The ethnographer and the student

This posting is rated R for severe ranting. The positions of the characters may be exaggerated for rhetorical effect. 

As a student, I am spitting mad, and I fully understand that this is a purely American cultural issue. As an ethnographer, of course situations like this take on an oddly schizophrenic quality for me.



Ruth Student (RS): Right, so I take these three tests and every single one of them is a memorize and regurgitate test of freakin' trivia that has, to my mind, nothing to do with the course goals, which are not even freakin' stated on 5 out of 6 "syllabi" that I have received. In every case the professors freakin' outright *lied* about what was on the tests and then berated the class as a group upon receiving poor results! THEN I go back to their syllabi to try to *guess* what they want for the exam, and not one, not *freakin'* one of the impossibly extensive reading lists is in ANY recognizable citation format. Not one. Not freakin' one. In fact, many of the citations are *incomplete*!!!! Am I feeling capriciously jerked around by irresponsible authority OR WHAT?



Ruth Ethnographer (RE): Well, your irritation would make sense if you were in an American system, but you are not. You are in the Irish system that makes different assumptions about the role of the student and the role of the professor. You were even lucky to get a piece of paper that outlined the course. You really can't even call it a syllabus because that would just confuse you. It is actually called a "Module Guide" and has only just recently been required to be provided to students. In the past, you only got a reading list. In this system, the student is responsible for her own knowledge. The lectures are only supposed to give you a general idea of themes, and you fill in the picture with your own research that you report in the final essay.

RS: Okay, but why then does every one of these people complain that students don't attend lectures. Why should they? They have the reading list, if that's what's so important. I mean, how irresponsible is that to tell me, a student who knows nothing, *nothing* about the subject, to go and teach myself the topic and then get assessed on my knowledge using questions somebody else thought up.

RE: Theoretically, that is why you go to lectures. From the lectures, you should be able to get an idea of the direction that the professor’s questions would take.

RS: Oh, that's bullshit. I know for a fact that the student philosophy is to go to the public folders, read past exam essays, and study those. In this system, why would they "give away" what they're gonna test on if the exams are just ways to make students learn through fear and humiliation. One professor actually said in class that she gave the test as a 'shake up' for lazy students. She said it was a reward for students who attended lecture. What kind of pathetic excuse for assessment is that? Assessment as cattle prod? I thought it has been clearly established by research that torture does not extract reliable intelligence. Is that a metaphor gone one step too far? I don't think so. 

RE: Well, you need to remember that student initiative is highly valued in this system, and they see that as you being able to demonstrate that, as a student, you can obtain information and report it back coherently. They see it as respect for the student's autonomy. In fact, they see the American system as 'leading students by the nose', as I heard one person phrase it. They see it as insulting that the professors in America give points for constant assessment.

RS: Oh yeah? Well, I was in a tutorial where I was the only one who did the reading. The tutorial leader (not the professor) asked who had read it. I nodded, but nobody else responded. She then, I kid you not, berated the class as losers for 20 minutes and then, I am not making this up, assigned a reading as punishment. Oh, right: learning as punishment?! She lost that group of people. You could feel it in that room. Rage as she wanted, she lost. She will get no work from these people. In a case where the hierarchy is so strong, and the power differentials so disparate, passive resistance is the only method left. I went home and cried because I hated to see education turn into a battlefield of hatred between professor and student.

RE: Well, it was sort of irresponsible of the students not to have done the work for the tutorial, don't you think? Even in your classes, you are disappointed when your students don't read, and this is a common complaint among all professors: students don't read. They are passive and expect to be 'spoon fed' information.

RS: True, true. But it is a disrespectful copout to blame 'lazy students' for the failure of a teacher to teach. If I want my students to read, I need to help them want to read. I need to structure my classroom environment so that there is a reason to read. In one course I attend, the professor copies paragraphs out of a book, types them into her powerpoint, and reads the powerpoint to us. I don't read for that course. Of course, now I have to because of the exam coming up, but what kind of questions can I expect from someone who doesn't even bother to research her own subject? This will be a fair assessment? Will I be held up to a standard that the professor herself can't even meet?

RE: Don't be so hard on them. Some of them are overworked, some of them are part-timers with no training, and some of them are working unrenewable contracts. What incentives do these people have to care about you? In fact, in this system, caring actually has nothing to do with it. Your learning is up to you. Your integrity and your investment in the discipline are up to you. As a student, lower in the hierarchy, you need to earn your place in the hierarchy by demonstrating your command of the system, the content, and the hierarchy itself. Nobody should help you do this because that would be cheating. Remember that you call med school graduates Doctor regardless of their GPAs. The president of the United States had a C average at Yale.

RS: cookies. I need cookies. I know I have a package of Digestive Biscuits around here someone. Damn, I wish I had remembered to get the chocolate covered ones. Okay, ethno-grrl, I'll play this system. I'm makin' up a reading list now, and I'll read it and take notes, and I guess I'll pass these exams, but the back of my neck is still hot because, somehow, this context sucks all the fun out of it.

RE: You are responsible for your own fun. Remember Debbie Page positively glowing about her great reading list for her exams? You can do that too. Enjoy the reading, really learn something.

RS: Okay, I know, I can do that, I can do that because I am an experienced student, I am a certified geek, and I actually *do* like this stuff. HOWEVER, my students in Cincinnati are rarely any of those things, and I refuse to treat academic novices in a disrespectful way. My syllabi will be clear, my assessments will relate clearly to my course goals, and I will create lectures and discussions that will help my novice students come to an appreciation of the literature, even if it is something that their program forces them to do. As a matter of fact, if you look me up on Ratemyprofessor.com, those are the comments. So, I guess I am able to do that. Is that 'leading them by the nose'? What if a person is 'lead by the nose' to a good place at which they did not expect to arrive?

RE: Well, one criticism of that is that American students are over confident, even arrogant, about their ignorance.

RS: Oh, right, and the insecure arrogance of European superiority is better?

RE: Arrogance is, of course, disrespectful no matter what form it takes, and these are just generalizations. There are good smart students who love their disciplines that come out of both American and European institutions.

RS: Ugh. Cultural relativism. How can a person get a good righteous rant going with you around to crash the party.

RE: No more coffee for you, jarhead. Go get some chamomile tea and get started on that reading list.