graduation day

Graduation day at my shop. And last night comes another party invitation. Ugh! I’ve already done four parties in three days. I’m totally partied out. Was expressing gratitude on the way home from the last (or thought it was the last) party on Monday night that the parties were all over. And now a surprise party tonight after commencement. I can’t even express how badly I do not want to go to this thing. But go, I shall. I think it’s a mistake – I’m guessing many of the invitees will feel as I do and be totally spent. But there’s always relatives – they haven’t been to four parties in three days and will be delighted to celebrate her momentous achievement.

And another one of my students is delivering today’s commencement address. He’s a wonder. He was in, I think, the very first class I ever taught here, 17 years ago. After two semesters he went off to pursue another profession, one where he has done well and still works. But at some point about five years ago he returned to school hoping to claim his Bachelor’s degree. He’s been an incredible student and deserves every moment of his talking-in-front-of-the-crowd glory. Although his commencement speech looks to be a tiny bit sappy (reading a poem written by a 13-year-old muscular dystrophy victim), at least he is imploring his fellow grads to do something about the world. I’m not sure that showing how a 13-year-old can be as wise as wise can be is what you want to tell a group of people who’ve just struggled through days and nights of neglecting their children, husbands, wives, and other relationships, who’ve worked their butts off just to get a C, who’ve been told repeatedly that getting this degree will help them advance but who know in their souls that the world is actually not their oyster. This ain’t Harvard. But then, that’s why they’re getting Mattie Stepanek (the young and far too accessible poet) and not Maya Angelou or Herodotus.

Final grades are finally done. All I must do now is submit them and await the return barrage. “A C!? Why did I get a C? I did all the homework.” The “I paid for this, why should I have to do any more work” attitude grows more pronounced each semester. Even when they haven’t paid for it – a parent might still be footing some bills – they are still indignant. The student-as-consumer model corrupts every relationship in the university and damages any chance at a real education. This place really should be a benign dictatorship – why I got into this line of work, I’m sure – we really do know better than they do what they need to get into their heads. Or at least what they need to be exposed to, the getting into the head problem, unfortunately, is yet another issue.

But when the upper administration adopts a business model, as so many schools have, and begins treating students as customers the attitude seeps into every crevice of the institution. And we have people asking questions like “Did you tell them the writing had to be good?” Students expect to have requirements waived, or dispensed with, because they object to taking business ethics, or find Shakespeare inconveniently challenging. Students want courses offered in a particular sequence because it fits their schedule better than the sequence we, after eighty or ninety collective years of experience, have determined. I’m not averse to learning from any situation – even situations that I feel I’ve mastered. In fact, that’s why I chose this profession. Being a teacher provides a forum for decades of learning. I try to be always open to new possibilities. But one thing I’ve learned is that experience really does bring wisdom. Ah. Another paradox.