The rise of the over-educated goody-goodies
I was around a good campfire with some good friends recently listening to them talk about their good kids and all the good universities they were striving to attend.
It was a really good time.
Goodness, gracious, it’s going to be awfully difficult for future Nobel Prize committees to select from so many worthy candidates that are bound to emerge from today’s demanding universities.
And I’m not kidding. I was blown away to learn what today’s college applicants need to do to get into a public university.
I’ve been a titular adult, albeit one who still snickers when typing the word titular, for more than 25 years and I’m certain I’d be unable to muster the credentials to attend probably even a mid-level public university these days.
This is rich with irony because I, in fact, teach at a local university.
It’s true. Every other year or so, the esteemed administrators at Point Park University deem me sufficiently experienced to teach their outstanding journalism students creative non-fiction.
So I’m paid to educate students at a fine school that wouldn’t admit me if I tried to enroll there as a paying student.
I was told students need at least a 3.0 to even get considered for places like Penn State University, and even at my alma mater, Ohio University (popular T-shirt: “OU, A Fountain of Knowledge Where I Go To Drink”). I’m still buddies with groups of three guys who couldn’t total 3.0 if you threw them all together in one big sack.
That’s not all. Admission offices are rigorous in checking if students have done a certain amount of altruistic community service.
I’ve known many people who’ve done hours and hours of community service, but it was always court-ordered and required to satisfy a basic element of parole.
All this puts what seems to me an unhealthy amount of pressure on today’s high school students. Parents need to relentlessly snipe at their teens to excel academically and be on-duty Eagle Scouts to boot. The margin for error is so microscopic that none of them had better not dare risk failing a drug test or waste an hour or two watching reruns of “The Simpsons.”
I don’t think it’s good for our youth to be that good.
I worry we’re raising a generation of that will devote more time to kindling unreachable ambitions than to the joyful activities that give life its zest.
And someday, inevitably, it’s going to blow up on them. We’ll wind up with a whole world of guys like this week’s exhibit A: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
Before he got caught with his own smarty pants down, he was a notorious Christian conservative scold on Bill Clinton’s follies. As a high school student, it’s a given he excelled academically, was active in his church and did the kind of exemplary volunteerism that had all the top schools competing for him to grace their august classrooms.
Live a life like his and you’re bound to run into episodes of hypocritical comeuppance that can only be described with a kharmic sort of oomph:
Good grief.
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Bob Levin says:
Excellent! Two big laughs:
Excellent! Two big laughs: the sack and community service.
By the way, in case any of my own blog readers come across this, due to some weird glitch, for the last several days I have been unable to blog at Red Room (or to reply to any "mail" I receive.) I can, however, "comment" on others' blogs. The authorities are working on this problem as we speak.
Susan Brown says:
Chris, I live in Davis,
Chris, I live in Davis, major source of "goodie-goodies." What a lot of those parents don't know is that their kids are hopped up on drugs, the better to stay up half the night studying because their daylight hours are so crammed full of parentally mandated community service and music lessons and the athletic team of the season, as well as maintaining the family's organic garden. Those poor kids. Susan
p.s. (Really, I'm taking my medicine--don't know why these responses seem so cranky! It's probably just that I feel sorry for these kids.)
Evelyn Sharenov says:
Two terrific stories here - and two great laughs
First - the college admission thing - in Oregon, where I live, high school students get to re-take tests if they want to up their grades. In Portland, the high school drop out rate is also an incredible >50%. Oregon universities are upping the GPA necessary for admission because high schools are giving 'A's to students who fart in the right direction and stay long enough to graduate. And yes, there's a whole other class of kids doing brain drugs in high school. Not good for circadian rhythms, or anything else for that matter. I don't know the stats for this in other states - whether kids get to take tests until they get the grade they believe they're entitled to or need to get into college. So don't feel bad if you could not meet current admission criteria for the school you profess at. Grades are like Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloons.
I managed to graduate 7th in a high school class of 1700 baby-boomers without re-taking tests, and go on to respectable colleges that might not accept me now because I didn't have time for community service because I was actually busy studying, without drugs on board. I wasn't a goody-goody; I liked school. School doesn't seem to be about school anymore. It's about everything but school.
Then there's that goody goody Mark Sanford - who isn't a baddy baddy except in the sense that he, as so many of his ilk, have turned out to be the worst fucking (oops, potty mouth just seems to take over in the case of Republican religious conservatives) hypocrites ever. Just chalk up another one for Newt's group.
So for the good news, how about that Al Franken anyway.
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
Retaking tests until you get
Retaking tests until you get the grade you like?! WTH?!
I used to be an adjunct professor at several universities. I quit teaching at one private university that balked at letting me give students the grades I thought they actually deserved, saying, in effect, but their parents have paid so much in tuition. And I retired from teaching altogether when a public university I worked for "promoted" (I'm putting this in quotes because the job of chair was unpaid, so no one more senior wanted it) a young Ph.D. graduate to department chair, and he lost no time telling us faculty members to think of our students as our customers and keep them happy. Well, yes, I know an "A" keeps the students quite happy, but when you feel pressure to give them out to people you wouldn't even be willing to hire in real life, isn't that sort of dropping the ball on the fiduciary relationship and larger society? And doesn't that cheapen the value of the degrees people earned the old-fashioned way?
Maybe this is a sign I'm getting old, but I don't believe in coddling people like this. God knows, when they head out to the world of work, no one is going to inflate their job performance reviews and promote them just to protect their delicate feelings.
Chris Rodell says:
Hypocrisy run amok!
Bob -- Thanks! I try and be thoughtful and lucid, but I'll chuck all that if I can make you giggle. So glad it worked here. And, I checked, you're back in business here on Redroom. I enjoy writing here so much that I can appreciate your frustrations when things are working.
Susan -- Wow, I'm glad I don't live in Davis! It sounds exhausting even from afar. Still, it'd probably be easy to find a good baby sitter for our two future Nobel laureates. One is 8 and the other is 3. So far -- we think -- we've been able to resist the pressures of excessive involvement. It almost feels like we're being good parents when we tell them to, go ahead, sit still and watch a movie! And you're not being cranky. You're fiesty! Either way, I'm happy you're reading my stories!
Evelyn -- You've opened up so many topics I didn't even think of. Re-taking tests? Smart drugs? Grade inflation? It's all so insane. I liked school, too. And I enjoyed learning. Still do. I know and admire so many teachers. I wonder how they fend off all the pressures from parents and school boards. And you warm my heart anytime you let loose with a profanity aimed at Newt's group. There's a great story on the homepage of www.politico.com about the higher-than-average divorce rate of the House Republican class of '94.
Best to all!
Chris
Shana McLean Moore says:
LOVE your humor, Chris
You crack me up again, Chris...
"...but it was always court-ordered and required to satisfy a basic element of parole."
"...caught with his smarty pants down..."
Shana
Shana McLean Moore
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