Awww... Gilda is such a pretty kitty! (Don't tell Rosie I said that.)

This is definitely true. A regular part of my job was teaching students how to write (not just how to write in French). And I don't mean nuances, I mean things like "you should have paragraphs".

To defend my fair profession, I think this has a lot more to do with how many more students are going to college from lower-achieving schools, which often have too many students and too few qualified teachers to have any kind of sustained writing program. College has become the default rather than the exception, so students who have not been well-prepared are going to schools more frequently than in decades past.

The reason I believe that this may be the case is that writing instruction has improved dramatically in English classrooms where teachers aren't overwhelmed and overburdened. Writing pedagogy has grown from "figure it out" to a more process-based approach, and teachers now are encouraged to provide models and rubrics that my generation and earlier seldom received. I say all of this from my own experience, but more so from my father's 37 years as an English teacher. He was on the forefront of educators trying to change writing instruction, and he worked nationally as well as in his state.

I believe that the students coming from "good" schools are generally just as prepared, if not more, than they used to be. The problem lies first in how many schools that used to be "good" have lost funding (and gained all the associated problems) or have been forced to teach more to a test (thanks, Bush); and secondly in how many more students see college as a necessary next step after high school.

In terms of kids being more entitled, well, that's a whole other issue. But I don't think it's fair to say that we aren't preparing them as well as we used to.

t /soapbox

Sorry, it's a sore point for me.

Bob Bob is still idealistic enough to let this stuff bother him. Once he gives up on the jerks he can start being surprised and delighted when he finds a bright, inquisitive student in the mix. Cynicism is oddly liberating that way.

I agree that he is a bit thin-skinned, but I never knew people who would skip class sessions, turn in shitty work or fail to turn in significant papers, never participate, not show up for the final exam study, be late for the exam, fail, and then harass a professor that if they don't get a passing grade they lose their scholarship and have to drop out. These kids are shameless, horrible people.

Of course he could take a job at Reed or Oberlin or one of a few other places where the student culture embraces thinking for its own sake.

That's where he's at-- he used to just want a research 1 institution (he is on the market this year), but his experience (and mine, I went to a school like the ones above) has made him warmly welcome a job at places like that.

I am occasionally fortunate enough to have a Kathy or a Shrift in among the rabble

I've mentioned it here before, but I think my honesty was so refreshing that my professors would give me breaks for things because I wouldn't ask for them. One prof let me take a make-up exam because I said, "Look, I wasn't feeling well and slept through my alarm, but I don't expect special treatment for being a flake."

Having a reputation for not weaseling out of my work came in handy when I got mono my junior year and couldn't get out of bed for 6 weeks.

Having a reputation for not weaseling out of my work came in handy when I got mono my junior year and couldn't get out of bed for 6 weeks.

Can you believe I've known you since your junior year?

I need it to be 45 minutes later so I can GO HOME.

I was like that, shrift. Though I could probably have been less honest the time I told a prof that his class just wasn't a high enough priority for me to bust my ass for (it was crunch time on my thesis.) I guess it surprised him enough (I mean, what kind of idiot SAYS that?!) that he actually got really worried about me. I was under pressure, yes, but keeping it dealable just meant chucking a few things. I wasn't on the verge of collapse or anything.

My niece is going to be Cinderella [link] for Halloween and I'm thinking of sending a costume for my nephew. What could be be that would coordinate?

A pumpkin?

Eeee! With wheels on the side, so that he's her carriage!

I'm not sure how that would have flown with the professor of the one class I blew off, but I did make a conscious decision to coast for a C in his class so I could devote 25+ hours a week to studying for Survey of Art History II. At least I did crack him up by talking about the Creamy Consistency Rule for acrylic paint mixing.

-- he used to just want a research 1 institution (he is on the market this year), but his experience (and mine, I went to a school like the ones above) has made him warmly welcome a job at places like that.

Yeah, I'm in a Research 1 university, and I often daydream about being in a smaller school like the one I attended. But in the sciences it's hard to work outside of Research 1, because you need a lab and lots of graduate students, and Federal grants, and collaborators who you can team up with.

In the humanities, though, I think it's possible, as long as you have access to the information you need and can connect with other scholars at converences or by exchanging visits. I envy the people who are able to strike that balance.

Can you believe I've known you since your junior year?

...it doesn't seem like it's been that long, does it?