78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



les etudiants mauvais
2006-10-25   9:04 a.m.

Yesterday, my French professor pulled me aside, and told me to scale it back a bit when I answer her in class. It seems I'm intimidating the other students. Well gee. Should I be insulted? Flattered? I guess I'll go for feeling neither, but keeping an emotional distance and just make an observation: isn't college supposed to be about ambitious young people, eager to get what they're paying for? Learning from each other, with a healthy dose of competition that might inspire them to do better and try harder? Apparently - in this class - it's not. Here, it seems it's more important to whine to the professor about the student who always raises her hand, speaking clearly and projecting when we read aloud. Quel horreur - can you believe I'd do such a thing in a classroom?

Well I've done it before, and in fact, that's always been me as a student. But in the past, I've gotten the impression that my "behavior" was respectable, since good students, leaders, intelligent, capable people, etc. speak up, do their work, and are proud to demonstrate their desire to learn and celebrate successes.

And what would you like me to do?, I asked the professor. She said: give the others a chance, too. Funny, when I don't speak up right away or raise my hand to answer a question, NO ONE DOES. So eventually, after a few seconds pass, I raise my hand. And after a few more seconds pass and no one else volunteers, the silence becoming awkward and intolerable, the professor calls on me. But I suppose it would be a good idea for me to stop all this nonsense. I guess I should just shut up so the other students stop feeling bad about whatever ability they lack. I mean, that makes MUCH more sense then them TRYING harder, doesn't it? Rather than having them step up, it seems, I should step back. Ultimately, that's what the professor told me to do.

But it's a good thing I'm not an insecure 18 year old. I refuse to let her stop me from learning, or hide the fact that I'm ambitious and determined to learn and practice all that I can. This won't be the first time that I've felt condemned for being aggressively successful. In fact, in our culture, that's exactly what women are not supposed to be. So if they are, they must be apologetic and/or reprimanded for it.

Aside from being sad when viewed through a gender lens, this situation is also sad if I take it to be culturally representative. Is the tenor of the university changing? Is it not an exciting place to be? Has each class become an inconvenience, where students hope to slip through making as little effort as possible? Sure, such attitudes have always existed, but were they the norm? Was a student like me a rare exception? I don't remember my classes that way - I remember lots of students who were aggressive, ambitious, and ready to answer whatever questions or challenges were thrown at them. Maybe I just got lucky?

Regardless, in my French Grammar class, the other students, save for one or two, are disappointing, to say the least. We're not in seventh grade, and it's not "cool" to question the instructor's authority by refusing to do the homework because "it's too much writing".

I guess what I'm most disappointed by is the professor. What exactly does she mean I need to give the others a chance? If I got hit by a bus tomorrow and never came to class again, is she naive or inexperienced enough to believe that in my absence, the students would suddenly become bright, cooperative, eager to learn and excited to try speaking as much as possible?

Since I plan on avoiding bus accidents and need this class to fulfill PhD language requirements, I'm not going anywhere. So I guess she was asking me to dumb it down and/or stay silent. If everyone else's accent (/memory of correct grammatical structures/correct usage of masculine and feminine definite/indefinite articles) sucks because of their almost impressive lack of effort, am I supposed to fake a sucky one too? The only thing I regret now is not taking French classes somewhere else. I had other options, and I think I’ll exercise them next semester.

I sound like a crotchety old person, complaining about "the kids these days". But then, when do I not?

I know when I don't: When I'm trying to convince a bunch of friends that no, really, it's safe in Mozambique, so let's go there! Our trip is on for the summer; we're meeting in Cape Town to vist our friend David, who recently got a teaching position at a university there, and then trying to decide where to go from there with our left-over two weeks. Our group interests include hiking (Tom), wine region visits (Nicole and Tom), lots of Safari stuff (Jen), beachy costal stuff (Steve), and remote, rural expanses of non-touristy Africa backcountry (Theresa). How do we satisfy everyone? Namibia! It helps that the travel channel's Moms in Africa just aired an episode there, since it got everyone excited about the possibility of traveling through the country. It's not a very good show, but I thought the coverage of Botswana, Zambia, and South Africa from previous episodes depicted those countries well (from what I remember) and pretty extensively, so I suggested we watch the Namibia episode to get a good look. And it looked good.

This trip is still growing, and changing (maybe we'll get to Mozambique after all) - now Ryan and Ally might come, and Sean, too. While everyone is very serious about going (we went out for a big, 8-person dinner last night to discuss vaccines, malaria, toilets, African transportation options and baboons), I'm not sure how this configuration will look by next month when we're ready to book tickets. We'll see - I'm excited even if at the end, no one can get off work/afford the plane tickets/wants to get the vaccines and it's just Steve and I again traveling solo through a new part of Africa. Though with this group, I doubt anything would change the collective mindset. Yay! The countdown begins.


xoxo