Here's a guy I met at the Nelson Gallery recently, a man who lived several thousand years ago; when I saw his marvelous marble bust, I felt as if I knew him. He reminds me of my law professors... not any one in particular... well, that's not entirely true. He strikes me as a composite of Mr. Fratcher and Mr. Covington, actually... Those guys, my law professors (at MU from '74-'77) were very formal, and austere, and harsh, and very effective. During those days at MU, during our entire first year, no professor ever spoke to us outside the classroom. We were treated as non-persons throughout the whole first year. We worked like Missouri mules, I swear, and about one-third of us who started each class, during those days, either dropped out or flunked out in the first year. Those of us who made it into the second year were (only then) treated (thanks, Prof. Joan Krauskaupf!) to a formal "welcome to the legal profession."
A few days ago I had dinner with a friend who is both a mathematics professor and a Zen teacher. She said: "I can't teach effectively if I have to worry about whether or not my students feel affirmed." Oh, yes. This is so true. Adjunct professors, in particular, are vulnerable to taking the easy way out, feeling threatened when students complain, because they want to get good scores on their course evaluations, so that they will be hired, again. They tend to comply with the demands of contemporary students that each student be validated and affirmed (even praised), regardless of the quality of his or her work. [UPDATE: here's a link to a good article about the "most-praised" generation.] And the desire to be popular with students can mean that they don't want their courses to be perceived as "hard courses."
When I began working as a psychology professor (as an adjunct, at first), I quickly became (in)famous for loading a lot of heavy work onto my students. One evening in class, a student ventured to inquire whether or not I was aware that there was another section of the same course, taught by another adjunct professor, in which the reading and writing requirements were considerably lighter than they were in my section? I took a deep breath. I said "No," I had not known that. Nor did I (much) care. What I cared about then (and now) was preparing students to become competent, confident professionals. So I gave the class, for the first time, what became one of my standard speeches about the teaching and learning of counseling psychology. If you embark on a career in which you hold yourself out as a person who can treat and alleviate emotional and behavioral problems, do you not want to get the best possible training? Do you not want to seek out the most rigorous training? And, if you (or a family member) should be a patient, would you want to go to a doctor who went to the "easiest" school?
As it turns out, nearly all the counseling psych students I taught indicated that they appreciated (eventually!) being held to high standards, being challenged, and (and I think this is part of the equation) having their intended careers taken seriously enough to acknowledge that it takes hard work to learn the things they need to learn, in order to succeed.
Your practicum lessons were well known within the graduate students at Avila---and dreaded I might add. I think there were probably two issues with the work load. 1. Everyone really did believe it was just way too excessive, and, 2. They failed to see the value of writing five pages of thoughts on a two page article. (My guesses and assumptions are through conversations with a few from your class.) Thus, in the end, it would seem they would have been 'okay' with a heavy workload--the question is, 'Who's idea of heavy makes it heavy and who's idea of heavy makes it excessive?' Also, beyond 'heavy' or 'excessive' was the student finding 'great value' within the exercises? It is my opinion the students would say 'no.'
ReplyDeleteHaving said all that (hope it came across as intended) I was looking forward to practicum this fall in order to form my own opinion about the 'excessive' and 'work without great value' assingments. Since things have changed, I'll never know.
I fully agree rigorous training should be preferred by all seeking education. The value is in the rigors of what is truly learned not what was rigorous for the sake of a large work load. Sometimes....students forget to learn through the rigors and also sometimes teachers forget to help them learn through the rigors. (I'm not intending to generalize you or your classes....just comments on the broad theme.)
Since I won't be in your classroom, I am in your Internet classroom instead....and thoroughly enjoy it.
Thanks, Gail! You bring up some good points. The bottom line, of course, is that the teacher has to make the final decision as to whether or not an assignment is well-suited to accomplish the needed end result in learning... and feedback from students should be an important part of that final decision. When I re-designed the Practicum course, I ramped up the requirements very substantially because, in the past, the course requirements were quite minimal (far below the standards set in other comparable programs). And at first, when requirements are increased, students will be upset. It takes some time to discern how much of the resulting student complaints are legitimate (ie, the work load is not producing desired results) and how much is just the normal, typical "it's not fair! I don't want to have to do this!" reaction that all students have...
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a good experience in your Practicum course, next Fall; I'm sorry I won't be there to be a part of your training!
p.s.: the papers assigned in Practicum (when I was teaching it) were carefully chosen to be very rich, conceptually; the idea was that the students need to learn how to explain the essential concepts in their own words, because they will have to do that for their clients/patients... and most students did a GREAT job with the task...