Reservations on the Home Front

When I applied to the Cal Poly Pomona Writing Center, I didn’t realize how unique of an experience it would be. While walking with fellow editor Jack and one of our professors today, our professor remarked, that there are two types of learning that go on in a classroom: student learning and professorial learning. Though it was not the first time I had ever heard a professor state that they learn from their students, it made me start to think about all that I have learned from the students that I tutor at the writing center. Although I could turn this into a catalog, and my following sentence could be something along the lines of: what I learn from my tutees is, I have something else in mind, something I hope is less painful. I want to share an experience I had while instructing a group tutoring session last week.

I only have four students in this particular group this quarter, but, luckily, all of these students are adamant to do well in their English class, so our discussions are never lacking. They constantly bombard me with questions on both content and grammar, asking about how to organize their paragraphs, or whether or not I think a comma should go here.

However, this past week was different. Rather than coming to the meeting in a mild panic filled with questions and uncertainty, they all came in empty handed, with nothing to do. They had turned in their final essays already and were assigned just to study for the final, two weeks from then. As silence fell over the room I decided I wanted to try something that I had been interesting in doing with them for a few weeks now. I began by asking the class if they ever write for fun, or in their free time. This question was met with a series of giggles and a few exclamations of: “writing is stupid.” I wasn’t surprised, and I wasn’t sad either. In fact, they responded exactly how I expected them to.

Following this question, I asked them if they had ever heard of free writing. Most of them had heard of it before, but they were unsure of exactly what it entailed. After I explained to them how free writing worked, I told them that we would free write for five minutes without stopping, and that I wanted them to focus on why they disliked writing so much, and where this “writing is stupid” strain of thinking originated.

And so they did...

After five minutes passed I asked the students to finish up their final sentence and then to stop writing. They had each produced about half a page of writing, some more and some less, attempting to explain their loathe for writing. I was surprised to see that most of these students blamed the teachers that they had had in the past. They revealed that when they were younger they actually enjoyed writing, but when they got into high school and college, and were constantly given papers back covered in read marks with little explanation and disrespectful remarks like “duh” or “are you serious?” on them, this love soon turned to hate. Furthermore, all of the students in the meeting that day were ESL (English as a Second Language) students, so they had to face even more challenges along their paths as writers.

Since, at this point, we had fifteen more minutes left of the meeting I decided to take this exercise one step further. I noticed that to my previous question they had all began their essays with a short thesis: “I hate writing because...” And their short paragraphs continued on similarly to how their in normal essays would. In an attempt to get them to break free from this style of writing, I wanted them to write a short narrative. I designed a scenario for them. I told them that the Earth had just stopped spinning, and since objects in motion have a tendency to stay in motion, they were now hurtling thousands of miles per hour at the nearest wall, but mid air they suddenly began to think about something, anything. I told them that I didn't want them to write: “While I was mid air flying at the wall because the Earth had just stopped spinning I thought...” I wanted them to, rather than saying I am thinking something, think on the page. I wanted them to write differently than before; I wanted them to forget about all of the inhibitions that they had about their writing and just pour their minds out on the pages. No stopping, no revision, no worries. And, this time, I would join them.

And so we wrote...

After five minutes had passed I, again, told them to finish up their sentences and stop their writing. I then asked the students to share what they had written by either reading it off the page or just summarizing what they had written. It was interesting to find that two of the students seemed to be able to accomplish this task the way I had asked. One student talked about her mom and asked her a question she had always wanted to ask her, but never did. Another student tried to recollect what the man sitting across from him at lunch had been wearing, eating, drinking, but was unable to remember any of these details. These two students remarked that the process felt liberating and that they just wrote whatever first came into their head, even if it took them away from the overall topic. Yet, the other two students were unable to break out of their known essay formatting process. Although these students did not start out by stating : “I would think...” they did start out by describing the situation, and then moved to describing their thoughts. They wrote: “I think about...” and so on. I asked them why they chose to write their paragraphs this way, compared to how I had asked them to and they stated that they did not know how. That this was the only way they knew how to write.

Well, if you got this far I want to thank you for reading this in its entirety. I have no huge conclusion or lesson that I want to elicit to students, tutors, or teachers. I merely wanted to share one of my experiences with you, and let you take what you want from it. If you do have any thoughts or comments about any of my blog, please leave them in the comments section below. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Until next time,

Nick

In Defense of Meanness

Today, I told a student, to her face, that she had done something “stupid.” And the crazy thing is she didn’t run away crying or put up a defense mechanism or block out entirely the point I was making. She smiled and quietly laughed and nodded knowingly. Because she knew it was true. (She had plagiarized).

I did not go into my meeting with this student with the intention of using the word “stupid” or any other word like it. However, once speaking with her, I knew something had to be said to get my point across about the severity of what she had done. I was speaking with her directly and openly, with no hostility, reiterating to her what could happen to her student status if she were to ever do this again. She didn’t really “get it” or react until I said, “what you did…was stupid.” Her quite laugh spoke volumes to me as I understood completely what it meant coming from her: she got it. And she clearly agreed.

Despite what some of my fellow educators may feel about words like “stupid,” I know that what I said to this student, paired with my tone, made all the difference in her understanding and openness to what I was telling her. As soon as we started talking, she was not afraid; she knew she had no reason to be because I was not angry. I was not giving up on her as a person; I was simply letting her know that what she did was dumb and could have and should have been avoided. It was this little bit of honest meanness in word choice that brought everything home. She expressed appreciation for what I said- because it was honest. We were two people communicating openly, an often difficult feat for a professor and a student.

After the disagreements that went down on this blog last week, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of “meanness.” Is it, in fact, an act of flagrant self-regard for one to proclaim the downfalls of others? Was I just abusing my position as this girl’s instructor when I told her that what she did was idiotic? Or was it in fact my duty to tell her that?

What I realized is that when we talk about people being "idiots" or doing something “stupid” or “dumb,” it is not a reference to their mental capabilities; it is a reference to their behavior. An “idiot” is "an utterly foolish or senseless person." Not someone who is incapable of higher thought or sense, but rather someone who practices neither.

When students don't put in the effort to improve and when they don't attempt critical thought and when they write half-assed drafts with no thought behind them (and when they knowingly plagiarize), they are behaving like idiots. It is idiotic to spend thousands of dollars on an education that you are not intellectually invested in. This common behavior not only reveals a problem with the average modern student but also with the system as a whole. How did it get this way and what can be done about it? In my opinion, the main issue is that college has become a means to better career prospects. It is just a game so many people play- they want the rewards of the game (the degree, the better paying job, the prestige) without putting in the intellectual work. And without that intellectual work, they don't deserve the degree because, damn it, they're not earning it. To expect to get rewarded for something you're not putting in the work for is idiotic. And it is clear when a student and a person is really trying (like the English language learners both Jack and Slick mentioned in their blogs last week), because improvement comes with that territory. And it is obvious when a student is not trying. Higher education is great because no one has to do it; no one is forced to go to college. So, when a student behaves like he is forced to go to class and forced to go to the writing center and only put in the minimal thoughtless effort to get by, he is being idiotic.

And this branches out to all aspects of life- people who live their lives as if they are forced into every action, every event, as if they have no freewill are idiotic. The only way to not be an idiot, is to stop being so apathetic and to really try at the things you set out to do, not just float by at everything. People like that, until they change, are a waste of everyone's (except maybe therapists') time and energy.

This brings me back to my original point: I point out the downfalls of lazy students and lazy people who show no progress because they do not put in the time and effort to improve at the things they do, they allow themselves to be coddled and their only explanation for their behavior is boredom. I feel like them sometimes, but I won't allow that to be my life because I see the way they are and remind myself and others not to be like that. This has nothing to do with talent or natural brilliance, it has to do with effort, critical thinking, and drive which, just like reading and writing, are not natural abilities, but must be learned and always honed and which are qualities exhibited by the English language learners discussed in last week's blogs.

We must stop coddling students (and all people for that matter). We must not be afraid to tell them when they are not cutting it. We must hold them to the higher standard that is at the heart of higher education.

And sometimes we must push them out of their apathy and away from their destructive behavior- and if that means telling them that their actions are “stupid,” so be it.

But, of course, proceed with caution.

Until next time,

Leena