Even the Student Who Fails Learns a Valuable Lesson
At NSU, Dean Sandra DeLoatch has denied Steven D. Aird tenure because of "the overwhelming failure of the vast majority of the students he teaches." This decision did not come out of the blue. Over the course of his tenure track, Aird repeatedly had received pressure to raise his passing rate to DeLoatch's standard of 70%.
Aird argues that this would require grade inflation. From five different professors, Aird gathered the statistics on two standard exams for a core-curriculum freshman-biology course. In the Fall of 2005, the median grade was an F.
Attendance probably plays a significant role in this low performance. According to Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed, "Other professors at Norfolk State, generally requesting anonymity, confirmed that following the 80 percent attendance rule would result frequently in failing a substantial share — in many cases a majority — of their students." Aird's attendance record shows that the average student attends his class only 66% of the time.
Aird interprets the problem to be one of where to set the bar. He produces a clever sports analogy to support his position:
According to the logic behind this analogy, students are merely potential players who can get cut from the team.
University spokeswoman Sharon Hoggard maintains that NSU upholds the accreditation standards imposed by SACS. She feels that Aird's pedagogical strategy "goes against our [NSU's] very mission, which is to provide an affordable high-quality education for an ethnically and culturally diverse student population." The diversity factor is relevant since NSU is a historically African-American university that caters to students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
However, race is not the heart of the discrepancy. The heart of the discrepancy is a conflict between opposing pedagogical strategies. According to Hoggard, "Every student doesn't learn in the same way. It becomes the duty of the faculty member to find ways to ensure that his or her students are understanding the material." In other words, Hoggard would argue that the only bar to be set is not for the student, but rather for the teacher. While Aird puts the onus of performance on the student, Hoggard and DeLoatch put the onus of performance on the teacher.
What is the role of the teacher in a university classroom? What is the role of the student?
One way to explore the first question is to figure out to whom or what the teacher is responsible. Aird would argue that the teacher is responsible to the material. He sets the bar for the students to jump into the material at a certain degree of proficiency. Those students who can't or won't jump high enough are banned from the material--presumably because the material is sacred enough that careless or un-knowledgeable hands shouldn't touch it.
Hoggard and DeLoatch would argue that, with American citizens' diminished access to math, science, and reading-comprehension skills, and with minorities' even further reduced access to these skills, the teacher works not for the material or even for the student, but rather for our country or a particular race. In this scenario, the teacher has a responsibility to prepare the student for the active engagement that democracy demands of its citizenry. In order to salvage our nation's economy in the face of outsourcing science and research, this active engagement includes the student's adaptability in our highly competitive global economy.
From this perspective, the teacher sees our society through the avatar of the student. It's a fascist perspective in the sense that we are all just servants of our nation's or a particular race's history. If we eliminated the concepts of the nation state and race, and the teacher envisioned instead a global society through the avatar of the student, the perspective would be Stalinist. In both perspectives, the student loses his or her individualism.
When American students lose their individualism, they get angry. They don't like it when we teachers say, "Don't focus on what I want. Interpret me solely as a tool to facilitate your servitude to our country/world." They dismiss us as fascists or communists--because structurally, we are.
Of course, Aird's strategy also ignores each student's contingent identity. The student's face either disappears in the face of the material, or gets excluded for the failure to do so.
Ironically, this exclusion preserves the student. In other words, Aird's pedagogical strategy does more to maintain the student's individualism than Hoggard and DeLoatch's, specifically via the exclusionary act of failing the student. For this very reason, some students might prefer Aird's pedagogy--because it preserves their ability to resist, which endows them with the agency of choice: they can choose to pass or fail the course. When students can't fail as easily, because they're infrastructurally surrounded by a totalitarian university's "student support system," resistance is futile, and so too is the individualist desire to take control of one's own fate. The student becomes reduced to an object that gets cradled or mishandled. The only individualist voice such a student can assume is a victimized one that blames the teacher, university, or even the injustices of the social system.
Obviously there is a way to merge strategies. The teacher doesn't have to remain aloof, deny each student's different personality, or avoid technology that produces infrastructural support for the student's engagement with the material. These aren't necessary factors in drawing the clear line in the sand that endows the student with the freedom of choice. But students need a high bar, not because the material is too sacred for unworthy hands to contaminate, but rather to evoke the concept of aspiration, and to encourage the student's understanding of the role of his or her own determination. This isn't exclusionary. Quite the contrary, even the student who fails learns a valuable lesson.
Aird argues that this would require grade inflation. From five different professors, Aird gathered the statistics on two standard exams for a core-curriculum freshman-biology course. In the Fall of 2005, the median grade was an F.
Attendance probably plays a significant role in this low performance. According to Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed, "Other professors at Norfolk State, generally requesting anonymity, confirmed that following the 80 percent attendance rule would result frequently in failing a substantial share — in many cases a majority — of their students." Aird's attendance record shows that the average student attends his class only 66% of the time.
Aird interprets the problem to be one of where to set the bar. He produces a clever sports analogy to support his position:
“Show me how lowering the bar has ever helped anyone,” Aird said in an interview. Continuing the metaphor, he said that officials at Norfolk State have the attitude of “a track coach who tells the team ‘I really want to win this season but I really like you guys, so you can decide whether to come to practice and when.’ ” Such a team wouldn’t win, Aird said, and a university based on such a principle would not be helping its students. (Jaschik)
According to the logic behind this analogy, students are merely potential players who can get cut from the team.
University spokeswoman Sharon Hoggard maintains that NSU upholds the accreditation standards imposed by SACS. She feels that Aird's pedagogical strategy "goes against our [NSU's] very mission, which is to provide an affordable high-quality education for an ethnically and culturally diverse student population." The diversity factor is relevant since NSU is a historically African-American university that caters to students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
However, race is not the heart of the discrepancy. The heart of the discrepancy is a conflict between opposing pedagogical strategies. According to Hoggard, "Every student doesn't learn in the same way. It becomes the duty of the faculty member to find ways to ensure that his or her students are understanding the material." In other words, Hoggard would argue that the only bar to be set is not for the student, but rather for the teacher. While Aird puts the onus of performance on the student, Hoggard and DeLoatch put the onus of performance on the teacher.
What is the role of the teacher in a university classroom? What is the role of the student?
One way to explore the first question is to figure out to whom or what the teacher is responsible. Aird would argue that the teacher is responsible to the material. He sets the bar for the students to jump into the material at a certain degree of proficiency. Those students who can't or won't jump high enough are banned from the material--presumably because the material is sacred enough that careless or un-knowledgeable hands shouldn't touch it.
Hoggard and DeLoatch would argue that, with American citizens' diminished access to math, science, and reading-comprehension skills, and with minorities' even further reduced access to these skills, the teacher works not for the material or even for the student, but rather for our country or a particular race. In this scenario, the teacher has a responsibility to prepare the student for the active engagement that democracy demands of its citizenry. In order to salvage our nation's economy in the face of outsourcing science and research, this active engagement includes the student's adaptability in our highly competitive global economy.
From this perspective, the teacher sees our society through the avatar of the student. It's a fascist perspective in the sense that we are all just servants of our nation's or a particular race's history. If we eliminated the concepts of the nation state and race, and the teacher envisioned instead a global society through the avatar of the student, the perspective would be Stalinist. In both perspectives, the student loses his or her individualism.
When American students lose their individualism, they get angry. They don't like it when we teachers say, "Don't focus on what I want. Interpret me solely as a tool to facilitate your servitude to our country/world." They dismiss us as fascists or communists--because structurally, we are.
Of course, Aird's strategy also ignores each student's contingent identity. The student's face either disappears in the face of the material, or gets excluded for the failure to do so.
Ironically, this exclusion preserves the student. In other words, Aird's pedagogical strategy does more to maintain the student's individualism than Hoggard and DeLoatch's, specifically via the exclusionary act of failing the student. For this very reason, some students might prefer Aird's pedagogy--because it preserves their ability to resist, which endows them with the agency of choice: they can choose to pass or fail the course. When students can't fail as easily, because they're infrastructurally surrounded by a totalitarian university's "student support system," resistance is futile, and so too is the individualist desire to take control of one's own fate. The student becomes reduced to an object that gets cradled or mishandled. The only individualist voice such a student can assume is a victimized one that blames the teacher, university, or even the injustices of the social system.
Obviously there is a way to merge strategies. The teacher doesn't have to remain aloof, deny each student's different personality, or avoid technology that produces infrastructural support for the student's engagement with the material. These aren't necessary factors in drawing the clear line in the sand that endows the student with the freedom of choice. But students need a high bar, not because the material is too sacred for unworthy hands to contaminate, but rather to evoke the concept of aspiration, and to encourage the student's understanding of the role of his or her own determination. This isn't exclusionary. Quite the contrary, even the student who fails learns a valuable lesson.
Labels: Aird, F, failure, freedom, grades, NSU, pedagogy, professor, students, tenure
posted by Gray Kane at
1:18 PM
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