What Students Want

Before I get into this discussion, I just want you, my readers, to know that I do more or less agree with 30 Rock that graduate students are the worst. Now on to the discussion of my time consuming and anxiety and crankiness inducing life in the middle.

As near as I can figure (which being a grad student is pretty darn near), professors have three or four jobs. First, their job is to know something. They have to know something, not in the way that you have to know how to get to the grocery store and back. Rather, they have to know something in the way that you have to know about how to explain going to the store and back, the significance of this action, the context around it; they have to know every facet of the going to the store experience, be able to publish about it, and withstand critique (how would you feel if some ideologue told you that your directions to the store confirmed the validity of a Stalinist police state because of their socialist realist aspects?). As the comment on publishing makes clear, the second job I see as being expressing their knowledge in myriad ways. Third, their job is appear to know something. One could argue that this is in fact their only job, but I'm The Cranky TA, not The Hopelessly Disillusioned and Pessimistic TA. It's best if professors can appear to know something in public as much as possible. This links to their fourth job (here's where it gets a little Marx and sausage factories): making the university look good. Certain theorists would doubtless claim that this fourth job is in fact a particularization of their only real job: to make the University look good (capitalization matters; the goal is not their own advancement or that of their particular university, rather it is the perpetuation of a particular educational state apparatus - the University - which is in turn tied to the reigning hegemony and/or mode of production). Really though, it's not that complicated. If you know something well enough and can express this knowledge, you've pretty much got a job.

Now some of you may be asking "wait, you didn't say anything about teaching?" To that, I have two responses. First, you realize this is a blog right? It's not going to respond to you (though hopefully it is structuring your thoughts so you think it is). What you are reading now has always already been written. Second, that's right. I didn't mention teaching. Unlike teachers, professors have reached such an occupational peak that they don't, in fact, have to teach. They simply need to express their knowledge. If you don't get it, the problem is with you. Now certainly, there are some professors who teach. But there are also many who do not.

This is where I and my fellow cranky (capitalization matters) TAs come into the equation. Some students do not need (or want) us. Some professors do not need us. Most of both do. If we are good, we are catalysts. If poor, we are inhibitors. If terrible, we are at best snooze alarms. If abominable, we are snowmen. Professors and students both have certain expectations for the course. Interestingly enough these are both centered on how students perform. It is our job to meet the expectations of both professors and students. The larger expectations of professors for our own professional development are complex and potentially nauseating (oh yeah, sure, I learned a third language and spent my summer doing research for this article, but 'banal' seems like a fair criticism, I run into people who speak pre-Columbian nahuatl all the time). So, instead, I want to focus on the marginally clearer and mostly less frightening expectations of the students.

I've never seen What Women Want, but I have seen the Dave Chapelle sketch mocking it, so I think I'm clear on how the fundamental concept of someone being able to read the minds of those around them plays out in popular culture. In the classroom, I think it might go something like this:

CrankTA: So, what are some of the roles that WWII played in reshaping things?
Student1: (Just tell me)
Student 2: (Was that in the reading)
S3: (What's WWII)
S4: (What's a nine letter word for something you pay?)
S5: (Just tell me)
CrankyTA: Any ideas? How did WWII change things?
S6: (Just tell us)
S7: (Did the prof talk about that in lecture)
S8: (When did she cut her hair? Why didn't she get it redyed?)
S9: (Just tell me)

You get the idea. (Also, I'm being vague about the questions here to disguise my course.)

As usual, about six weeks into the term I distributed blank 3x5 cards and left the room so that students could evaluate me and the course so far. The responses I received praised my energy, excitement, knowledge, and clarity (I'm only cranky on this blog). They also said I should just answer questions when nobody responds and that creative group work seems like it doesn't help them. I take these suggestions to heart, though I argue students should meet me half way on each of them. Still, I'm sure I can improve and I want to improve. However, the fact remains that the leitmotif of the feedback is that they would like me to be a sort of talking cliff notes for them. I'm not sure how it happened, but it seems to me that much of the education discourse no longer validates (or produces) statements about thinking as central to education.

I'm torn. I want to help them. I also want to give them what they want.

More Ads Please: The Private / Public Divide in eJournals

Yes, I know. It's my first academic title for a post. Sure, I could have done something like "Midterms: The Spectacles and Politics of Misrecognition in Undergraduate Tests as Seen Through Deluze and Debord." I could have done that, but I didn't. So, why now? Well, unreflexively, it just sort of popped for me. More self-critically though, I have to admit it may have been an attempt to establish a patina (on a blog?) of ivory towerish credibility before I argue for the spread of a most noxious aspect of neo-liberal capitalism. Of course, I guess I also could've just used the phrase "neo-liberal capitalism." Considering I probably only perceive that phrase as bandied about in everyday conversation because I'm the one bandying it. At any rate.

So. Early this morning, or what might be referred to as late last night by the "I have a real job that contributes to society" set, I was doing some reading (shocker!) when I decided to check to see if an author had any current articles written since the book through which I was puzzling came out. I turned to "the snobbiest of all search engines" (as a Professor of mine calls it): Jstor. There was an article. Jstor knew where it was, it just couldn't get it to me because of publication policies. Thankfully it gave me an outside link directly to the article at MIT press. Or rather it would have done that if I were at a university with money to spend. Instead, it took me to a page that told me the article was there but I couldn't access it since my institution did not subscribe.

Fortunately, the Cranky TA has been a cranky grad student at a couple prestigious private universities as well. Also fortunately, for some reason I still have electronic library access from both places. So, I was able to get the article that way. Still, that got me thinking about the divide between public and private schools in the virtual academic world.

I'm not arguing (at least not here) for a radical redistribution of funding through which Harvard's endowment would be used to fund public universities. I'll grant you the proposition that "better" institutions with more money should have better facilities, larger libraries, cushier chairs, better coffee. There are limitted numbers of certain research materials (Mediaval pilgrims' maps spring to mind), and I believe money can legitimately dictate access to these things (on the University level).

But online journals? Seriously. My accessing the article is not going to degrade the article in any way. As much as journal publishers might flatter themselves, bandwidth demands will be low. So, why not just make it freely available?

Still, barring that dream, why not just add a second tier of access. Schools that pay can give students access to sites without ads; schools that don't will force their students to look past a few blinking boxes as they download a PDF of the article they want. So, if it means access to articles I otherwise couldn't access, bring on the ads. Plus, it'd be fun to see what context specific stuff popped up.

Balance

I was talking to another TA the other day. I don't think she's as cranky as I am. That's probably a good thing. For now. At any rate, we were discussing the various extra-curricular and extra-mural activities which seem to dominate out students' lives. She asked me, "How do they have time for it?" My response: "They don't read." Now, certainly this is painting "them" with too broad a brush, but there's still some truth to it. In the quest for balance, most non-professional academics or non-pre-professional academics will choose not to study.

Of course, this again is too broad a brush. There are some who will choose graphic novels, photography, or something else and immerse themselves in that field as fully as possible to the exclusion of other activities. I think the crucial distinction though is that the obsessive Grendel reader, or dark-room recluse isn't being as actively and consistently evaluated by a group which society at large considers authoritative and worthwhile. Obviously, this opens up debate on how society makes these choices, and their validity in a fragmented 21st century world where, by and large, we do not live in society as a whole, but rather our own subsegments. Simply because the obsessive comic book reader did not have to take any standardized tests to join his (yes, I'm making that gendered assertion) subsegment, does that mean that the anxiety he experiences about keeping his place or the authority he derives from furthering his standing are any less real (or, rather symbolic/imaginary)? Well, I'm an academic, so in my eyes yes, yes it does.

So, digression aside, I am finding it difficult to balance my life because I feel I cannot make the same decisions "they" can. Perhaps I am too thoroughly inculcated into the educational state apparatus. Perhaps I am just obsessive by nature and I've channelled this into academia. This is what makes balance so difficult. When one's job, or job training program, is centered on thinking, it is difficult to take a break from that. Obviously, I take breaks. Still. Like many people, The Cranky TA would like to enjoy the company of friends and loved ones as often as possible. Also, like many people, I'd like to lose some weight; probably about as much as a small lending library. However, unlike many/most (almost all?) people, I have a deep need to understand Foucault, Gramsci, Althusser, and other texts better. Most often, one of them wins (usually Althusser because he's crazy).

At least for now, balance seems unattainable. Moreover, it seems like a structuring ideology foisted on us by the "dr." Phils of the world. Did Jonas Salk have balance? More importantly, will balance get me tenure?

Still, The Cranky TA would like to be a thinner Cranky Job Candidate. So, what would Jameson (not the whisky) say about cardio?

Midterms

Midterms drove me to start this blog. Midterms also have me considering purchasing a refrigerator or a Heineken mini-Kegerator for the Cranky TA office. Of course, while that would help me deal with inane student questions emotionally, it would also reinforce the connection between college and drinking that likely led to so many poor midterms. Still, a cold brew would be nice in between people arguing that they really deserved a 60% instead of a 55%.

This thinking brings up my jealousy of students in the sciences. Sure, they have to spend days in labs monitoring experiments. Plus, they have to worry about creating nano-machines programmed to eat carbon thus destroying all life on Earth, or some similar catastrophe. And there's always the threat of being exposed to gamma radiation and thus ruining all your clothes whenever angered (a la Bruce Banner, by the way, I'm sort of wishing this blog could have endnotes right now). Still, on the whole they get more funding, have better career prospects, and get to wear lab coats legitimately. And of course their grading is less open to interpretation. Sure, historians could say that a date is wrong. In English classes you can say they've misattributed a text to Dryden when it was Pope. But students can argue that these are small points that don't impact their answers meaningfully. In the sciences, it's pretty obvious: cats don't do photosynthesis; adding sodium to chlorine gas and then pouring in a little water is a bad idea; there are formulas that produce one reliable answer. All of this is not to diminish the work of science TAs. I'm sure grading lab reports is hard. Plus there's the danger that one of your students will produce an unstable exothermic reaction. Still, from the outside, it seems more rigidly dichotomous between correct and incorrect. You can't "sort of" balance a chemical equation the way you can "sort of" talk about gender structures in an answer.

And the sartorial difference is not to be discounted. If I could wear something, like a lab coat, that coded my status as an active professional expert in the field, I would totally trot that out for discussions of the midterms. But what are my options? A suit. That would just make them feel like they're at a wedding (of them to their bad grades) or a funeral. Archivist gloves. They wouldn't recognize the code; I'd just seem like Howard Hughes (which might not be a bad thing).

So, the Cranky TA's ideal midterm discussion would involve three things: 1. A lab coat. It's authoritative without being restricting and has good pockets for pens. 2. Alcohol. For me. 3. The ability to tell students that if they don't adequately engage the notions of gender or class operative in the text then they could create an explosion harming themselves and others.

And of course number 4: Students who care more about the material than washing their cars or getting their ___________ on (it's like a madlib, select any verb and it will probably work).