A Sphincter Says What?

I typed up my student evaluations from last semester because, well, I'm an adjunct and no one in the department cared enough to have it done for me. These evaluations were done by the department itself, in addition and separate from the college evaluations that are online. All the history department asked was what students liked best and least about the class. Typing them up myself was its own particular kind of torture, not just having to read the comments that I can't respond to but also having a very good idea of who wrote what because I still remember most of their handwriting styles.

I decided to take to Twitter and tweet some of the gems (those that made me feel all warm inside *and* those that were particularly heinous), as a way to help me process the comments. When I came across a comment that said "I didn't like how early the class was," I tweeted that quote with my response at the end: Then don't sign up for an 8:00 class. It got some laughs and retweets. It also helped me not get angry at the student, who I in no way forced to take an 8:00 class when I am anything but a morning person and was certainly not thrilled at having to be there at 8:00 myself. I have a 45 minute drive in the morning. They have to walk across a street. (See? This is the downfall of seeing the handwriting, knowing who wrote the evaluation, and remembering all the things they told you throughout the semester.)

The tweet that got the most response, however, was this one:


"I liked how the teacher lectured, but you had to study. Most teachers make PowerPoints that give all the information and you don't do anything on your own."

When I first read it, I was stunned, hence the Wayne's World reference. You can get through college-level classes without studying? Professors just want you to regurgitate what they tell you? Call me naive, but that's horrendous. I almost didn't tweet it. I was so taken aback that I thought it had to be a one-off. But it wasn't. There were a few more comments in a similar vein, so I tweeted it and my response, which was "I don't know what to say about that last tweet eval. I feel sorry for those students who are taught to be robots."

Apparently, a lot of people agreed to me because there was a flurry of retweets, favorites, and replies with some very good points made. What happened to critical thinking? What happened to independent learning and studying and thinking for yourself? Is it wrong to expect students to study in college?

It is very easy to criticize students for not understanding what it takes to succeed in college, that they are largely responsible for their own success, that grades reflect performance, not effort. After all, how many times have we told students they don't get an A because they do the work, they get an A because their work meets a certain standard? 

But are we complicit in their misunderstanding? Evidently, some of us are. In this age of the assault on higher education, this is not how we should represent ourselves if we expect society at large to believe our protests that higher education is important and relevant and vital. If we don't make the effort to teach as well as we can, why should we expect students to make the effort to learn as well as they can?

I say this fully aware of the all of the changes taking place in higher education right now, fully aware of all of the other demands on academics that can push teaching to the back burner, and fully aware of the adjunct situation, since I've lived it for the past year. I say this as someone who tried to write her dissertation while teaching four new classes.

Do I regret spending what a lot of people would consider too much time on teaching? No. I really don't.  I just graded a student's final exam and the grade was more than double what they earned on the first test of the semester. The student obviously learned something this semester and it wasn't just modern U.S. history. They learned how to read for comprehension, how to study, how to think critically. How do I know this? I worked with that student quite a bit. I can see the change. That's why I don't regret it. Whether the student realizes it or not, I made a difference and that's enough for me. Well, that and evaluation comments like these:

"I liked the fact that this course taught things that weren't common knowledge. I deeply enjoyed my learning experience."

"I liked that we learned many things that could possibly change our views."

"I thought history was boring until I actually got engaged with it."

I might not have been at this school for long, but I can leave without regret, knowing that I did the best I could and that the school is losing an asset, someone who cares about their students, not someone who throws up a PowerPoint slide and tells their class to just copy it down. I care and I can make a difference. That's the point of being an educator.