[Fwd: Re: denny's]

[Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

kelley wrote:
>
> katha writes:
>
> >Kelley, you seem to consider as structurally racist-sexist or classist
> >almost all the usual criteria for making judgments about students: you
> >don't like admitting kids by using test scores (or grades,either, I'm
> >assuming)
>
> oh you assume too much!  or, at least, assume that i don't think we should
> evaluate.

  Kelley -- we can all agree that  any method of evaluating students is
problematic, in the ways you describe. But, if i understand you
correctly, you  do accept the notion of evaluating students, without
really acknowledging that you do so. The long reports your teachers
wrote about you (4-5 pp!) were evaluations. A dean who weighed  having
to work or take care of sick relative as positive life experience
showing  responsilibity etc would be doing a good thing -- but  that is
evaluating also. Let's see, here are two students who could afford fancy
extracurrics -- one worked to save money for college every afternoon;
the other hung out and  got drunk every afternoon with her friends. The
same?
   I agree there should be college for everyone who wants it and could
get something out of it. I'm for that. However, one alternative you
propose to the admissions process -- let everyone in and see how they do
-- is actually practiced at some midwestern state colleges.  they're
very easy for state residents to get into -- then tremendous numbers
flunk out. The evaluation is just postponed from senior year in high
school to freshman year in college. It looks egalitarian -- but it
isn't.  In fact, it may be counterproductive: kids think they can coast
through high school because getting into college is practically
automatic. Then they discover they're not equipped to do the work, can't
budget their time, and flunk out.




> at least at SU's english dept, there was a strong pedagogical current
> against the imperialism of the english language.  i disagreed with their
> position, in fact, but this is what they said:  "the student text is sacred
> and we shouldn't mark it up"

Oh  Christ!  NO text is that sacred. I'll bet these profs expect copy
editors to clean up their grammar and save them from misspellings.

 by that they meant two things.  1.  students
> of color had an indigenous language that should be allowed to flourish and
> best to do that in the absence of authoritarian pedagogies of 'one right
> way'.

But the students can speak and write their "indigenous language" in
other contexts. I see nothing wrong with using standard English for
scholarly work and colloquial English for some other kinds of
communications.  country music lyrics sound ridiculous if you use
strictly grammatical and uncontracted English, hip hop has its own idiom
that white  and middle-class black rapsters adopt as well. So why is it
"imperialist" to say that standared English is the appropriate idiom for
certain forms of communication, certain kinds of discourse?

 2.  the writing process should be highly creative and allowed to
> develop under individuals logics.  lots and lots of writing, exploring,
> free writing, etc.  grading and correcting, iow, was seen as punitive and
> crippling to the writing process.

  Well all I can say is this is a very romantic view of writing.
writers who care about their work are CONSTANTLY judging themselves,
rewriting, throwing away, looking up words, polishing. It's not some
kind of automatic process. And if they are fortunate enough to get
published, writers are CONSTANTLY judged by others,too--editors,
readers, reviewers. Even fellow e mailers! Students aren't five year
olds, they can take being told that their paper needs another draft.
 Most of the student writing I've seen is exactly NOT creative, fresh,
original or individualized. although the students are often unaware of
this. And why? they do not have the literary means to say anything
complex: they can't make a complex argument clearly, they don't have
enough vocabulary to shade meanings precisely,they don't read the class
material in a complex way (ie, a paper on a 500 book will deal with one
paragraph wrenched out of context, because the student was annoyed by
the paragraph). when I taught freshman English at Barnard, i noticed
that my students had a very hard time even doing something as basic to
paper-writing as citing quotations that actually illustrated what they
were trying to say. They just slapped in any old quote. Nothing creative
about that!



>  how DO you think it should go about
> >choosing the freshman class?
>
> *real* assessments of students abilities?

What is real? My ex husband had great grades and excellent SATS.  he
didn't get into a single college of his choice because he was a hippie
in l966 and the teachers hated him, so they anti-recommended him. It's
not immediately obvious that a 4-5 pp evaluation is a better assessment
than test scores and grades plus recommendations and essays (the current
system of college admissions). it all depends on WHO is writing the
evaluation -- it could besomeone honest and sensitive and intellectually
serious, or it could be a jerk.
 Evaluations are also just as vulnerable to sexism, racism and other
prejudices -- maybe more even than standardized tests. SATS don't
reflect who's the teacher's pet, the sycophant, or the nice person the
teacher just plain likes. Lots of studies have shown that physically
attractive students get points from their teachers -- even having an
attractive name helps! Athletes get all sorts of special dispensations
in many high schools -- the SAT doesn't care about that.
  Also, as I'm sure you know, when the students can see their
evaluations, teachers are reluctant to speak freely -- they do that over
the phone, or with code words: "Susie is bright" pretty much means Susie
is a dud.
  I read applications one semester for NYU graduate program in Creative
Writing. Every student got a total rave from his/her recommenders, often
unsupported by either grades, the creative writing sample, or the
application essay. Especially if one combines reliance of evaluation
with the attitudes you decribe at SU -- extreme reluctance to evaluate
-- it hard to see it being the ideal tool.


  all i know is that those
> elite institutions could stand an infusion of white working class  students
> and students of color.  and if admissions standards were challenged a bit,
> then that would be an important achievement.  changing that will take lots
> of reform, especially equalizing k-12 funding and reinvigorating public
> schools in addition to affirmative action policies and a concerted effort
> to integrate higher education.

 Well, yes -- now you're talking! I'm completely in favor of affirmative
action, for class as well as race. But even affirmative action
applicants are judged, against other affirmative action candidates.





>
> education isn't the only way culture is transmitted.  students who grow up
> in homes with pletny of cultural capital have a big advantage over those
> who don't.  they tend to negotiate schooling much more adeptly as a result.
> is that fair that they have such an advantage?

 Of course it isn't fair that some kids are born into families without
cultural capital. (although should you be questioning, along the lines
of the "let them flourish in their indigenous language" argument,
whether those families are indeed deprived? maybe they just have
different forms of cultural capital and society should expand its
definitions etc etc. this isn't my point of view, btw. I think society
should make sure everyone acquires lots and lots of culture, including
the dead white men. I think we agree about this.
..



> >  My daughter has had several teachers who couldn't spell and used bad
> >grammar ("could have went" "you really payed attention").  Looking at
> >schools for her I've hardly been in a classroom that didn't have a
> >pretty flagrant example of language misuse up on the wall in the
> >teacher's handwriting ("heroin" for "heroine," "petrid dish" for "petri
> >dish" etc). Many of the communications I've received from her schools
> >have had typos, usage mistakes, mispellings.
>
> i know all about this and that's a huge problem.  much of it has to do with
> institutionalized sexism, no?

 It's interesting that all those grad students shut out of college
teaching, all those ABDs and starving adjuncts, don't move into the high
schools in large numbers. I met an academic recently who was teaching
all over NYC as an adjunct, earning maybe 20,000 for more than full time
work. but I guess if she moved into  high school teaching she would
truly be  abandoning the dream.

katha