The Marlowsphere (#17)
College professors, as I’m sure teachers at all levels, are beset with the issue of grade inflation. Increasingly, students campaign at the end of a semester for a better grade if they are not satisfied with the grade recorded. Rarely, in my experience, do students look into the academic mirror during the course or at the end of the semester and posit, “Why did I get this grade?” or “What do I have to do to improve the response from the professor?” or “What I am not doing that is resulting in less than a satisfactory grade?”
Teachers are well aware of the struggle between professors and students in this sense: when a student receives a grade of less than an A, the student’s response is usually, “The professor didn’t give me an A, the professor gave me a [you fill in the grade].” On the other hand, when the student receives an A or even an A- as an end of semester grade, the usual response is, “I got an A!”
While students are required to take certain courses as prerequisites and requirements for a degree, it is my observation students choose certain courses not because of the content of the course, but because of the character of the professor. It is my view students learn more from the character of the professor than they do from the course content, regardless of course content, department, or major.
In martial arts training—whether Chinese Kung Fu, Japanese Karate, or Korean Tae Kwon Do —the objective is not to advance rapidly to get high ranking black belt status; part of the objective is to achieve mental and physical discipline, self-confidence, and self-respect. One also learns to anticipate one’s opponent. The martial arts are also about learning strategy building. All this is a way of realizing inner peace, harmony with one’s environment, and dealing with challenges. In the classroom, the objective for students is not so far removed from these aforementioned goals. While students are required at some point at the end of their sophomore year to choose a major, in today’s world, where a master’s degree has become the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree, the choice of major is somewhat irrelevant. True, for some higher education disciplines, such as medicine, accounting, or physics, choosing an appropriate major is important. However, for many if not most students, the undergraduate experience is more about learning how to learn and broadening one’s intellectual horizons and perspectives, as opposed to learning a whole bunch of content about a specific subject.
At the undergraduate level, it is about learning the process of learning that is paramount. That process involves having some inkling of what sources to tap for research, accessing that content, abstracting it, analyzing it, condensing it, and reporting it either orally or in writing (or both) to a third party, presumably the professor. This is a process repeated over and over again in many classes. Success for the student means, then, having the discipline, confidence, and self-respect to initiate the process as early on as possible. The reality, unfortunately, is that many, if not most, students leave initiating the process to the very last moment with less than satisfactory results. Access to the Internet’s encyclopedic store of information also encourages this “last minute” behavior.
The apparent student perspective is that the goal is to complete the course and give the professor what the professor wants to hear (or read). The goal appears to be getting a good grade, rather than achieving a higher level of discipline, gaining increased knowledge and understanding, self-confidence, and self-esteem. The reality is that too many students enter the classroom without these character traits and this lack is more predictive of failure or unsatisfactory course results than are brains, cultural background, or financial wherewithal combined.
Very often as teachers we talk about building character through challenges in the classroom, but how often do we approach the teaching of a subject with this in mind? It goes without saying that we learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes. It is also a truism that how we respond to challenges, large and small, says more about the depth of our character than receiving one more gold star, metaphorically speaking.
In the 1984 John Carpenter directed movie “Starman,” the central character (played by Jeff Bridges as a stranded alien who takes human form who is about to be rescued by his fellow aliens after having crashed on planet Earth) reflects on the character of humankind. He says, “You are at your best when things are worst.”
When things are easy, achieving success becomes an empty experience, but when things are hard to achieve, doing all the work to get to the finish line is a character building experience that lasts a lifetime. For Olympic team hopefuls, just getting onto the team represents a certain level of success. Getting to the finals of an event is another level of success. Achieving gold, silver, or bronze is yet another, and, of course, earning the gold medal is the ultimate in Olympic terms. Similarly, for many students, particularly those who represent the first generation of their family to achieve college-student status, just getting into a college is a success, but then completing the four-year course of study is another level of success. Completing the degree with honors is yet another level of achievement.
However, the undergraduate college experience is not just about sitting in 40 or so courses, taking tests, or writing papers in order to get a piece of paper at the end of the process so that the student can go out into the world and achieve a higher level of economic prosperity. If recent economic events are any indication, a degree is no guarantee of financial success or a higher standard of living. It doesn’t make any difference what level of academic achievement one attains. What does matter is the character of the holder of that degree.
The issue is this: How far is one willing to go to get what one wants? I don’t mean to imply a nefarious approach. I mean how much discipline and effort are you willing to invest over time in order to get to a better place? True, in some circumstances, even the greatest effort will not achieve the desired results, in which case a change of strategy is required.
Perhaps during freshman orientation we ought to provide a session on the importance of character, on the importance of discipline, self-confidence, and self-respect. Perhaps in our courses as teachers we should ignore the pressure to help students pass and instead raise the bar so that when a student does reach the bar the success is the student’s, not just the teacher’s. Character in the classroom is two-sided: as much the responsibility of the student as it is of the teacher—but the teacher has to lead the way.
Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.
Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
July 2, 2012
© Eugene Marlow 2012