Forget football!

Earlier today we found out that S. Africa will play England in the final game of the Rugby World Cup!!!!

To give you a sense of what this means to S. Africans, here's an ad that was sent to us by a friend in S. Africa. While it isn't really appropriate for children, I suspect children are not reading this blog and that, even if they were, they won't get it. Just to be on the safe side, you'll have to scroll down quite a ways to see it.

Just to prove my point....

I handed back the second exam of the semester to my majors introductory biology class. While some improved from the first exam, at least 50% showed no improvement. Given that their average on the first exam was below a C, it sort of put me into a bit of a depression.

Instructors go through a series of emotions when their students are not doing well. I personally tend to start asking what I could do differently do help them. Then I figure out that I have held review sessions, made suggestions on how to study and how many hours they should expect to study and realize that there isn't much more I can do. At that point most instructors then get frustrated and maybe even a little angry with their students. After we bitch and moan to our colleagues about the situation, we tend to calm down. We accept that students have the right to fail a course and try to develop a more Zen-like attitude about the entire thing (yes, I hate the whole Zen-like thing too, but the phrase works here).

So I got to class last night and explained that I had expected to see higher grades and reiterated what the students will have to do to improve their grades. Instead of the bitching and name calling that I have experienced at other institutions, I saw heads nodding. I had several students come up to me at the end of class and ask for help. I had several others come up to me just to let me know that the exam had opened their eyes and that they would be working harder in the future. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy just remembering it. Life is so much better and teaching is so much more enjoyable when you genuinely like your students.

Please note, do not interpret this to mean I did not like my students at other colleges and universities. Okay, there were some individuals I really didn't like, but they tended to be the exception to the rule.

Exclusive private colleges vs. open admission state colleges

It's interesting, now that I've had some time to observed students in both environments, to note how very different they are.

I really enjoyed teaching at the Claremont Colleges. My colleagues were interesting researchers still focused on student education. The students were bright, worldly, well prepared for college and highly motivated.

Now that I'm at a state college with a largely open admission policy (actually all Utah state schools have to have an open admission policy, we just offer our remedial, make that developmental, classes on campus whereas many send their students to local city colleges for such courses), I have to say that my students are VERY different, however not necessarily in the ways that you would expect.

Obviously my new students are much less well prepared for college and I am regularly amazed at what they think is acceptable college level work. I will get homework assignments that have been written in IM code or even worse, terrible English. I am fairly certain that I have a student or two that may qualify as illiterate but who were not caught by the tests that funnel students into the remedial classes. Despite having a very clear policy about making up exams, students will forget what they have been told (and what is written on their syllabus) and assume I will do what they want. They also fail to listen to directions in class AND fail to read the written instructions for assignments and are then surprised when I take points off of their homework.

That being said, these are some of the hardest working people I have ever met. We have a mix of traditional and non-traditional aged students and they are all likely to have families (this is a very Mormon town after all) and full time jobs in addition to attending school full time. When they don't do well on an exam, they never (okay, rarely) blame their professor but quite willingly admit that they needed to study more. They also like their professors even when they aren't doing well in a class. As a result, while I sometimes want to tear out my hair in frustration over some of the things that they do, I really find my new students to be a breath of fresh air.

Back in California, I had a few students who thought I was wonderful (because they came to me for help outside of class typically) while the rest hated my guts because it wasn't easy to earn an "A" in my class. Here, my students respect me for making them earn their grades.

Granted, I still do have whiners who will never be happy but they are largely in the minority.

The one thing I never expected though, is that school isn't necessarily a priority for many of these students. I guess I can understand when they have families to support but I am still disappointed when students miss class entirely or leave halfway through because of work. It certainly makes it harder for them to succeed, although many fail to understand that.

Even more surprising are their parents' attitudes about their education. Marius actually had a student come to him and ask to be allowed to take a make-up exam. The reason this kid needed to miss the exam was because their parents had booked a holiday and didn't want to drive through Vegas rush hour traffic. Yup, avoiding traffic came before their child's college education. To add insult to injury, the kid's mother emailed Marius to see if she couldn't convince him to change his mind. What a wonderful woman.