Things not to say…..

In another week, my Baby Girl and I will be off to her college orientation.  In honor of that occasion, and the millions of teenagers just like her who will be embarking on their college careers this fall, I thought it might be helpful to review a list of things that you should never say to your professor/instructor.  You might think some of these are painfully obvious.  Once upon a time, I did, too.  Then I lost count of how many times I heard these things, just in one semester.  So here’s my Top 10 List of What Not To Say, Part I.

1. I wasn’t here on Monday.  Did I miss anything?

I’m astonished at how this one persists, even though I’m utterly certain that every student has heard admonishments not to say this and the inevitable joke “No, we realized you weren’t here so we all went home” or something to that effect.  First of all, it sounds as though you believe that life doesn’t really go on as usual in your absence.  It takes a special kind of egocentrism to imagine that everything stops when you decide to go elsewhere—the kind usually only awarded to 3 year olds who are cute enough to pull it off.  More importantly, though,  the question is a little offensive.  It implies that at least some percentage of the time what’s going on in class is useless—and that the instructor is well aware that it’s useless and is just doing it to fill time.  You may not see the value of what’s going on in class, but you should at least have the sense to acknowledge that the instructor does.  Frankly, we just don’t have the time or energy to waste on thinking up busy work for you.

2. I wasn’t here on Monday.  Can you tell me what we did?

Better, but still not ok.  This assumes that something of some importance went on in your absence, so that’s a step in the right direction.  It took 50 minutes for the rest of the class to go through whatever it was that happened on Monday; what makes you think I can distill it down to 2 minutes for you right now before class starts?  You might be brighter than everyone else in the room, but I’m guessing you’re not THAT much brighter.  If it were possible to cover the material in 2 minutes, that’s what I’d have done on Monday.

3. My flight leaves on Wednesday afternoon for Spring Break.  Is it okay if I’m not here that Friday?

The short answer, of course, is sure!  Knock yourself out.  In Loco Parentis stopped applying the day you got that high school diploma, Snowflake, and I’m not your mom.  Also, I don’t pay your tuition. You don’t HAVE to be here any day.  You already paid for this class.  What you’re really asking is, can I get credit for being here and still go on vacation early, and the answer to that is an emphatic no.  Here’s why—the dates for spring break are set years, seriously, years in advance and are published.  They’re on the school web site. They’re on your syllabus.  They’re plastered all over campus.  This is a little like saying to your boss “I’ve used up my vacation days, but I REALLY want to go to Cancun with my friends?  Is it ok if I don’t show up for work next week?”  The best answer your likely to get here is “Sure.  It’ll make payroll that much easier this period if we don’t have to pay you for next week.”  The likely answer is “Ok, but if you’re not here next week, don’t bother being here the week after, either.”  You get a week off.  If you want to take more, that’s up to you, but you’re not going to get special allowances to be able to do it.  You’re asking someone else to do more work so you can go play early. That never goes over well.

4. How much do I have to write?/How many pages does this have to be?

Ok, I get that a lot of students ask this question because they’re anxious about doing well and want to make sure they’re putting in the right amount of effort.  What this sounds like, though, if you’re on the receiving end is “This assignment is so far beneath me that I need you to tell me the minimum amount of effort I need to put in to get credit before I can move on to really important things.  Like who Snookie is sleeping with.”  There are a number of students who ask this question who are thinking this very thing (with some variation on the really important thing); you may not be one of them, but you sound like them when you ask this.  There are better ways to get the information that you really want: “I’m trying to gauge the level of detail you’d like in our responses. Do you have a maximum page limit for this assignment?”  or even “Would you mind looking over a draft of my response so I can get some feedback as to whether or not I’m on the right track?”

5. I just figured out my grade and it turns out I’m failing, which is a HUGE shock to me because I only missed the first 2 weeks of class and then those three days before break! I swear I’m a really good student and I NEVER do this badly in class.  What can I do to get more points in the last 3 days before classes end???

Again, there is a short answer to this question and you probably already know what it is: Nothing.  You had 14 weeks to prove to me what a great student you are, and you did.  What you’re really asking here is that someone else do more work to make up for the fact that you did less than what was expected of you for the last 3 months.  If you were truly that conscientious about your grades, I doubt you’d be this shocked, SHOCKED to find out that there’s a failing grade going on here.  You’d have already known after the first test and taken steps to correct the problem then.  How do I know?  Because at least 1 of your classmates did exactly that.  

I do occasionally hear this request for special extra credit from students who are doing very well in the class and want to create a buffer to be sure they get the highest grade attainable.  My response to them is that I don’t report total points or even percentages when I turn in grades. The registrar asks for your assigned letter grade—that’s all.  No one will ever know that you got a 99% instead of 105%.  Honest.

I Know Where You Went Last Week...

This morning, every morning news show (at least every one that’s ever on in our house, which is most of them since my ADD afflicted husband can’t leave the tv on one station for more than 2 minutes) was screaming about the news that iPhones and 3G enabled iPads collect and record data tracking your whereabouts as you schlep them around town.  This is apparently a crisis even bigger than the narrowly averted government shut down that would have put thousands of people out of work indefinitely.  Who knew?  Ok, so your iPhone/iPad is collecting data on where you are and storing it on your device/synced computer.  Here's why this is a strange thing to panic about:  

1) It's on YOUR computer--as in the one you own-- and the little gadget you’re carrying around in your own hand.  Let’s start with the gadget.  These things are not cheap, so unless you have the common sense of cottage cheese, you’re probably pretty careful about where you leave it lying around. This necessarily limits the number of people who are going to access the information on it.  They’re also very small and light (read: MOBILE), which is likely part of the reason you bought it; meaning you’re probably keeping it pretty close to you most of the time.  As for the computer to which it syncs, you probably have way more sensitive info on there, anyway.  If you’re the kind of person who only uses your computer for word processing, you’re probably not the kind of person who buys an iPad/iPhone.  It’s much more likely that you use your computer for EVERYTHING—taxes, budgeting, personal contacts, stocks, shopping, record keeping…. Hopefully you've taken steps to secure all of your information already.  If not, you've got bigger problems than someone knowing you were at Banana Republic yesterday.  

2) Where you've been is public information by virtue of the fact that OTHER PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU!  Unless you're the Invisible Man, someone else already knows you stopped at Starbucks on your way to work.  Lots of someones.  This is the whole reason private detectives can make a living; they can see you to follow you around and report on where you’ve been.  There is no implication of privacy when you’re out in public.  The fact that you’re in public is not classified information.  Even your home address is public information in most cases, unless you’re completely off the grid…in which case, you’re almost certainly not in possession of an iPad.  Although I would certainly expect some amount of privacy in my own home, the fact that I am home is still not a state secret.  My neighbors and anyone who walks by can probably figure out that I’m home from the fact that my car is in the driveway and the lights are on.  Some of them probably saw me pull in and walk in the door.  This is especially true if you live in my mother's neighborhood.

3) If you’re the kind of person who owns an iPad, you probably also have a cell phone, and maybe even a GPS.  If you own an iPhone, well, I hate to break this to you if you didn’t already know it, but you own a cell phone.  Cell phone companies already track your whereabouts while your cell phone is on (and not to belabor the point, but if you carry an i-gizzmo, you’re not likely to be the sort of person who only turns their phone on in an emergency).  The only difference here is that they have the info, not you.

4) This is not a chip that’s been implanted in your head without your knowledge.  It’s a hand held device, with no discernible means of locomotion on its own.  In other words, you don’t have to take it with you.  You can, in theory, leave it behind.  If you don’t want it to know where you’ve been, don’t take it along.  There are no recorded cases of i-withdrawal being fatal.  I promise.

5) This is perhaps the oddest point.  Folks who use iPads and iPhones are usually the same ones using the internet.  A lot.  Otherwise, there’s not much reason for you to have one of these gadgets.  You’re probably also on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare (which, btw, is simply a means of letting other people know WHERE YOU ARE), MySpace, etc.  It seems incongruous to log the details of your fight with your son, what you had for dinner last night, where you grocery shop, which team you’re currently rooting for, and your thoughts on, well, everything, but want to keep the fact that you went to work on Thursday a secret.  I’m not sure I follow the logic there.  If you’re already sharing many of the intimate details of your life, why are you worried that your iPhone knows you went to McDonald’s last weekend?

You Can't Get There From Here...

 I got to see a remarkable thing the other night.  A crowd of roughly 2500 people, mostly university students, give a standing ovation to an astrophysicist.  That his presentation was worthy of a standing ovation is not so remarkable; this is a brilliant, articulate, charismatic man giving a talk on things that are important and interesting to him.  What was remarkable to me was that it was the students in the crowd who were the first to jump to their feet when his presentation was over.

This is remarkable to me because I teach and advise students in a science field that is not a “basic” science or traditional science field.  Because of this, I am often meeting with students who are fleeing a traditional science curriculum or a basic science major.  Most of them are intent on going to medical school, and I have come to recognize that there are two broad types of students who come to meet with me: those who are looking for more, and those who are looking for less.

The ones who are looking for more are the ones who have discovered that their field of study is not satisfying some desire for knowledge they sense is important to where they want to go.  They feel like something is missing from what they’re studying and they’ve gone in search of another program that might fill that gap.  These are the students who intuitively get what our program is about and they are a joy to work with.  They also are, thankfully, the majority of the students I work with.  Most of my conversations with them go roughly along the same lines as the encounter I had recently with a lovely young woman who wanted out of her biology major.

Lovely young woman (dressed in pink, of course!):  I was in bio, 'cause I wanted to go to med school, but I want to change majors, but I can't get into this class which I know I need and I'm freaking out because I'm not going to get the classes I need to graduate.

Me: What semester are you?

LYW: 1st  (it's always the 1st semester students who are convinced that they won't graduate!)

Me: Ok, well, why do you want to change from Bio?

LYW: I hate plants.

Me (laughing): Fair enough.

LYW: Well, I can still take all the med school requirements in this major and not have to take the bio classes on plant cells and whatnot and I REALLY hate plants and instead I can take psych and stuff that, you know, has to do with people.  Right?

Me: yes, you can take the med school entrance requirements in any major, and yes, we're more about people than plants.

LYW: So, how can I get into this class?

Me: Well...(long uninteresting schpiel about why she really can't this semester)...but the bottom line is that if you take it in the fall, you will NOT be behind.

LYW:  Really?  Cool!  Ok, so what should I take then?

Me: Here's what I would suggest...(blah blah blah) ...Psych 212 will fulfill this requirement...

LYW: I LOVE psych!

Me: That's good; 'cause you're going to see a lot of it.  You can also take this stat class. There are still seats and it fulfills the stat requirement.

LYW:  Really?  SO cool!  Wow, you saved me!  I feel much better!

I should point out that they are not all quite this enthusiastic, but many of them are.  I should also point out that in reality I did nothing but point out information this bright young woman could easily have found on her own, but for the panic about not graduating on time.  The number of bio majors who come and tell me they hate plants is astonishing. I’m not sure where this animosity towards creatures that can neither interrupt you during conversations nor cut you off in traffic comes from.  When I point out to them that there is some basic level of knowledge and skill needed to progress to the upper level biology courses that they will need to be doctors, a few of them have responded that they appreciate that but don’t understand why that basic level of knowledge about the workings of cells can’t be taught using humans, or at least animals, as the platform.  I confess, I don’t have a good answer for them.  Or rather, I do, but my daughter has pointed out to me that my musings on the history of science and the influence of the church and its prohibition on the study of human cadavers on the field of biology is of little interest to people who aren’t me.

The students who come looking for less are far more frustrating and complicated.  These are the students who have either come to the conclusion on their own or been told by someone else, that if they change their major from a traditional premed program, it will somehow be easier to get into medical school.  Unfortunately, it isn’t the plant biology they are hoping to avoid, but usually chemistry and math.  My conversations with them typically go something more like this:

New Advisee: So, I’m thinking about changing majors from biology ‘cause I’m going to medical school and I can’t do the classes in bio.

Me: Ok, well…if you don’t like biology, you probably aren’t going to be very happy in medical school.

NA: I do ok in bio, it’s just the chem and the math I can’t do.

Me: Hmm…well, let’s think about some options for you.  Tell me why you decided you want to be a doctor.

NA: I just do.

Me: Ok, but why? What do you like about the idea of being a doctor?

NA: I just wanna, you know, help people. And do something in health.

Me: There are a lot of careers in health that would allow you to work with people and do something that would be helping them without going to medical school…

NA: I’m going to medical school.

Me: that may be true, but I think we should talk about some alternate plans for you and see if there might be a career that appeals to you that might not necessitate going to medical school.

NA: No.  I’m going to med school.

Me: Ok, well then you’re going to need to take 2 semesters of inorganic chemistry and 2 semesters of organic…

NA: See, that’s why I’m changing out of bio.  I can’t do that much chemistry.  It says on the academic plan that I don’t need all that chemistry.

Me: You don’t to graduate, but you will for medical school.

NA: I can’t take all those chemistrys.  I can’t do chemistry.

At this point, I know very well that the best thing for both of us would be for me to look her dead in the eye and respond like this:

Me: (in my fantasy conversation) Look, here’s the deal.  No one in last 90 years has gone to medical school without taking chemistry.  You will not be the first.  You have two choices here: pass chemistry or choose another option.  You’re telling me choice #1 isn’t working for you, so I’m trying to help you with choice #2.  You are welcome to continue with your degree and apply to medical school without the additional semesters of chemistry; you will only be wasting your own time and money.

It isn’t always chemistry that’s the problem; sometimes this conversation is about calculus or math in general.  I’m more sympathetic to these students who truly don’t see the connection between math and medicine, mostly because they haven’t thought much about it.  Occasionally, though, I have a student come in who has a problem with biology. These are the students who utterly mystify me.

New Advisee 2: I want to change out of biology but I still want to go to medical school.

Me: Ok, what brings you here?

NA2:  I hate biology.

Me: (brief pause while I ponder this, blinking) You do realize that you’re still going to have to take a substantial amount of biology in this major, right?

NA2: Well yeah.  I mean, I can take a few classes if I have to…

Me: Well, passing the required bio classes will get you your degree, but once you get to medical school it’s going to be a lot more bio…

NA2: Well it’ll be different in medical school.

Me: How so?

NA2: ‘Cause then it will be doing what I want to do.

Me: (fantasy conversation in my head) Exactly what magical transformation do you believe is going to take place so that, on the day you are admitted into medical school, the heavens will part and the angels will sing and suddenly biology will be more fun than playing Farmville?  I have to tell you that I have known a lot of students who have gone on to medical school and this has not been the experience of any single one of them.  You might be the first, but I’m not sure I would stake the next 8 years of your life on it.

Me: (out loud) I think if you really dislike biology, you’re going to be very unhappy in a major with bio in the title, and that’s probably going to be reflected in your GPA, so let’s talk about some options that might be better suited to you.  What classes have been your favorite so far?

NA2: I really loved my econ classes.

Me: Ok, good.  So maybe you might want to consider a major in economics…

NA2: But I’m going to medical school.

At this point I’m reminded of a quote from Steven Wright: “Anywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.”

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dirty Hands and Peanut Butter Crackers?

An elementary school in Florida has implemented a series of minor classroom policies to help protect a 6 year old girl in a first grade class who has a severe peanut allergy.  Peanut allergies, unlike many other allergies, can cause asphyxiation.  Meaning a 6 year old could die (yes, die) from the particulates and oils from peanut products including peanut butter.  We’re not talking about a tummy ache here.  In that light, the policies of the school district seem almost laughably fair—no food in the classroom, students must wash their hands and rinse their mouths twice a day, and the surfaces in the room are wiped down with Clorox wipes.  Some other parents in this district heard that their own kids might be forced to wash their hands as much as twice—Twice!—a day and went completely berserk. They picketed the school with signs informing the elementary school principal that their children were “special too” (‘cause really, this is a message we never hear in elementary schools these days—that every child is special) and encouraging other parents to demand their children’s rights.

Now, I’ve read the constitution (because I had one of those lazy, slacker teachers who wanted to be paid his exorbitant salary while not doing any work, so he made us read something someone else had written!) and nowhere in it is there a guaranteed right to have peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or food of any kind in the classroom.  Yes, I know what you’re going to say…implied rights and all that…but I still can’t seem to get from freedom of assembly and protection from unlawful search and seizure to peanut butter or Little Debbie snack cakes.  Maybe I’m missing something.  Nor have I found anything about freedom from cleanliness, which would cover the hand washing and Clorox wipes.

Let me set aside, for a moment, the fact that these parents (to be fair, most of them mothers)are upset that their children are being inconvenienced in the name of protecting another child’s life.  Has it not occurred to any single one of these parents that these policies are not only minor inconveniences, but that they might have some positive effect on the health of their own children?  There was a time not very long ago when we never allowed food in the classroom—not because of allergies, but because it was unsanitary.  Allowing kids to have food in the classroom and inadvertently teaching them that it was important to be eating at any moment they weren’t actively doing something else may very well have contributed to the current obesity problem we face.  The prevalence of obesity in this age group is approximately 20%.  None of these children will starve if they aren’t allowed to have pretzels and fruit punch during a Valentine party in their classroom.  They’re in the first grade; if these screaming moms hadn’t pointed it out with a neon sign, they wouldn’t have known it was strange NOT to have food in the classroom.  The CDC has done everything but send people to personally knock on our doors to plead with us to wash our hands several times a day to prevent the spread of the flu.  In an elementary classroom, even infrequent hand washing (and let’s face it, for 6 year olds, twice a day is infrequent to the point of absurdity) can help prevent the spread of not only the flu but colds, strep, and a number of other bacterial and viral illnesses.  Likewise, wiping down frequently touched surfaces is also an effective method of stemming the spread of viral and bacterial illness.  Do these folks think their kids have a right to be sick?  Personally, if the teacher had only insisted my daughter wash her hands twice a day when she was in elementary school, I think that might have prompted a conversation with the school personnel.

So even if you’re selfish enough to be outraged that your kid is being asked to make some adjustments to their day to accommodate another child’s well being, you might at least acknowledge that these adjustments actually work in your child’s favor.  And we really are talking about selfishness here.  I hear people complain quite often about the sense of entitlement and level of self absorption among teenagers and college students.  If that’s true, and I’m not entirely convinced that it is uniformly true, doesn’t it stand to reason that they learned such behavior from being taught that they should never have to accommodate anyone else’s needs and never be inconvenienced in any way no matter what the cause?  To scream that my child is being picked on because he’s not allowed to bring snacks to school and has to wash his hands, is more than a little like saying “I’m in a hurry; why should I have to stop just because the school bus is letting kids on and off?  Shouldn’t you people teach your kids not to walk out in front of cars?”

Maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas.

Toddler Benchmark

My New Year's Resolution this year was to not accept any behavior from students that I would not accept from my own children.  This doesn't seem like it should be a very high bar to reach, given that my youngest child is not yet 2, but you'd be surprised.  Or maybe you wouldn't.  My sisters, Real World Skipper and Stacy, tell me horror stories about colleagues and subordinates who think "I lost track of time." is a legitimate reason for a 3 hour coffee break or that sharing the gory details of your last vodka binge with a virtual stranger is an appropriate work behavior.  So now I am on a quest: to do my best to make sure that the young people who pass through my door are at least marginally prepared to go out into the world and, if nothing more, pretend to be grown ups (which in reality is what most of us are doing anyway--pretending).

My first battle in this war has been over cell phones.  Now don't get me wrong; I love my phone.  Well no, I love the concept of having a cell phone, but I'm not particularly enamored with my current model. That's not relevant.  The point is, I have no objection to the concept of a cell phone.  What I do object to is having to send messages like the following:

Just a reminder that cell phones/smartphones/Blackberries should be turned off during class time.  Midge (obviously not the TA's real name) and I have both received emails sent from a student's Blackberry during class time this semester, something that is not an appropriate use of classroom time.  From now on, emails sent during class will not receive a response.  If you have a question or problem related to class material or an assignment, please ask during class or speak to us afterward, otherwise please wait until after class to send emails.


What is troubling is that I'm not sure whether it bothers me more that this student was obviously way too busy texting during class to bother stopping to ask her question in real time, or that it did not occur to her that the message was going to come in stamped with both the time it was sent and the ubiquitous "Sent from my Blackberry" signature.


Then there was the conversation I had with an otherwise very bright young woman after I asked her to put her phone away during class.  She came up after class was over to apologize for texting during class and then added "but I was really angry about something and I couldn't stand it, so I HAD to get it out," which left me wondering what would have happened if she hadn't had a cell phone handy.  Would she have exploded?  Would she have suddenly jumped out of her seat during class and begun screaming about whatever made her so angry?  Probably neither.  She would probably have come to class, complained to the friends sitting around her briefly, and then either seethed about it during class or been distracted by work and forgotten about it until she left. 


And THIS is what it is that bothers me about cell phones--confusing immediate with imperative.  Just because you CAN broadcast every thought that wanders through your head at the nanosecond that it does, does not mean you have to.  Just because you don't have to wait to transmit whatever it is you've just now thought of, doesn't mean you shouldn't.  The idea that my phone is ringing, I MUST ANSWER IT NOW baffles me. Human ingenuity invented answering machines for land line phones to avoid this very idea!  Your phone and mine and pretty much every other cell phone traveling around in someone's pocket or bag came with this very cool feature.  If you don't answer it, a very nice lady will answer on your behalf and tell the person calling that you are unavailable and will record whatever it is they have to say for you to listen to at some more convenient time.  Preferably a time when you are not sitting in class, taking an exam, driving down the interstate, checking out at the grocery store, or sitting at the dinner table with your family.  And texting is even better, because there is no middle man (so to speak).  The message goes right to your phone and there it sits, patiently waiting for you until you get around to reading it, again, preferably not at any of the aforementioned times.  Honest.  I swear.  They do not have expiration dates.  I know this because I have text messages left in my inbox from 3 years ago, and they're still sitting there waiting to see what I will ultimately do with them.  They've go nowhere else to go.


Perhaps I should have mentioned all of this to the young woman who was called into my office to meet with me after she plagiarized not one but two papers and skipped two exams in class.  When she showed up in my office, a minor miracle in and of itself given her difficulty in making it to the classroom, she waltzed in and sat down while she was talking on her phone.  I instructed her to please go back outside and finish her call before coming in to meet with me.  She stood up, sighed, rolled her eyes, walked just outside the door and while looking at me said "I gotta go, Babe.  She's making me hang up the phone."  I considered telling her I was not making her do anything; she was welcome to go elsewhere and carry on her conversation.  I also considered yanking the phone out of her hand and tossing it out the office window.  In the end I did neither, because I recognized that someone who feels put out by being given the chance to salvage their college career after plagiarizing two papers and skipping multiple exams is well beyond the aid of voicemail.

Money For Nothing?

 The Dire Straits recorded "Money For Nothing" in 1985 in response to listening to a guy working in an appliance store complain about how musicians did virtually nothing and got paid a fortune.  I have to wonder if perhaps the song was playing in the background on some oldies station when Governor Corbett sat down to write up his budget proposal.  Three weeks after Wisconsin governor Scott Walker took his bizarre balance the budget by punishing teachers and nurses stance, setting off a history making public uprising in the state capitol, Governor Corbett apparently decided it wasn’t fair that he was getting all the attention.  His budget proposal cuts state funding to primary and secondary schools by 10% and appropriations to the 18 state run and land grant universities by 50%.  Governor Corbett’s budge would cut funding for programs that are designed to keep class sizes in primary grades (K-3) small in poorer schools—‘cause a poverty stricken rural or urban school is where you really want a class of 40 first graders.  He has also proposed changing laws to prevent local school districts from raising local or property taxes in order to make up for any difference in funding; a proposal directly “borrowed” from Governor Walker.  Apparently Mr. Corbett may have a genuine complaint with his own public school, as they clearly did not teach him that plagiarism is bad.

I’ve got plenty to say about Mr. Corbett’s ideas for education and what I think of them, but they’ll keep.  After all, he’s not going anywhere for four long years.  I doubt very, very much that he’s got the chops to be tapped for anything bigger and better as was former governor Tom Ridge, so I’m afraid we’re stuck with him.  My more pressing question has to do with what seems to be the pervasive belief among Republican governors and employees of Fox News that teachers are grossly overpaid for what one Fox News talking head called “a part time job.”  Their stand is that teachers work only those hours when they are in class, and assume that teachers enter the building roughly 5 minutes before homeroom begins and leave 5 minutes after the last bus leaves, and do nothing but sunbathe from June through August.  It’s clear from their accusations that the last school teacher any of these folks has ever met was in the twelfth grade.  Nor have they ever met a college student.

Wait, a college kid?  What would a college kid have to do with how much a school teacher works or gets paid?  College students tend to fall into two camps with respect to choosing their majors and future professions.  The first group are enormously practical and choose a major based on what talents they believe (or often their parents believe) they have and how they can turn those talents into a paycheck.  These kids have a very clear vision of what college is costing them, what loans they will have to pay back, and what the best route to making enough money to be able to meet those loans and still eat more than Ramen noodles.  These are the students who come to me and want to know not only what jobs they can get with their degree, but what other training they might need to get that job, what does it pay, and how hard is it to get the job.  These kids are making very adult, practical decisions.  The second group is made up of the ones driven by passion.  They are the ones who come to me to tell me they’ve chosen their major because they want to help people.  They tell me all the things that are wrong in the world and how, exactly, they intend to fix them.  They never ask about additional training (although they usually know what’s required) and they never ask about salary.  They are under no illusions about what that salary is likely to be.  Guess which group the future teachers tend to belong to.

Has it never occurred to any of the people screaming for the heads of teachers, that a profession where people get paid a fortune for very little work should be one that’s EXTREMELY popular?  In many universities, including mine, some programs in engineering, nursing, and business are so popular the competition for the few slots available in the program every year is phenomenal.  Why are these programs so popular?  Because there is the widespread perception among students and their parents that these are areas where very good paying jobs are plentiful.  Even in nursing, where no one would argue that the job is easy, the widespread media coverage of a nursing shortage in this country has created a mindset where students believe they at least will be guaranteed to get a good paying job immediately after graduation.  Dozens of my students are desperately trying to figure out a way to get one of those coveted seats in a nursing program for a shot at a good paying job that requires long hours and hard work.  How many do you think would be lined up for a job where they would make a lot of money for short hours, two and half months of vacation, and very little work?  If they believed that, they’d be lined up around the block trying to become teachers.  They’re not.

Teach for America is a program that seeks to place successful college graduates, particularly in math and science fields, into disadvantaged urban and rural areas where graduation rates are typically low.  ToA trains these graduates in education methods and theory, get them temporary certification to teach in the state of their placement, and places them in a school that desperately needs them to teach for two years.  After two years, the students have the option of getting permanently certified to be teachers or move on to whatever else they’ve decided to do.  Teachers in the program are paid the same salary as other beginning teachers in that district, but also receive program benefits such as loan forbearance/forgiveness as incentives for graduates to join the program.  Every semester, a representative from ToA asks to come to my upper level classes to beg students to consider applying to the program.  Ask yourself this: why does a profession whose members are grossly overpaid for very little work need a recruitment program and incentives to join for only two years?  It has never once been my experience that the Actors’ Guild, the NFL, or any recording company ever asked to come to my class to beg my students to consider being performers or athletes for two years.  Despite the fact that many of my students are interested in medicine, never once has a representative from the AMA asked to come and recruit students into the field.  They don’t have to.  My students are not stupid and they know a good deal when they hear one.  Teaching may be a good many things as a profession, but given what it’s costing most of these kids to get through college (and it will only cost them more now in PA), it is not a good financial deal.

 I had a teacher once in middle school who taught me that if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s very unlikely that you’re looking at an elephant. A job that people have to be begged to join, where you're more likely to drive a Camry than a Mercedes, probably isn't the one where you get "Money for Nothing." It’s a shame Governor Corbett and Governor Walker apparently never had such teachers.  They might recognize what a “resource” a good education really is.

Transparency and Textbooks (or The Real Reason Your Major Matters)

A provision in the Higher Education Opportunity Act requires colleges and universities that receive federal aid to disclose what textbooks are required for each class and the standard retail price of that textbook on our electronic schedule of courses and on the course syllabi.  Eliminating the step of looking at the required textbook on the course syllabus or book list at the bookstore, and then looking up the price is somehow supposed to make college more affordable.  Don’t get me wrong; I like the spirit of this provision, but I’m not at all certain of what the outcome is supposed to be.  If the goal is to force me to require a reasonably priced textbook for class, I’m not at all sure this provision can accomplish that.  For one thing, forcing me to choose a text immediately after being assigned to teach a course, means that I have very little time to review textbooks and consult with colleagues and select the most reasonably priced book that will serve the needs of my students.  It means that an instructor is more likely to choose a book that another instructor has used in the past or the first one that comes to my attention (often through publishers’ advertisements) that looks as though it will do the job.  I can spend a few weeks and hunt down a good $60 text (assuming one exists), or I can choose the $100 one that the publisher just sent me a flyer advertising.  Requiring that this information be posted with the schedule of courses as soon as that schedule is posted does nothing to ensure that the best, most reasonably priced materials are selected.  In fact, it nearly ensures that a more costly text will be chosen.

The second problem with posting this information on the schedule of courses is that there seems to be an underlying assumption here that students can shop for their course work based on how much it will cost them to take a particular class.  So the idea is that my students sign on to the schedule or courses, look at the required class and decide “A hundred dollars for the text?  I don’t think so,” and change their major to pottery?  It’s possible that for the few general education classes where the students have a broad range of options for class, they might choose not to take the architecture class with a book that costs $120 and instead opt for the sociology course with a text that only costs $75.  That could happen, and I supposed it’s no worse a means of selecting a course than ratemyprofessor.com, but if you’re going to major in chemistry, you’re going to have to take some chemistry classes.  I suspect the chem department has some specific ones in mind and I’m sure they all require expensive texts.   Knowing the book costs $150 won’t get you out of introductory inorganic chem., nor will it make it any less expensive or painful.

That brings me to another problem with this regulation.  Knowing that the text for one course is expensive, doesn’t really tell you much at all about the cost of the class.  My younger sister, Skipper, was a science major.  I, because I really have very little grasp on reality much of the time, minored in arts and humanities.  We used to argue over who had to pay more for textbooks.  One book would routinely cost her $150.  One of mine would routinely run between $9 and $15.  Problem was, any given humanities course required at least 8 books, while that $150 book of my sister’s was the same text for at least 2 classes.  We sat down and figured it out one semester (because we’re both dorks.  It’s genetic.  I have a textbook that says so.) and within about $5, we were spending the same amount of money on textbooks.  My stat textbook in graduate school cost $160.  I never considered not taking the analysis of variance class for which I bought the book, regardless of the cost, because it was a skill I needed for my career.  That book was also the text for a regression analysis course and a multivariate analysis course, making the textbook cost per class about $53.  Having the cost of that book on the syllabus would not have given me that insight.

The stated purpose of this requirement is to make the cost of college more “transparent.”  It reminds me of one of my all time favorite movie lines from The Princess Bride:  “You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it does.”  I’m not sure the person who wrote this legislation knew what they meant by transparency, because stating the cost of the textbook on the syllabus or even the schedule of courses doesn’t gain you transparency.  Students could always access that information before they signed up for a class by simply going to the bookstore and poking around for a few minutes, or more directly, ask the professor who usually teaches the course.  Requiring me to tell my students what the book costs gives them no more information than they would have had before, and doesn’t make the cost any more transparent.  It does no good unless the textbook companies are required to explain why textbooks cost as much as they do.  To be fair, one provision of the HEOA does require textbook companies to provide information on the expected cost of the text and the copyright dates of the last three editions of the text to prospective instructors.  I have occasionally seen the prices listed (a step in the right direction) but I have yet to see a publisher volunteer the copyright dates of previous editions.  Why is this important?  Because publishers often put out new editions of textbooks for reasons that aren’t really related to updating old information.  Sometimes it’s because they want to include a new author whom they expect will be writing future editions or other texts.  Sometimes it’s to include new technology (a new DVD, tie ins to Facebook and Twitter, etc.).  Sometimes it’s for something as mundane as updating the graphics or illustrations in the book.  Each new edition is typically more expensive than the older edition, and once a new edition is out, it’s often difficult to purchase large quantities of the old edition.  Students who wish to “sell back” their textbooks at the end of a semester often find that they are unable to sell back books for which there is a newer edition, or if they can, they are paid virtually nothing for it.

I would love to see textbook prices become more affordable.  Many of my students come from working class families and I feel a strong responsibility towards them and their education.  I know that many of them do not buy the books that they feel they can get by without because of the cost.  I try very hard to make sure that I am selecting a textbook for my classes that I believe is reasonably priced and useful for my students, and I believe that most of my colleagues do the same.  This bizarre regulation seems mostly to be designed to make someone feel as though they’ve taken a stab at a serious problem and at the same time lined up a suitable scapegoat to blame when the problem mysteriously continues.