Generation X Goes to College: An Eye-Opening Account of Teaching in Postmodern America

Rating:
Summary: Education is a Two-Way Street
Review: As a adjunct instructor in the humanities, I found the book to be right on target. Sacks' description of student behavior matches with what I have experienced at a major state university and two community colleges. Growing numbers of students are rude and inconsiderate. Consumerism, as Sacks points out, is running rampant in higher education. Pay money, get a degree. In fact, I know of several deans and other adminstrators who have said that the number one job of colleges is keeping the customer satisfied. Of course, earning a college education cannot work this way.

The most striking thing about the book's description is that the general student apathy which Sacks reports is pervasive: from community colleges to large state universities to private colleges. Of course, Sacks's observations, taken by themselves, are merely anecdotal. But when dozens, if not hundreds, of instructors report similar behavior (as I read and heard from other instructors), it illustrates that something is truly wrong. Instructors who give in to inflated grades, low standards, and multiple-choice exams (and I know many who do) are also to blame. If Orwell's 1984 is too difficult for college freshmen, then something is wrong in the high schools. (I remember reading it in 8th grade)

To dismiss Sacks' observations as mere stereotypes simply misses his main points: 1) Not everyone has a right to a college degree (it must be earned) 2) Education institutions should not be run like fast food restaurants (learning how to think critically is not like buying a Big Mac).

Rating:
Summary: Generation X's Rebuttal
Review: First of all, let me clarify that I have not read this book in its entirety but, rather, have read many excerpts from the text, so my criticism of the text itself is questionable; however, as a member of Gen X who attended American universities, I honestly resent the stereotyping of what is surely a heterogenous populace.

For example, I attended university specifically for the purpose of gaining a classic liberal education. What I encountered at the university was a disparaging professoral attitude towards learning disguised as careerism.

I've had university professors and advisors who actually told me there was "no appreciable difference between two and three0thirty p.m.," and that my number one priority needed to be attending school, when clearly, my number one priority was paying my mortgage and feeding my children. I was kicked out of a social psychology class by a professor who was renound for passing "D" students, her reasoning was that I missed one class over her accepted limit in spite of the fact that I was one of the only two "A" students in the entire class. And I'm not even going to expound on the painfully illiterate English Department Chair.

I never expected a professor to edutain me, I would prefer that professors not teach out of the book because I can read that crap at home and not get charged thousands of dollars to have some pompous windbag spoon-feed me the text and, quite frankly, it pisses me off to no end to be shown videos in lieu of lectures. I didn't pay for a [crap] TV show.

I agree than many of my generational bretheren are ignorant sots, so too are members of other, older generations. So, maybe it isn't Generation X & Y after all, but the pathetic state of teaching, advising and cirriculum that passes for undergraduate education as a direct result of the corrupt publish-or-perish, conformal peer review, tenure-track- with-outside-contract-perqs that all self-interested academics propagate.

And in further self interest, the academics have served to push true innovative genius (i.e. competition) out of the institute.

I wouldn't waste my money on this book because it is biased, stereotypical and seeks to marginalize and disparage an entire group of indivduals. Psychologically, the premise reads as one man's attempt to ease his cognitive dissonance towards his professions' ineptitudes.

But don't ask me, I'm just some stupid Gen X Geologist.

Rating:
Summary: An important book that doesn't go far enough.
Review: One day a colleague loaned me a copy of "Generation X Goes to College", and ruined my night. Desensitized by long exposure to poor students, impelled by my own need to survive, and inundated with propaganda from the community colleges, I had begun to doubt everything I knew. Community colleges give you the best possible education. An A in Chemistry 101 from one is just as good as an A in Chemistry 101 at Cal Tech. Yeah, sure. Lazy, unmotivated students who find "1984" incomprehensible do better at universities than top high school graduates. OK, I believe it. The most highly qualified college instructor has a master's degree from a second-rate university. People with Ph.Ds from top schools are stupid and bad teachers because, well, they just are. Right. Research makes you dumb. Excellence is elitism. Bad is good. Lies are truth. I didn't fight it any more. I had gotten comfortable, or at least, less uncomfortable. As I gave lazy, unintelligent students As for memorizing and regurgitating a few facts, I was happy in the sure expectation of being rewarded with the immoderate praise I routinely find on my teaching reviews. I pushed away the knowledge that I had been co- opted. Sacks' book woke me up, reminded me that excellence is not elitism, and lies are not truth, and made me too angry to stop reading until I finished every page.

Sacks has written an important and courageous book, but one that did not go nearly far enough. Sacks deserves praise for exposing the scandalous truth about the exceedingly poor quality of most community college education, but his analysis of the reasons for this "dumbing down" focuses almost entirely on the least guilty: the students. Like any other, the most recent generation of students have virtues to balance their faults. The pursuit of excellence in learning is not one of those virtues, but how could it be? They attend institutions where eighteen year olds without experience of higher education dictate who shall teach what, and how; and where literature in modern English is pronounced "too advanced" for adult college undergraduates. (When do they get to Shakespeare? Graduate school?)

Throughout this book, Sacks continually misses the biggest target of all. The substitution of "lite learning" for substance and comprehension may be initiated by administrations at the behest of students, but it occurs with the total complicity of the tenured faculty. The culpability of the faculty at The College permeates Sacks' book, and yet they escape the meticulous examination of their motives to which he subjects students and administrators: Why? Obviously Sacks has discovered what his colleagues certainly know; if you shut up and cater to administration interests the rewards are generous. Tenured faculty roll in to work at 10 am or head out at 1 pm, and don't come in at all some days; any unattractive assignment (too early, too late, too close to the weekend) is shuffled off onto one of the army of part-timers who rush off at the end of class to another college. Though Sacks complains bitterly about his poor pay, he surely enjoys the long, lazy summer vacations in Europe, the six weeks at Christmas and the week at Easter. No doubt he likes the twenty hour work weeks, the sabbaticals and the load bank leaves (teach six classes instead of five and take a semester off with full pay every two and half years to do whatever you like). Sacks' friend Chris summarizes the reason that tenured community college faculty are unwilling to challenge the status quo: "Instructors get three months off, work half days, they take life easy. So if you can smile at your students and be happy, you can have all that too."

It's also hard to understand how Sacks could have overlooked the huge role that part-time faculty play in consumer- oriented education since they probably teach around half the classes at his institution. Part-time faculty don't ever have the protection of tenure, often cannot afford to get even one poor review, and must always cater to student demands for easy classes and good grades. Students become accustomed to the light workload imposed of necessity by part-time faculty, then when they encounter a demanding professor, they are naturally resentful and resistant. Of course, The College saves lots of money by paying the part-time faculty somewhere around a quarter as much per class as full-time faculty. These savings pay for the sabbaticals, load bank leaves, and light work schedules enjoyed by the full-time faculty, including Sacks. Perhaps that's why he never got around to mentioning part-time faculty.

Ultimately this is a cynical and self-centered book. It's loud in condemnation of the practices that have hurt its author, but silent on even worse practices that benefit him. Students, administrators and Sacks' colleagues are equally self-serving. Students want to get good grades for very little work. Administrators want high enrollments which increase their own power and rewards: the "dumbing down" and grade inflation necessary to achieve high levels of retention is not their problem. The tenured full-time faculty long ago abandoned their integrity in favor of light workloads and copious free time paid for by overworked part-time faculty, so predictably, when they have to choose between educational quality and their perquisites, quality is forgotten. Given his own obvious self-interest, I cannot understand why Sacks finds this so amazing. Still, at least someone has broken the silence about the deterioration of quality at the community colleges, and by extension at the universities into which they feed. These colleges cost the taxpayers a fortune, and it is clear that we are not getting a good return on our investment.