Classes begin in a week. And as usual, I’m in a flurry of thoughts of what to do with the curriculum this time around, how to impart some knowledge I just KNOW will be found useful, how to defend this thing called Art, how to defend a church music curriculum in a state-supported university, and how to fit teaching and recitals and another musical together into one schedule.
As I get older, I marvel (read: despair) that I am now twice the age of a graduating college senior. I marvel (despair) that my classmates now have children in college. I marvel (despair) that I am teaching the offspring of frat brothers I accused of being ill-advised to procreate. :)
Fashion sense continues to go out the window, especially on the performance stage. And I look back and remember my mentors saying that very same thing when I was growing up.
A student once suggested that the payment of tuition buys and guarantees a degree, just like getting it off the shelf. Do I stand agape at that level of ignorance, or do I bother looking for coherent words to set the record straight?
Education at all levels has come under increasing fire. Institutions are charged with teaching material, assessing how well it has been learned, and making adjustments in the plan of attack to improve dispensing the material next time around. And all that has to be shown in numbers rather than in whole being. But learning institutions need to find a way to share the responsibility of teaching. I still see college students who can’t spell and who can’t lay out their thoughts in writing coherently. Writing and critical thinking cannot start in college – those have to start at home, as do paying attention, paying respect, and learning responsibility. And the Real World is quite a teacher, too. But how does an institution make these points without getting sued or shut down? Until they figure that out, I suppose it has to be left to the little guys writing their personal blogs. Meanwhile, merely good students will continue to be labeled “exceptional.”
Perhaps the goal of Assessment is for an institution to make constant improvement. But has that system considered what happens on the day an institution achieves 100% in all areas? The mind boggles at the implosion that would occur in the numbers game. As my 15-year-old nephew puts it, “EVERYONE in the top one percent!”