Rambler has been teaching this spring. It has been quite the eye opening experience. I'm teaching at a small liberal arts college in Westchester.
I'm teaching an Introduction to Journalism class. Now I did not go into this thinking I would have a classroom full of young Woodwards or Bernsteins. Hell, I'd settle for a class full of young Stephen Glasses and Jayson Blairs. What I have is a class full of kids who can barely write a sentence and are completely oblivious to the world.
I could rant about the fact that none have read a newspaper (either in print or online) or seem to watch TV news or seem to have a clue about anything. I could go on about how I don't know why any of them are in this class since none have indicated a desire to be reporters. They are in the class because it can satisfy an English credit and I think they think it is a creative writing course. I have spent almost two months hammering them on the inverted pyramid and the idea of a reporter being a neutral observer and some of these kids still turn in stories in the first person.
That they are having trouble grasping the basic forms of journalism is not even that big a deal to me. What does bother me is that the bulk of them can't spell or write to save their lives. One does not even know the difference between "are" and "our." My high school Spanish teacher once called me a "functional illiterate." I always wondered what that meant. Now I know exactly what he meant. And if Mr. Martinez thought I was bad...
Let me give you a few examples of the fine work I've been getting. These are just brief snippets to give you an idea.
"She explained that the title `Discipline' describe how at times we must restrain ourselves from actions preferably sexual."
"The night began with an open bar and the serving of appetizers by these exquisite females whom were dressed in these tight leather dresses similar to that of cat woman's."
"Friends talk it over the drinking age."
"As we wait for are food the waitress and a woman who plans on transferring to King's college started small talking with us."
"Nintendo, however, has aimed to managing to avoid the games that parents and other groups find controversial, while still maintaining a very wide variety of games that continue to be popular."
How the fuck did any of these kids get into any school of higher education? I had one girl turn in a paper with 22 spelling errors in it and she spelled the name of one of her subjects wrong. Another one got the title wrong of a movie she wrote about! Never mind that they think telling a story and reporting a story are the same thing or that most of these "articles" read like bad blog entries (and I should know about that).
I sent some of the worst papers I got to the other journalism professor who keeps chiding me for expecting too much and that I must focus on the very basic skills. But this is no longer about not grasping journalism. These kids can't write at all. I have two months left I think my main goal is to see if I can't get them to at least be able to write sentences in one tense and perhaps, if I'm really lucky, learn the difference between "are" and "our."
I do realize this is my first time teaching and I would do things differently next time around. There won't be a next time at this school though. I was asked to teach in the fall even though no one from the school has actually ever seen me teach. Pretty scary, huh?
All I know is it took me about five weeks to reach a level of burnout that most teachers probably don't reach until they have five years under their belt. I was going to screen "All the President's Men" and "Shattered Glass" for them and take them on a field trip, but now I think I'll just focus on the basics. Nouns, verbs, that stuff.
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5 comments:
If I were you, I'd screen The Miracle Worker. Helen Keller may be a real inspiration to them.
Dear backrow raincoat-crowd rep
I don't know the rank of college where you taught, but at Princeton (guess who I am) the students are so much more advanced, both intellectually and emotionally, than we were it's scary. They are extremely self-confident and of course know computers and anything related to electronic technology backwards and forwards. That being said, they are, as one of the newsmagizes they never read, "Generation Me." There's so much electronic media to chose from that The New York Times is basically, well, like some random guy's blog. They're weighted basically the same (not literally since the Sunday edition could be a giant doorstop). What they're losing is a sense of perspective on the larger society, since it's a waste of time, of which they have so little, if it's not about them personally. The first person has become the only voice they care about, not because they are shallow, but because there are so many outlets for it now (like this blog). In other words, it used to be "who cares about what you think," even if you wrote opinion columns in the high school or college paper. Now, supposedly, there's the whole world reading about your seemingly private concerns (or seeing them on youtube), no matter how narrow or esoteric.
That being said, yes, it's incredible that it's almost 20 years since Reed's "New York." The closing of McHale's, on 8th and 46th, to be replaced by the 40-story "Platinum" tower pretty much put the last nail into that coffin.
Then again I made a grammatical error in the post above, but who cares because it's only a blogspot?
Dear Blogger,
Kvetching about illiterate students is fun and necessary for mental health, but let's not hear anymore about burnout. Roll up the sleeves, teach these people the one skill that can make a difference in their life. Shame them, inspire them, whatever it takes. (D's are good motivators.) I've taught at Princeton, CUNY, and other state and private schools. The need for good editing and honest feedback exists everywhere. Writing is an intellectual activity, not just a set of skills, but it can be taught. Carry on, but don't let your own writing fall by the wayside; that's how to avoid burnout.
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