I today administered pop quizzes to both sections I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays -- especially since attendance was shabby for both -- and ended up taking them as extra credit. Here's why.
This is how the pop quiz was structured.
1. What is today's date?
2. What is the capital of Ohio / Wisconsin? *
3. Name one band / composer we discussed last week. **
4. What is your major? ***
5. Name one song / piece we discussed last week.
6. Complete the following sentence: "Soylent Green is made of _____." ****
* One student asked "where's Wisconsin?" I proceeded to draw a political map of the US and started naming off all the major cities, save Madison.
** You would think this would be easy. All topics (if not notes) are prominently displayed on Blackboard and I encourage note-taking. But, no. Most people couldn't even do this, which made me feel great about my abilities as a teacher. One student even challenged me that I discussed something last week that I know I covered several weeks ago.
*** Come on. Really? Wait for it: someone asked "what do you mean?"
**** I often start or end class by saying "Remember, Soylent Green is made of people."
And this is a four-year, research-intensive public university I teach at.
I'm not the one who's in the wrong, here, when I say:
I need to be teaching somewhere else. Or I need to be teaching high school and fighting the oafs who think multiple-choice testing is the key to success. Or slicing open the bureaucrats who have hitherto run secondary education into the ground by thinking that quantifiable "results" translates into actual learning and retention and applicability of knowledge. I'm wondering what my students are even really capable of. They couldn't, by and large, tell me something we covered last week, let alone anything about American geography. With not a shred of cynicism intended, I am damned surprised no one asked what I meant by "what is today's date."
I was just completely baffled. Still am.
For those of you quick to jump to their defense, let me remind you something: I am a damned good teacher. I know it and I have proof. NCLB has killed a generation of intellectual ability and practicality of intelligence and the damages are far more wide-ranging than the freshman classroom in a university. My "being smart" has nothing to do with this. I busted my ass in school to learn what I knew; I was genetically cursed with a halfway decent memory. This is also indicative of many of the problems of American society: we know virtually nothing of our own country, let alone about our own present and culture, and we can't seem to be bothered with remembering or caring - one student wrote "sorry I can't remember the capitol [sic] of Wisconsin or whatever, but I haven't done state capitols [sic] since like the 5th grade or something."
Which, obviously, makes it OK to know jack shit about your own country.
On the bright side, maybe I'm helping them learn -something- about their culture, their music, the world around them, the bigger picture. It's an idealistic pursuit with diminishing returns. But hopefully they'll at least learn they -don't- know everything they thought they did and be inspired to acquire data and truly learn, truly educate themselves in the fundamentals and elements of this experience they call life as an American citizen in the early 21st Century.
