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?

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...

But I don't think it's fair to say that we aren't preparing them as well as we used to.

Kristin,
I totally agree and I hope you don't think I was faulting high school education as a whole.

And generally I think it's great that more people have access to higher education than in the past. It just sucks that they aren't really prepared for it and then, as a prof, your job becomes something else entirely. But then again, at my last school, we couldn't force people to go to the writing center even if they did have a problem so possibly I'm still just really bitter about that.

In related news, public vs. private education: [link]

In related news, public vs. private education:

Interesting, and I'd really like to see more teasing out of the different factors affecting science/math performance on the one hand and reading/history on the other (with the understanding that that sort of thing may be somewhere down the road in future studies).

ION, could they have FOUND a less appropriate commentator for the article than Mr. Cato Institute Guy?