial education to compensate (something a lot of universities used to do, too — I remember when CUNY, one of the great universities, dropped its remedial programs about a decade ago). Which is why I said above that community college reforms have to include K-12 reforms — we do no one any good by extending K-12 education 2-4 more years through junior colleges.

Report this comment

By: T9

T9 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:42:59 +0000

I started my college experience at a community college almost 20 years ago, and I hate to sound like a snob, but, the community colleges here in my area are little more than high schools. The students they produce can not write at the level needed in my university level introduction courses. The local high schools all send many of their frustrated students to the community college and this has further degraded the level of education there. Any move to make 2-year community colleges 4-year institutions will only dumb-down an already weak education system.

Report this comment

By: Dustin (Oneman)

Dustin (Oneman) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:27:24 +0000

LL Wynn: Thanks for those kind words. Of course, my experience as a teacher –and I would hope that this would apply to all teachers, at least the good ones — is intricately wound with that of my students. Like you mother, I am underpaid for the amount of work that every class inevitably ends up demanding, no matter how many times I’ve taught it before. But as much as possible, you have to leave that reality at the classroom door and just try, somehow, to engage students — they have more than their share of their own issues to think about, and I need to deal with those issues too if I hope to be at all effective.

The community college where I teach dropped the word “community” from its name the year before last — from Community College of Southern Nevada to just College of Southern Nevada. This is unfortunate to me, even if it’s just symbolic — I think educators, students, and most of all policy-makers need that reminder that education is a community endeavor. As Pam pointed out on her site, too often we instructors are expected to be entirely responsible for our students’ learning, as if we talked and they just naturally learned. The reality is so much more complex than that — instructors play a role, yes (and we play it either well or poorly) but we are just one part of the whole process.

Report this comment

By: L.L. Wynn

L.L. Wynn — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:53:14 +0000

Thanks for that long and thoughtful post, Dustin/Oneman, and Pam, thanks for your two cents as well. Whenever I think of community colleges, I tend to think of them from the perspective of those who teach in them. My mom taught writing at a community college for a long time and was paid at wages that came out to less than minimum wage when her preparation, reading/grading and general admin work were added to the face-to-face hours, and so I’m acutely aware of how the system exploits teachers — even as it is full of wonderfully qualified, and often amazingly committed, teachers. But this post redirected my thinking towards the experiences of students in the community college system, and so I applaud both of you for not dwelling on your own experiences as teachers but instead thinking about the barriers and difficulties that your students face.

Report this comment

By: Dustin (Oneman)

Dustin (Oneman) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:41:25 +0000

Pam: I might have been being just a little bit snarky about Brooks’ likability. I mean, when I’ve seen him on TV, he’s come across as pleasant enough, but the whole “being wrong about everything” thing, especially given his proclivity towards being wrong in ways that are pretty hurtful, makes me doubt we’ll ever be particularly close buds.

But like you say, Brooks’ individual wrongness isn’t the point — he’s just the vehicle for a particular viewpoint that, I think we agree, is bad for education. It was his particular agreement with Obama’s plan that spurred me to look more closely at it than I had — if Brooks agreed with it, I reasoned, it must not be very good. As I said in the post, there’s a whole section of the Obama-Biden plan that deals with affordability, which Brooks doesn’t talk about and which, one assumes, with which he’s not in agreement. So it’s probably overall better than Brook’s approval would suggest — but still worth watching, since as you say, there’s an especially nasty way of looking at education that’s taken hold across mainstream politics, and Obama, I’m pretty sure, is no exception.

Report this comment

By: Pamthropologist

Pamthropologist — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:17:22 +0000

Actually, I have 3 (count ‘em 3) separate (almots incoherent) rants/posts up on the Initiative and the Brooks’ article, myself. With twenty years full-time Community College teaching experience, it really struck a nerve with melibe.

Brooks is really a convenient straw man, although I don’t share your admiration for his “likability”. What we really have here is a policy which is the culmination of years of Republican era philosophies about education: particularly as regards “accountability”, probably, best expemplified by the Bush “No Child Left Behind” policies which we educators in Texas would happily tar and feather him for. I fear the requirement that we all justify our “success” is trickling up in ways we will all come to regret.

There is quite a bit more to be said about the general perception of education in America. For most of my students degree=better job=more money. That equation is a tough one for us since, most of them don’t really understand what the degree is “suposed” to consist of and mean. But I am ranted out for the day. I will save that post for the future.

Thanks, Dustin and for those of you interested my bog is entitled teachinganthropology and it is hosted by blogspot.

Pam

Report this comment