marisa's ramblings

here in lies my own personal soapbox to vent about the issues and dilemmas that plague my mind and share the aha moments of my daily life.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Why I am scared for the future of America?

I've been meaning to blog about my students this semester, but after yesterday's class I have two perfect reasons why we should all be scared for the future of America. Incident #1: I was going over the schedule for the rest of the semester and pointed out that I need to cancel class on the 25th. (I'll be in Vegas for NTC.) I reminded them that since they are working on an essay that week, to use their time wisely and asked what they can do that day even though class will be canceled. My wonderful white boy hip-hopper yelled out, "Get drunk." Of course, I had to rip him a new one. I told him to grow up and act like an adult. "This is college and the completely inappropriate context for such stupid comments," I said as a few classmates chuckled as I continued to berate the moron. This is the same student who has come to a composition course 3 times without a writing utensil. The same student who told me he had no idea what the phrase popular (or pop) culture meant. This is also the same student I believe is having somebody else write his out-of-class essays for him because he has failed both the inclass essays due to a lack of basic writing skills, such as how to write a complete sentence. Yes, a genius in the making.

Incident #2: We were discussing the essays they read for homework on the subject of free speech and censorship, a challenging topic for students who cannot think critically, but I can't stand not reading something intellectually stimulating. A student had brought up parental advisory stickers on CDs. I asked if anyone in class knew what woman was influential in getting the stickers on CDs. I then said, "Wait. Let me back up for a minute and ask you who Al Gore is?" The class went silent. My other brainiac blurted out, "I have no idea who that is." I looked at him in amazement. He then said, "Oh wait. Didn't he make that stupid movie?" I couldn't help but laugh in order to cover my sadness. Somebody else a bit more in touch said, "Oh yeah. He made that movie about the environment." I complimented the student for knowing that much at least, but then asked, "What was Al Gore known for prior to making An Inconvenient Truth?" And the crowd went silent. Finally, one of the girls said questioningly, "Wasn't he the Vice President?" I was so proud of her and told her I was thrilled she knew who Al Gore was. I mean really, it wasn't all that long ago that Clinton and Gore were in office and even more recently that he ran for president himself. I am appalled by the lack of what I consider basic American knowledge from most of these students. Hence, why I am scared for the future of America and why I need to take a break from teaching. I don't know if I have less patience or students have grown dumber over the past 6 years, but I just can't do it any more.

1 Comments:

Blogger KARIE said...

the problem is that you simply didnt ask the question to a 5th grader. if you did, they would have gotten the answer right away.. tell your class that they are just not smarter than a 5th grader maybe they will strive to better themselves!

6:24 PM  

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