Are We Raising a Generation of Helpless Kids?

[Fishbone Jones]

As part of today's youth, I must add my two cents.

There's the REALLY, REALLY good, well-rounded, talented kids, who are upstanding, hard-working students who are the ones that teachers and adults love.

THEN, there's the mediocre kids who are average everything. Average marks, get their community hours done with a few extras maybe. Often overlooked, majority of kids.

And then, we've got the bottom of the barrel. The ones who drink and are consistently stoned to another world. Never show up for school, when they do, they're boneheads.

The list above is in reverse order of rarity. The boneheads are all to common. I hesitate, but I will use myself as an example for one.

I'm 15, and I have consistently good/high marks, take academic classes, founder of the debate team at my school, as well as a Clean up the Creek founder/organizer, RCSCadet (Range team, Assit Drill Cap, Seamanship team), Consistent volunteer at the local museum... I'm not really talented, but I've also been blessed with opportunities. I was home schooled by my mother, and then the year that I choose to go back to public school, a sub. teacher invited me to come to the cadet corp. He was the XO.

An acquaintance of mine is of the lowest category, but working his way up. He never had any of the opportunities that I did. His parents divorced at the age of 3, and grew up with a single mother, and no father in the picture (Died when he was 6). He has no direction for the future, but is cleaning up his act and hiking up his shorts.

My 2 cents.

Unfortunately, at 15 years old, you've only experienced a very minuscule segment of society, including your fellow peers. Accept that model , and you are in for an extremely rude awakening. Please, understand, I am not trying to belittle your interest or contribution.

It's just that the reality says that no matter how idealistic and reformist you'd like to be, karma just doesn't work that way.

Hard work, a good quality education in subject of true import, and being in the right place at the right time, with the proper connections, still does not afford you a job over the bullshitter with a gift of gab and some internet diplomas.

I would be interested to see how your response has changed, if you had the opportunity to revisit it 20 years hence.

 

[Maxadia]

And as a homeschooled student, you've got the wrong type of student in the majority.  I'd peg it at number 2, not 1 or 3. 

 

[RememberanceDay]

And as a homeschooled student, you've got the wrong type of student in the majority.  I'd peg it at number 2, not 1 or 3. 

Sorry, I have to agree. It was a typo, by the time I realized, too late. I homeschooled for 10-odd years, alongside my two younger autisitic brothers, and I agree with you.

 

[Pusser]

Unfortunately that's all too rare in most universities, as their #1 driver is money, not education.

I just listened to a bit of 16:9 on Global, they were talking about how Douglas College in BC has set up schools in China and is awarding Canadian accredited degrees. However, it's been described by some of their own faculty as "academic fraud," where they are failing students and yet somehow that student is getting a degree. One professor told a story of someone in China that couldn't understand as much as "Good Morning" in English, but somehow got the degree. It is literally the exact same diploma you would get in Canada, absolutely no indication you never attended in Canada.

None of this surprises me after what I've seen at MUN. One of the best profs I've ever had basically gave me a "wink wink nudge nudge" indication that a part of their compensation is somehow tied to the "course evaluation reports" that students have to do for each course at the end of the semester. Talk about the tail wagging the f**king dog!

This is one of the reasons that my father got fed up and retired from teaching at a university.  How thick does one have to be to realize that students with good marks will evaluate a professor higher than students with bad marks?  It's the "if I don't know the answer it's because I wasn't taught properly" philosophy (or perhaps that should be "prawf didunt lern me gud").  I always hated those stupid evaluations.  The CF is not immune either as they have reared their ugly head in CF schools as well.  My favourite question is always, "Do you feel this course has prepared you for your duties in the future?"  How the F@#$%! should a student know?  Until he/she actually works in the field, he/she will have no idea how well prepared he/she is.  If anything, these surveys should be conducted a year after the course is over.

Sometimes we find in retrospect that the instructors we hated the most and thought were the worst, were actually the best and we should be grateful that we had the opportunity to learn from them.

 

[jeffb]

  The CF is not immune either as they have reared their ugly head in CF schools as well.  My favourite question is always, "Do you feel this course has prepared you for your duties in the future?"  How the F@#$%! should a student know?  Until he/she actually works in the field, he/she will have no idea how well prepared he/she is.  If anything, these surveys should be conducted a year after the course is over.

Sometimes we find in retrospect that the instructors we hated the most and thought were the worst, were actually the best and we should be grateful that we had the opportunity to learn from them.

This is 100% accurate. The ECR process always looks for input like this and my standard response is "of course it's relevant, if it wasn't it wouldn't be in the TP right?". It's only some time later that I figure out what was important on a course and I suspect there are some skill sets that I might never use but are important to know. I think that asking students this at any time is not really productive. The questions should be "This course is partly designed to make you proficient in skill x. How well do you think this course accomplished this objective?". There are all kinds of skills that as professionals we need to know but may never use due to the nature of our deployments and career progression.

 

[Danjanou]

None of this surprises me after what I've seen at MUN. One of the best profs I've ever had basically gave me a "wink wink nudge nudge" indication that a part of their compensation is somehow tied to the "course evaluation reports" that students have to do for each course at the end of the semester. Talk about the tail wagging the f**king dog!

there are times i weep for my alma mater :