In Matt Bird’s book, The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers, there is a part called “The Poisonous Cindarella Story.”* It’s sad, pathetic and illuminating.
Up until that week, I was still clinging to my personal version of the Cinderella story: I was convinced I could go to a top MFA program, impress my professors, get whisked into a job in the industry, start at the top by selling a show to HBO, and begin a life of fame, fortune, and acclaim. So far, everything had seemed to work out (CAA liked the new intros, after all), but I began to feel a sense of dread: This was all an illusion. I didn’t really “have it” yet.
Looking back, this was the time I began to see that Columbia had been run like a fantasy camp. We were encouraged to dabble in everything and specialize in nothing, to follow our muse wherever it led us, content in the knowledge that we were in a “safe space.” We got tons of praise and very little criticism.
In fact, there was only one guaranteed way to get chewed out. More than once, when I hesitantly proposed to fellow students that they may need to reconceive some aspect of a project, my professors would bring the class to an abrupt halt and tear into me: How dare I imply that there was a “right way” or a “wrong way” to write? Students were free to follow their pure unadulterated visions, and nobody had any right to interfere in that process.
Chastened, I would meekly reassure my fellow students that they should stick to their original vision, no matter what. That was the gospel. In the end, the message of my program could be summarized in two words: Never compromise. Or to put it another way: Never fix your story. Why did they insulate us from criticism? Why didn’t they load us up with useful tools? Why didn’t they teach us to satisfy an audience? I realized I had been scammed. They wanted us to feel as good as possible for as long as possible in order to get as much money out of us as they could. The way to do that was to assure us we were already geniuses.
But could we blame them for that? After all, why were we really there? To get our asses kicked? To have cold water thrown on us? Of course not. We were paying them a fortune to tell us we were great and about to become creative royalty. We had enrolled ourselves in fantasy camp, and it was their job to sell us the fantasy.
No, not law, nor law school, but as a metaphor for the lies being told to well-intended, hard-working, enthusiastic young people. Are we killing them by pandering to their emotions and stunted capacity to recognize that they aren’t all special? Given how they’re being manipulated for the sake of self-esteem, do they stand a chance?
*Paragraph breaks added for readability.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is not changing soon and in fact will be getting worse. I teach at a large mid-western university and next autumn all students will be given a tablet. I am encouraged to get rid of “old obsolete” methods of teaching like writing on the chalkboard and lecturing. They tell me that due to “active teaching” students only absorb 10 percent of what they hear in a lecture so why waste my time. We are also encouraged to put our lectures as online videos. I am told that this will give me more time to work on my research.
Student reviews are all merciless. They have been told that they are so smart, so creative and so astute that if they do not get it right away, and get an A, the answer must be the course structure and/or the instructor.
I am a little old for a Plan B but may need one.
GreenTriumph1,
I assume you have tenure. If that is correct, what are the practical implications for you should you (1) tell the kids you could not care less about their evaluations, (2) that you will grade on a curve meaning that some will get poor grades and (3) that if they don’t wish to master the subject matter as you require then they should withdraw from your course?
All the best.
RGK
I do have tenure, and to a great extent, I am able to do what you outlined. When I teach my own graduate course, I am lord and master and I focus on what they should know. When I teach required undergraduate engineering classes, there is more pressure to pass the students. You have encouraged me to maintain standards also it is difficult to buck the system and student expectations. Thank you!
For years, I’ve implored law profs to take back their classrooms. Unfortunately, it appears the younger or more progressive prawfs are more attuned to their students’ feelings than the responsibility to teach them law.
As for engineering, I pray for good teaching every time I drive over a bridge. I’m not particularly interested in how badly they would feel about my diving into cold, dark water below.
Many of them want to be managers right away or “technological generalist”. I want the jet engine to not explode in flight.
My son was a Course 2 at MIT. He has his doubts about bridges and jet engines, among many other things.
Engineers these days often rely heavily on programs written by programmers with zero professional qualifications. What could possibly go wrong?
The kids need to learn not to be mooncalves. Be it law or whatever, the actual market for graduates from these various, highly-priced degree programs should inform their willingness to incur six-figure debts to pay the ticket.
How else to learn but to be hoodwinked and shackled with debt for life, right? That’ll create a whole bunch of cynics. Oh wait, it already has.
A cynic is someone who knows the value or everything, and the price of nothing. A skeptic is someone who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Or did we get it backwards?!? PK is a *fast learner* indeed! No idiot savant, he.
Nope, not backwards. You got it right. I just wish I could learn without hitting my head against the wall repeatedly. It really hurts.
Well, there would be the (clearly almost impossible) step of checking placement prospects before investing.
Schools and statistics never lie.
Sum total knowledge gained in an engineering statistics (quality assurance) course:
There are liars, damn liars, and statistics.
HERD Working and not hard working!
I still look back on my attitude/behavior in college and shudder. I messed up so many opportunities because I thought I was so very amazing. To be fair, at that point, I am pretty sure it was all my fault and not the college’s. Reality wasn’t a huge shock but it did take some adjustment. I assume the other kiddos will have a similar experience after their first couple screw ups.
Without knowing when you went to college, it’s hard to appreciate your comment. That said, to assume the kids will somehow “manage” is to ignore the question. Will they overcome their “first couple screw ups” or will this generation continue to suffer from depression and failure when their entitled life fails to magically appear?
Fair enough. I was in college around 2005.
I think people are not stupid. They go to college to have a better life so they are willing to consider self improvement. After they are out of college they will start to appreciate what actual life is about and adjust accordingly. There will be some who cling the the fantasy but for most, I think they will be fine.
Some to to college to have a better life. Some go because that’s what they’re supposed to do. Some go without a clue why. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going through a very different indoctrination than you did, and approaching both education and life with a different and dangerously unrealistic set of expectations.
Will they be fine? It’s hardly something to assume or take for granted.
When did the indoctrination start? I was out in 2010 and didn’t get hit with the diversity stick too too hard. It’s weird to think so much change could happen so quickly, but our phones didn’t do nearly as much back then, so maybe it’s possible.
It’s been happening for about a decade, but picking up steam in the last 3 years. You’re in the middle of it, so you can’t see it. You are normal to you. I see bits of it in you, but I also see that you’re not locked into the religion. For most (not all, but most) college kids today, they can’t begin to see their narcissism and entitlement as that’s their normal.
On the other side of things, they increasingly have the benefit of media accounts that offset the academic Fantasy Island pitch by talking about the bleaching economic bones of debt-ridden, unemployed mooncalves littering the roadsides and byways. Assuming they aren’t living under a rock as part of the indoctrination process, they should be tipping to the fact that all may not be well where they are headed.
They exist in bubbles you and I have never know. We got smacked around a lot as kids, and learned from it. No one has ever laid a finger on them, and if they did, they would go running to some nanny about bullying and harassment. Or worse.
For years now, references to “Cinderella stories” just remind me of Caddyshack.
And look how that turned out.
“*Paragraph breaks added for readability.”
Explains it all really…
In fairness, it may have paragraph breaks in the book, but I don’t know for sure.
In sheer disregard of the Columbia Doctrine, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”
Once he broke a paragraph,
Which was too long by more than half,
Sans even laughing evil laugh,
A favor done for a mooncalf.
One of the very best things that happened in my step-son’s education was his 8th grade English class at an international school in Shanghai. The teacher was a published author of children’s books. Over the length of the course the students had to write a 5000 word story. Before writing started, the teacher discussed elements of story telling, story structure, grammar, etc. to build a foundation for the students.
As the school year progressed, students wrote and submitted drafts for the teacher to review. The teacher clearly spent considerable time commenting on the students’ drafts. Red ink flowed freely. There was much constructive criticism, and a few suggestions in the teacher’s comments. My step-son and I both carefully read the comments, and discussed them. With each successive draft, the teacher used less red ink. By the end of the school year, my step-son wrote a creditable story, and learned to be a much better writer.
My step-son’s experience, and mine from an earlier generation, is that constructive criticism works very well to accelerate learning.
“Hear this, young men and women everywhere, and proclaim it far and wide. The earth is yours and the fullness thereof. Be kind, but be fierce. You are needed now more than ever before. Take up the mantle of change. For this is your time.” -Sir Winston Churchill