We watched Adaptation today, and my students thought it was awful, which means they are still judging the quality of films entirely on how entertained they are and how well films measure up to their personal likes and dislikes. Hrmph! Frustration!
This film class I'm teaching this semester makes me feel like a complete failure, not because of the way I have presented the course content but because of my inability to reach any of my students in a significant way. It's just a gen ed requirement. I know they feel this way. I have always measured my success with any course I have taught in terms of making what my students might have initially thought of as a pointless class mean something important to them. At the very least, I want my students to learn how to be better students, but this semester I can't seem to break most of them from their entitled attitudes. Of course, it's always the teacher's fault, right? She grades unfairly. She just doesn't like me. Give me a break! Newsflash for all you students out there: Your teachers don't invest their time and energy in disliking you. They have much more important things to worry about.
This line of reasoning is completely illogical (which implies much more about any student relying on it than I ever need to articulate. If I were to award grades based on my personal opinions about students, wouldn't the students I didn't like be getting F's? The only students who have ever received F's in any of my classes suffered from a chronic inability to turn in their homework. In contrast, my favorite students would be getting A's. I only have two students out of three classes getting A's right now, and they have worked their asses off all semester. Great effort doesn't always earn great grades though. Students don't seem to understand this. One student might spend an hour writing a paper that earns an A while another student might spend fifteen hours on the same assignment and only earn a C. Grades don't measure effort; they measure the level of proficiency you demonstrate. For some students, being able to demonstrate a higher level of proficency requires much more effort.
I have broken almost all of my personal policies this semester in my efforts to help them succeed. Every student who has turned in the assigned work has improved his or her grades. Part of the problem is our public education system, which has trained our high school graduates to expect A's for C work. How is it that all of my students feel entitled to A's? Grades are not awarded for effort but for demonstration of mastery of the course content. Mastery. No one is there right now. How could they be when 75% of them admit to only "sometimes" reading the assigned material and 13% "never" read? According to the anonymous survey I conducted at midterm, 25% don't take notes on the assigned reading or during lectures, nor do they look up definitions of words they don't understand. The remaining percent do these things only "sometimes." Not one student has sought help from the campus' free tutoring services and only 13% have sought help from me. (This last percent has increased to 25% since midterm, but that's still only 2 students). Gee, I wonder why they aren't happy with their grades? Oh yeah, it's because I don't like them.
If you are one of my students or are considering taking one of my classes in the future, you should know this: It is not my job to entertain you, nor is it my job to like or dislike you. It is my job to show you how to learn. I cannot fill your head with right answers, not to the questions raised by this course nor those raised by life. No teacher can do that. Education is about interpretation, creating new knowledge, and forming opinions based on evidence not emotions and personal preferences. All I can do is show you the tools (critical reading, writing, research, analysis) and provide you with some guidance on how to use them. The rest of the work is up to you. You will never get more out of any class than what you invest in it.
