Wow, great depiction of many various problems that exist in the college world today. I myself am from humble beginnings and could not afford to go to college coming out of high school. It was not an option for me personally. Like many young people in the world today i took the only route available for me to pay for college, The Military. After almost six years and many trials and tribulations I am now in college. Where I struggle with all the problems displayed in " A Version of Students Today".
Yes i feel I overpay for books, I don't use and classes that the information is useless to me. I study for tests that don't evaluate the information I'm supposed to learn. I spend hours upon hours studying subjects that will be no use to me in the real world(my opinion based on experience). These problems ask questions??? I do not know the answers to. How to change the flaws in the institution? We call an college education. You can not make a acceptable living without graduating from college. An average college graduate does not even go into the field that there degree is in. The degree becomes an in to get an interview for a basic position they probably could have accomplished coming out of high school, without being in thousands of dollars in debt.
At the University Of South Alabama there are numerous signs posted around campus saying protect your G.P.A (grade point average) know the drop date. Classes cost lots of money what is the message we are sending when we promote quiting? Revenue, upper education is all about money the more students drop classes the less teachers have to work for the same amount of money. Books, I have spent thousands of dollars on books i have not needed or never used, just to sell them back to the University for a fraction of what I payed to see them resale them at 4 times the cost they just bought them from me. I have spent over 16,000dollars on a education so far that really has taught me anything I couldn't learn from reading. Yet office hours for my professors are conveniently during my other classes so if I have questions, I must send an email and wait for a response. We know the problems, How do we Fix Them?
I think "A Version Of Students Today" fulfils its targeted agenda. I would like to watch a movie that actually shows the struggles of a college student, than depict them. As a director of this type of movie I would actually show more real life problems, such as no parking spaces, running late to class because of the parking problems, having to park somewhere else just to receive a ticket. I would like to direct a 5-6 minute video depicting actual real life situations.
Response To "It's Not About Technology"
Kelly Hines is correct about the assumptions she makes. No matter how established the aspects of technology effect the learning curve. We as educators and teachers must have the ability to correct and correlate the learning curve for our students. If we are unwilling as educators to find the best ways to improve ourselves as educators, students will continue to be unsuccessful in the classroom. If a student fails its because they are not being reached, it is our job not only to educate when it is easy, but to understand why we are not successful in our endeavors to better understand the failures of our students and address them.
Teachers have to understand that all there students are different. Kelly Hines makes an extremely valid point; we have to understand where a student is coming from in order to anticipate where they are going. We can not expect for one method of teaching to reach all 40 members of all one class. Learning has to be fundamental for all parties(students, teachers, appropriators, parents) if we expect to improve the flaws of the ever flailing school systems in this country.
I believe to be successful students need to be assessed at a young age in which ways they learn the best, and be catered to learn by there needs. Students need to have a councilor that identifies what they need to learn on a daily basis and why they need to. We also need to check if they accomplished the goals set for them on that daily basis. If we do not change how we interact with students and how we learn from them; We will never be able to educate to our best ability. The best person to tell you how they learn is that person, not a manual that takes no consideration of individuality.
Response To "Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher"
I hate to refer back to another portion of this blog but being Tech illiterate is not the problem. I am referring to my response to Kelly Hines. If you wish to be a successful teacher you cannot be illiterate in forms of teaching, learning, and ways of sharing information to make you more affluent at both.
Karl Fisch makes a astute point about the apathy in this country. Many people have now become fans of being proud of there incompetence and illiteracy. Life is to short to be proud of your shortcomings. We as educators are already put at a disadvantage to improper parenting. The fact that parents would take pride in the fact that there children share there same disadvantages is appalling. The purpose of procreating is that the hope that our children will be more successful then ourselves. Why would anyone be proud of the fact that if I was bad at math that my child is to. We as a society must be more proactive in the ability to better ourselves and our youth in anyway possible.
If we do not take more of an interest in our own shortcomings, and how to improve them; the youths (our future) of this world will be hard pressed to be competent or prominent in anything they attempt to achieve.
Response To Gary Hayes Social Media Count
The astounding rate of social used media is climbing by the second. 20 years ago cell phones were a status symbol, 10 years ago so were personal portable computers. Now we have phones capable of doing both at a stellar pace. No longer does a teacher have to send a note home with a student. Teachers are now able to communicate all around the world at all times. Having a iPhone myself I am able to correspond to emails, text, twitter, facebook, myspace, blogger, or any other social media sites instantly anywhere (that I have service, surprisingly most places) or anytime.
With this influx of technology and social networking sites, teachers now have billions of resources at there fingertips. These advancements were inconceivable 10 years ago. A teacher now has no excuse on the ability to learn or to find new information that was foreign to them. With this mass media explosion, teachers will be able to educate more effectively, keep parents updated more closely, and correspond to other educators in the progression of learning etc, etc, etc.
I completely agree with everything you said about college and how we all buy books that we never use and how we take classes that are useless to us because we will never use or see that information again. It is a sad reality. You also brought up a very good point about the GPA signs around campus. I had never thought about that before. I also completely agree with what you said about how some parents are proud that their children are bad at math if they are as well. It isn't a parent's job to encourage their child for being bad at a subject if they were as well, it is a parent's job to encourage their child to be better at it than they were.
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