Archive for the 'Pasadena City College' Category

“Dukes don’t emigrate”: more OKOP/NOKOP reflections, and wincing at the use of the term “upper-class”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 22, 2007
in Class, Ethnicity, OKOP/NOKOP and Pasadena City College
. 29 Comments

Here at Pasadena City College, we have an excellent theater department. Here’s the press release for the newest production:

Follow a year in the lives of six upper-class friends through a series of holiday-themed parties as the Pasadena City College Performing and Communication Arts Division proudly presents “The Country Club,” which opens on Friday, March 23, in PCC’s Sexson Auditorium.
Playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s comedy-drama tells the story of a young and charmingly neurotic woman who retreats from a failed marriage and decides to go back to her upper-class hometown in Pennsylvania. There, she finds love, friendships, and tragedies. The play consists of nine scenes and evolves around different holidays.

“This ‘dramady’ reflects the typical White Anglo-Saxon Protestant domain of the upper-class,” said Duke Stroud, PCC professor and director of the play. “It’s a portrait of dysfunctional relationships, which are funny and dramatic at the same time.”

(Note: I’ve explained OKOP and NOKOP here, and I now have a whole specific archive dealing with class.)

I know nothing about the play, and I doubt I’ll be able to get a chance to see it. But the press release, which I read yesterday, got under my skin instantly. You see, I hate the use of the phrase “upper class” to describe American families.

I grew up in culture that described itself as “upper-middle class”. And in the WASP circles of my youth and my family background, I certainly encountered plenty of remarkably well-to-do people. I know the world of “clubs” fairly well, and though that world holds relatively little interest for me today, it’s still quite familiar. (Or as John Bradshaw would write it, family-ar). And here’s the thing: if there’s one maxim “our kind of people” all agreed on, it was that talking explicitly and publicly about class was prima facie evidence that you lacked it. Nothing could be more more NOKOP than to describe anything, be it a social gesture or a fashion accessory, as “classy.” Once, while at a family luncheon, I used the term “classy” to describe the play of one of John McEnroe’s opponents (we had just watched a Wimbledon match on television.) From the reaction of a few of my older relatives, you would think I had dropped the f-bomb. “I think you want to say that his behavior was ‘gentlemanly’, dear” one of my elders advised me. Another suggested that “sporting” would have been an even more appropriate choice. I was about 14, and just starting to get the picture: we don’t talk about class.

And even worse than calling something “classy”? Referring to the existence of an American “upper-class.” I was raised to believe that the only authentic upper-class that exists is to be found in Europe. As one hired geneaologist famously told my great-aunt Carmen when she speculated that we had many aristocratic forebears, “Mrs. Starr, dukes don’t emigrate.” “Dukes don’t emigrate” became the standard bon mot we all used (and still do) whenever anyone speaks of an upper class in the United States. As far as we’re concerned, we maintain the satisfying fiction that almost all are middle class: there’s lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper-middle. And the less said specifically about these strata, the better.

To be really honest, I feel protective of the very sort of people the press release from our theater department seems to disparage. I’ve reread it a couple of times, and it’s not particularly offensive (save for the wince-inducing use of “upper class”). But here’s the really blunt truth: there are very few folks on this campus — faculty, staff, students — who come from a WASPy upper-middle class background. On at least one side of my family, I do. And part of me feels as if this play (about which I know zilch) is going to caricature a culture that I value. And those doing the caricaturing on stage will, on this campus that is over 80% non-white, be those who know little or nothing about the culture they lampoon.

It’s embarrassing to cop to this. Frankly, I’m prepared to believe that there’s a certain element of both classism and racism in my response. And Lord knows, despite years and years of teaching at a diverse urban community college, despite living in a glorious, successful, interracial marriage, I still struggle with my own bigotry, my own elitism. I am not proud of it, and I continue to work spiritually and psychologically to overcome whatever vestiges of prejudice remain in my soul.

The “WASPy country-club set” don’t need me to defend them. Yes, I continue to maintain quite seriously that we don’t have an authentic “upper-class” in this country. I continue to feel uncomfortable when others discuss what sort of behaviors or clothing choices are “classy” or not. But my intellectual and political training tells me that there’s no point in defending those who have had the greatest access to power and privilege in our nation’s relatively brief history. My commitment to justice and equality tells me that there is much in what I call my heritage that is ugly, oppressive, elitist, emotionally stunted and whoppingly superficial. There is also, as I’ve posted before, much that is joyous and good. (Read my “Happy WASP boy”.)

And I may have to swallow my own issues, and go see this play.

UPDATE: I’m reminded that nearly a century ago, my great-great grandfather wrote and privately published his memoirs. Speaking of ancestry, he wrote something lovely that is quoted as often as the “dukes don’t emigrate” line. A.A. Moore said in 1915:

Children, let your modest pride be this: you come of sturdy stock.

I love that. Even if I suspect it’s a reference to the fact that many of us are big-boned.

Student Crushes #3: “affirming and redirecting” and some other thoughts

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 7, 2007
in Pasadena City College, Student crushes and Teaching
. 25 Comments

It’s been nearly a year since I put up my two posts about student crushes. My stats tell me that next to queries about older men, younger women (my archive on that is here), nothing brings me more hits than the subject of unrequited student longing for their professors.

The two posts I’ve written on that subject said most of what I wanted to say at the time. But both posts continue to get comments, both here and at my old blog. Lots of students write in for advice. (I note, checking IP addresses, that a disproportionate number of those commenting are from the UK. Is there something about the lecturer-student relationship that seems more enticing in England than here? I’ll have to ask my brother.) Most of the question are of the general “what do I do?” sort.

This comment at my old blog is typical. Some excerpts:

I’ve been on the edge of my seat for my (married) geology professor for about two months now. I’m feeling sad that this quarter is almost over because I fear the anxiety of not being able to see him anymore. I’m so glad that I found this blog because I was starting to feel very deviant and out of the norm… i’m not even thinking about my grade, i could fail that class and still want him. i’m going crazy and i thought about just telling him how i feel, or just teasing the shit out of him. i don’t know what to do. it takes so much for me to snap back into reality and know that it’s wrong for many reasons…want him to know that I want him without having to say anything. I don’t even care if I get turned down. I just want him to know that he’s wanted.

Ten days ago, “Heartbroken” wrote:

I seriously have a problem about this whole issue…Now I’m in the middle of a crush on one lecturer, and me being the class representative, I’ve had a lot of contact with him. It’s really painful to see him everyday, and I really want to talk to him about it to make it easier to deal with. Exams are over, so there won’t be a problem with him giving me any more grades. Is it unfair of me to talk to him about this? He is married, and I am aware that i might have this crush because he’s just such a brilliant character… I really don’t know what to do, any advice will be considered.

Bold emphases are mine.

And last month, a random student wrote:

How do you know if a student has a crush on you? Im just wondering cos i’ve had the biggest crush on my teacher for months now, and I really dont want him to know…

I stand by the theory of student crushes I offered a year ago: that we tend to fall for people who embody qualities we want in ourselves. Students fall for their professors and teachers not because we are, in and of ourselves, unbearably desirable; they fall for us because we expose them to new ideas and possibilities. They love the way we make them feel, and they understandably confuse an attraction to what we do for them with an attraction to us as individuals. I’m honestly convinced that covers the vast majority of “common crushes”.

The questions above revolve around two main issues we haven’t touched on before: can professors tell when students have crushes on them? And should students, like “Heartbroken”, talk to their objects of their infatuation about the crush itself, either to see if it’s reciprocated or to get some sort of help in working through their feelings?

I can’t speak for all my colleagues around the globe, but I can say that this professor doesn’t expend a lot of energy wondering if a particular student has a crush on him or not. I know full well that an outer appearance of excitement and attentiveness can mean many things! It can be a calculated act designed to send a message that the student is listening, whether that’s true or not. (And word to my students: don’t nod appreciatively every time I make eye contact with you. It often looks forced. Once in a while is fine, but every time, it seems, well, a bit fake.) The attentiveness can mean — indeed, I always hope it means — a genuine interest in and excitement about the subject. And it can mean an excitement about the subject mixed with an attraction to the professor/teacher/lecturer himself or herself. I’ve been at this gig for just about fifteen years, and I’ll be darned if I can tell easily what’s going on inside a student’s head. In a world where so many young people have been trained to flatter, it’s difficult if not impossible to assess motive merely from a student’s smiles and body language.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I think most of my students are frauds! Far from it. I just don’t spend a great deal of time wondering what it is that my students think about me. By definition, good teachers are more concerned with what the student is learning than with whether or not their student likes ‘em or not. And on those occasions when a crush does become obvious, I always remember, as I wrote last year, that it’s not about me: it’s about an experience the student is having as a result of encountering the material I’m presenting. Even if they think it’s about me rather than the class, in the end, it’s usually about their own excited response to the material.

Bottom line is this: I don’t think most of us can tell what our students are thinking. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we lack the ability to discern among many different possible reasons for excitement and interest. And the wise among us know that we don’t need to know. Our students aren’t here to feed our egos.

As for telling the professor about a crush of which he may or may not already be aware, I tend to think that’s generally a bad idea. (I said “generally”, not “always”.) Obviously, for a whole host of academic reasons, it’s a bad idea to broach the topic while you’re a student in his class. I note that the two professors who are the objects of student crushes in the quoted sections above are both married. Confessing a strong attraction to a married person is, I think, just about always a fundamentally selfish thing to do. Whether or not their marriage is on a firm foundation, basic decency compels us to respect the commitments that those around us have made. That applies universally. (At the risk of going off on a tangent, let me make it clear that I really dislike it when people say to each other things like “Oh, if I were single…” or “If only you weren’t married…” Just saying the words is an act of hostility towards a married person and their spouse. It’s not an excuse to protest “But I would never act on it!” Fidelity is about what we say as well as what we do, and expressing strong sexual or romantic attraction to someone who’s “taken” is low-grade adultery!)

Sometimes students tell their professors about their crushes in the apparently sincere hope that the prof will help them “work through” their feelings. This has happened to me a time or three, though less often now than in the past. While some students clearly are hoping to spark a romantic relationship, others tend to see their teacher as a resource with whom they can “process” their feelings. Of course, it’s hard if not impossible to work through a crush with the object of the crush. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, it’s nigh on impossible.

I learned to be very respectful of those students who confessed crushes to me. I don’t belittle them or tease them or berate them. At the same time, I am very good about not encouraging the crush. And that often means affirming the student’s very real and intense feelings, and then gently redirecting that student towards a counselor or a therapist (we have plenty right here on campus.) The “affirm and redirect” strategy is by far the best approach a teacher can take when faced with a love-struck student.

One of the things I’ve really come to understand about teaching: it’s a one-way street. I am here to lecture, to challenge, to provoke, to nurture, to push. I love what I do, and I love my students very much. I am committed to them, devoted to them, even when I have far less time to offer them individually than I would like. And I know that they have a wide variety of responses to me, ranging from complete apathy to outright adoration, from moderate enthusiasm to genuine hostility, from vague dislike to erotic infatuation. I can know that because I teach hundreds and hundreds every year, and the chances are damn good that some are gonna love me, some are gonna hate me, and the great majority won’t have any strong feelings at all. But in the end, my teaching isn’t conditional on my students’ feelings about me. When I was younger and more insecure, I did worry about what my students thought about me as a person, about whether they thought I was “cool”; my teaching suffered as a result. Blessedly, age and experience and transformation has changed all that.

I love that my work is a “one-way street”. Because I get my needs met elsewhere, I don’t need to bring my neediness into the office, into the classroom. I am here for my students, they are not here for me; my sense of self is grounded in my relationship with Christ, in my amazing marriage, in my family and friends and my sense that I am climbing a mountain God wants me to climb.

Workaholism and posts deferred

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 29, 2007
in Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 10 Comments

I’ve got a couple of serious posts floating in my head, and no time to write them. I want to make a gently feminist/Christian case that we are right to be more upset by porn than by violence on TV. And I had a great run with a friend of mine a week ago, one that turned into a meditation not only on masculinity and ageing but also nationalism, the appeal of “country” versus “club” soccer, and the benefits of living in a place where your family has no roots, no ties, no history. Two long reflections, frankly, that I ache to write.

But no time again today. I learned last week that I teach more classes than any of my colleagues in the entire social sciences division, and more than virtually anyone else in the whole college. For the second straight year, I will teach 20 classes: seven each semester, three each intersession. No one else in my division exceeds 18, and few exceed 15.

Some might say I have an addictive relationship to work. How that jives with my spiritual commitments and my longing to rethink masculinity, I have no idea.

I’ll make time tomorrow. Promise.

Too many in college? A muddled reflection

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 26, 2007
in Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 26 Comments

I’ve been meaning to blog about this fascinating Charles Murray piece from the WSJ last week: What’s Wrong With Vocational School? Too many Americans are going to college. (H/T; Rudy Carrasco). Murray starts off in fine incendiary fashion:

To have an IQ of 100 means that a tough high-school course pushes you about as far as your academic talents will take you. If you are average in math ability, you may struggle with algebra and probably fail a calculus course. If you are average in verbal skills, you often misinterpret complex text and make errors in logic.

These are not devastating shortcomings. You are smart enough to engage in any of hundreds of occupations. You can acquire more knowledge if it is presented in a format commensurate with your intellectual skills. But a genuine college education in the arts and sciences begins where your skills leave off.

Hoo boy. (Bold is mine). That sure got my attention. As a community college instructor, I teach courses in the humanities and the social sciences to a broad cross-section of students. Most of whom, I’d venture to guess, are of average intelligence. Some are clearly below, and a precious few are spectacularly above. I don’t administer the Stanford-Binet test, mind you, but I assign written work in all my classes.

One thing teaching has taught me: I can spot the differences that distinguish a bright but lazy student; a dim but hard-working student; and a bright but poorly prepared student in a heartbeat. All three might write flawed papers, but the flaws are distinctly different. (Those who are both dim and lazy usually drop my class before papers are due.) And of course, the bulk of my students are not particularly bright nor particularly dim, they are not hopelessly lazy nor obsessively committed to their work. They want to get by, they want to muddle through, and they have aspirations of ascending into the middle class. They’ve been told college is the gateway to prosperity, and thus they come to study biology and history, psychology and literature. The number of them who will be able to apply what they learn directly to their future professions is small.

Murray is spectacularly blunt in his 1950s-style love of IQ tests:

There is no magic point at which a genuine college-level education becomes an option, but anything below an IQ of 110 is problematic. If you want to do well, you should have an IQ of 115 or higher. Put another way, it makes sense for only about 15% of the population, 25% if one stretches it, to get a college education. And yet more than 45% of recent high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges. Adjust that percentage to account for high-school dropouts, and more than 40% of all persons in their late teens are trying to go to a four-year college–enough people to absorb everyone down through an IQ of 104.

Well, I can think of one excellent reason for 40% of young people to go to college: it keeps lots of faculty members employed! There aren’t enough exceptionally bright students to go around, and some of us have to teach the average ones.

But Murray’s point is about the lack of adequate vocational training. Many students graduate college with the skills to “think critically” but without many marketable job skills. Last time I checked, outside of academia itself there was precious little demand for those who could merely think and write clearly; specific skills (of the sort that are taught in vocational programs) can guarantee a healthy, middle-class income. As Murray points out, who knows an unemployed plumber? I know lots of unemployed folks with humanities B.A.s, M.A.s, and Ph.Ds.

I don’t teach to give my students job skills. I teach to make them more well-rounded, thoughtful citizens with an understanding of the past and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. I give them a narrative that helps explain how we’ve ended up here. But I do not pretend to them that mastering what I have to teach (and not all master it, of course, most just muddle) will lead to riches or even modest comfort. And though I like being employed, I am not at all sure that what I teach will be remotely useful to many of my students. But if I could teach them to fix a drain or build a wall or use a plumb line, I might be giving them something more useful.

I’ll confess it: I live for my above-average students, the ones who show sparkle and promise and enthusiasm, the ones whose essays reveal imagination and wit and insatiable curiosity. I like ‘em hungry, and I like trying to make them hungrier. But such students are never a majority; in some classes, I have but one or two or even none at all. But I cannot make a living only teaching those who want to be there. I cannot make a living teaching only those who will be able to apply what I teach. And so I do my best to cast the seeds I’ve got, knowing some will fall on fertile soil and some will fall into thorns and some will lie around on the rocks for a few days and be blown away by the wind.

Murray concludes:

Most students find college life to be lots of fun (apart from the boring classroom stuff), and that alone will keep the four-year institution overstocked for a long time. But, rightly understood, college is appropriate for a small minority of young adults–perhaps even a minority of the people who have IQs high enough that they could do college-level work if they wished. People who go to college are not better or worse people than anyone else; they are merely different in certain interests and abilities. That is the way college should be seen.

My head tells me he’s right. But my heart tells me that the furniture makers and the dental assistants and the insurance adjusters and the mechanics and the dope dealers will all be better for knowing about the causes of the Peloponnesian War and the impact of Paul Poiret’s sheath dress on 20th century fashion. And since my livelihood hinges on that belief, it’s one I will cling to.

Another long ‘un on pre-marital sex, faith, and the role of the Christian mentor

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 25, 2007
in Faith, Pasadena City College, Sexual ethics and transformation, Sexuality, Teaching and Youth
. 49 Comments

My student Sarah has a new blog.

With her permission, I’m linking to a post Sarah wrote yesterday; she describes her longing to be able to tell her parents that she has become sexually active. Sarah first became my student a year ago, and was defiantly anti-feminist. She’s been on quite a journey since then, and though I may have played a part in pushing her along, her own hunger to grow and her relationship with God have been the primary catalysts for her transformation.

Sarah, like so many teens who embraced a conservative Christian ethos, took a “purity pledge” a few years back, promising to remain abstinent until marriage. As the research indicates, a healthy percentage of young people who “take the pledge” end up breaking it. Many do so impulsively, often unsafely; studies have shown that teens who did take abstinence pledges are less likely to use contraception when they do have sex than those who are sexually active without ever having made such a promise. Sarah and her boyfriend (whom I also know well) prayed about their decision. Sarah did a lot of writing, and she visited me several times in office hours so that we could talk about the theological, spiritual, physical, and emotional ramifications of both chastity and pre-marital sex.

My insistence that a reverence for Scripture and a vibrant evangelical faith can be congruent with sex outside of marriage troubles many. I’m aware that this stance flies in the face of much church tradition. But tradition is only one of four tools we use to discern the right path to take: Scripture is one, Reason another, and Experience a fourth. (The old Wesleyan quad.) And reading the New Testament, it’s clear that “sexual immorality” is prohibited — but what exactly constitutes that immorality is very rarely specified. There is not a jot or tittle in the Gospel or the Epistles that says: intercourse before marriage between two otherwise devoted partners is contrary to the will of God. We have prohibitions on adultery and divorce in Matthew 5, but those are very different sins from relations between two people who are not covenanted with others. Adultery and divorce are sins in which explicit promises to another person are abrogated. Premarital sex doesn’t involve abrogating the same sort of covenant.

Where Scripture is silent or vague, then we rely on tradition, reason, and experience. Tradition tells us that marriage is a constantly shifting institution; weddings were not held in churches or even necessarily sanctioned by the church for more than a millenia of Christian history. What is now a sacrament was not always so. Reason and experience tell us that marital sex can be abusive; the same tools tell us that sex outside of marriage can be joyous, mutual, and respectful.

As one of the relatively few openly Christian professors on a state campus, I take seriously my task to separate my faith from the content of what I teach. By the same token, I know that I have an obligation to give wise and prayerful counsel to those Christian students who do seek me out for spiritual as well as academic advice. I always remind these students that my views on some matters are at odds with certain strands of evangelical orthodoxy, and I urge them to seek out pastors and parents as well. But I do think Christian professors have a role to play in mentoring Christian students: my model here is the wonderful J. Budziszewski, who has written many fine things on natural law and whose “Office Hours” column is very popular with the Focus on the Family crowd. He and I don’t agree on much, but we do agree that Christian professors on a secular campus have a vital role to play in helping to shape the spiritual development of their Christian students.

Let me make it explicitly clear: I don’t tell my Christian students “Have sex.” I don’t dismiss the traditional conservative arguments about sex and marriage lightly. But I do pray with my students who come to visit; I do wrestle through Scripture with them, and I do share a variety of perspectives with them. I make it clear that choosing to wait is a viable option, worthy of celebration; I make it clear that choosing not to wait can in some instances be an equally wise decision. And I suggest that for many, an “everything but” approach may indeed be the best way of holding in tension a desire to both honor the mystery of waiting until marriage and the very real longings of the moment.

As a professor, youth leader, and former advisor to Campus Crusade for Christ, I’ve met with many students like Sarah over the years. Some are women and men who have taken purity pledges and are reconsidering them. Others have been sexually active and are filled with shame; others have had sex and wondering why they aren’t overwhelmed with guilt. Some are looking for me to buttress the idea that they should wait; some are clearly hoping a Christian authority figure will give them permission to do what they want to do anyway. I don’t let any of ‘em off easy. My job is to pray with them, reason with them, point to relevant passages of Scripture. My job is to listen to doubts and longings and fears.

And as I’ve said before, my job is to see that not every one of God’s beautiful children is the same. As I said to the All Saints kids, when I look at them I see them as precious individuals with different needs, different histories, different desires. And to slap a “one size fits all” recommedation on them, even on a subject as powerfully important as sex, seems to me to ignore the extraordinary emotional, spiritual, and psychological diversity I see in these young people. That’s my experience as a professor and a youth pastor, and it’s what I defend publicly and privately.

Sarah still hasn’t told her parents about becoming sexually active. And one sentence she writes stands out to me, and I commend it in particular to my Christian friends who are parents:

What I wish, though, more than anything, is a chance to tell them why I made the decision I did.

Sarah is scared. Yes, it is partly her job to work through her fear and tell her parents the truth. But it is also the job of parents to create a dynamic in which that truth can be shared easily. The more rigid our rules, the more definite our certainties, the less comfortable many of our precious young ones will feel coming to us to share that they have chosen a different path than the one we planned for them.

You know, I could be wrong. It is possible that I am missing something. It is possible that I am misrepresenting the Gospel, arguing for a freedom that isn’t really there. I fret about that, and I pray about that, and I talk to those who are wiser and older than I about that. But this stance wasn’t arrived at lightly, and with what I hope is the right degree of humility, it is the stance I share with the lambs I am privileged to help feed.

Duplicating woes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 8, 2007
in Pasadena City College
. 6 Comments

I’m still jet-lagged, and woke up at 4:30AM. It’s a good thing I got up so early, as it meant I came to work in time to discover that the duplicating office had not produced my syllabi for the winter intersession, which starts today. So I type from the departmental office, sitting next to a huge copying machine which is taking forever to warm up, in the hopes that my syllabi will be done for my first class at 8:00AM.

I’ve got my usual three intersession classes, all full already. As always on the first day of school, my stomach is filled with the proverbial fluttering of butterfly wings. May it always be so.

A reflection on end-of-the-semester gifts

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 19, 2006
in Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 17 Comments

The LA Times has an article this morning on teachers and student gifts.

Finding the perfect gift to express the holiday spirit is never easy, but students and their parents have been known to bestow on favorite teachers tokens both weird and lavish.

They have included the practical — homemade bread, body lotions and pricey gift certificates; the eclectic — handmade noodles from a father who owns a noodle factory and custom-made CDs recorded at one family’s home; and the plain eccentric — a ceramic urn engraved with the phrase “teacher’s ashes.”

As teachers receive their umpteenth coffee mug imprinted with a red-suited Santa, colored Hanukkah candles and other mementos of the season’s festivities, many say a heartfelt note of thanks is what’s most treasured.

Well, I won’t argue with that last sentiment. When I was in elementary school, I regularly gave my teachers a small Christmas gift. (And like most folks, I can name all of my early teachers, from kindergarten through fifth grade.) As I recall, the practice became much less common in junior high and high school, but some favorite teachers still got small presents. Of course, once I was at university, the practice stopped almost entirely. I never knew anyone at Cal who gave a professor a gift; it was occasionally, if rarely, done for TAs. And though I TAed for seven quarters in graduate school, I only got one or two small gifts. (The biggest was a bag of ground coffee.)

But since coming to Pasadena City College, I’ve found that gifts for teachers are much more common. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so much more widespread a practice at the community college than it was in either my high school or university experience. But I’m in my fourteenth year of teaching here, and if I were to collect all the gifts I’ve ever been given in one place, I’d have quite a pile.

In the last five years, the most common and most appreciated gift is the Starbucks gift card. The amounts on the card range from $5-$20, never more. My students are well aware that I consume caffeine in extraordinary proportions, and I am grateful that some are willing to support my addiction. But before the coming of gift cards, I got a wider variety of gifts. Only a small few were clearly inappropriate.

The rule at the College is that gifts of nominal value may be accepted as long as they are not factored into evaluation. Any gift large enough to be considered a bribe should be rejected. I can think of only one or two that fell into that category. Years ago, I had a student whose father was a jeweler. The son wore what seemed to be a Rolex, and once asked me if I liked it. I told him, offhand, that it was a very fine watch. Not long thereafter, he showed up in my office hours and offered it to me. He was a borderline student who seemed frustrated that an A wasn’t coming easily to him, but he made no explicit connection between the Rolex (which may well have been faux) and his grade. The implication seemed clear enough to me, and I politely told him I couldn’t accept it. He seemed to think that this was a rejection of the brand, not of a sizeable gift, and listed for me other pricey watches he could give instead. I told him “You’re very sweet to offer such a lovely gift, but I am afraid I can’t accept anything of significant value.” He seemed somewhat disappointed, but didn’t try again; he left the class with the B he earned.

The most memorable gifts have been anonymous. In my History 1A course, I spend some time every semester going over the story of the Trojan War and the judgment of Paris. As students of mythology know, Paris is given the golden apple of discord; inscribed with the words “For the Fairest”, it is to be given to one of three goddesses. The students may forget some of the details of the Athenian city-state, but they always remember the myths. And about ten years ago, at the end of one semester, I found a stunningly heavy, gorgeous, solid crystal apple in my box at school. It was elegantly wrapped, and it had been engraved “For Hugo, the Fairest Teacher.” It was obviously more expensive than what I ought normally have accepted, but it was given anonymously. I still have the apple today, and still don’t know who gave it to me.

And yes, when I was younger and single, I was (very occasionally) offered a different kind of gift. It was only blatantly proferred a couple of times; at least once it was heartbreaking. One young woman, a single mother who had missed a substantial amount of class and was in danger of failing the course, came to my office in tears. She offered to go to a motel room with me and do anything I wanted. The offer was brazen, but she made it with trembling lips and teary eyes. I gave her a tissue, told her I would issue her an incomplete that would allow her to make the work up the following semester, and recommended she see a counselor. It was a rather shattering moment for both of us.

I don’t expect gifts from my students. If they’ve appreciated the course, I do enjoy hearing about it from them. A sincere thank-you, given after the grades have been turned in, is always welcome. It does mean something to me to know that I am having an impact, that my work is meaningful. I am so grateful to do what I do — and to be paid to do what I would honestly do for free. That’s my great good fortune, and I need no gift to remind me of how blessed I am. But the cards and the notes are always welcome.

“Sometimes students need a Daddy”: a note on teaching abroad, and learning a good lesson about boundaries

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 11, 2006
in Age, Pasadena City College, Teaching and Traveling
. 7 Comments

In last Wednesday’s post about the virtues of studying abroad, I mentioned my own experiences as a professor and co-director of Pasadena City College’s Florence semester program in the autumn of 2000. In passing, I noted that we had a serious incident take place in which one of our students was very nearly killed in a fall from a sixth-floor balcony. He remains a pariplegic six years later, and the litigation surrounding the tragedy was only recently resolved.

For a variety of reasons (not the least of which is the continued possibility of litigation), I can’t discuss the fall and its aftermath in too much detail. I can say that the young man who fell so far and was hurt so badly was a bright, popular, athletic, hard-working student who had made many friends among his fellow Pasadenans in Florence. I can also say that the incident taught me a lot about college-age folks, and about the responsibility of someone who is leading a study abroad program.

With a few exceptions, most of our 45 students on the semester-long trip to Florence were of traditional age; almost all were between 18-21. They were all legal adults, if barely so. And before leaving on the trip, my co-director (a fellow PCC prof in the sciences) and I made it clear that we had no intention of acting as chaperones. If these students had been underage, we would have had a host of legal and moral responsibilities; given that they were old enough to sign contracts (and drink alcohol under Italian law), we figured that we were in no way in loco parentis. We saw our role as guides; we led tours of the city and gave lectures. We saw our role as friendly mentors, and were both more than willing to lend an ear to those who were homesick or quarreling with their roommates. But for the most part, we tried to treat our students as “junior scholars and peers”.

My co-director and I often went out to dinner with groups of students. We joined them for dancing. I formed a small running club, and we went running in and around the Cascine four or five mornings a week. A couple of students even came along when I got what turned out to be my last tattoo, from the renowned Giulio Tommaselli in the Via Della Mosca. (One gal even got her first ink there, so inspired was she.) In other words, I felt very much as if the students and I were good friends. I was 33 at the time, a dozen to fifteen years older, not yet old enough to be seen as a father figure. I thought of myself as a knowledgeable older brother, and it seemed a good arrangement.

And then came Rocky’s fall in mid-October. I was awakened by a phone call early on a Saturday morning from a frantic student; she was calling from the hospital where Rocky was in surgery and fighting for his life. I threw on some clothes, called a taxi, and was at the ER within twenty minutes.

And what I learned over the next few days changed my teaching forever. About eight students had been partying with Rocky at the time of his fall. When I reached the hospital, they were ashen, weeping, bewildered. And what struck me, in this moment of crisis, was that they all looked so very, very young. It was as if the shock and fear of the incident had caused them all to regress to early adolescence. They clung to me, clearly expecting that no matter what, I would do something to make things better.

I called my co-director, and she came to the hospital as fast as she could. I made the awful phone call home to California, waking the young man’s grandparents up from a sound sleep with the news that their grandson was fighting for his life. (The doctors gave him a 10% chance of survival). And once we knew that there was nothing more we could do for Rocky, we took the kids off for breakfast. They huddled together, weeping, but after protesting that they weren’t hungry, they all wolfed down huge amounts of food.

Over the next day, as word of the accident spread through our little community in Florence, the students gathered in apartments to pray and to talk and to wait for news. And again and again, I was struck by how small, fragile, and young they all seemed! I could feel that though they were only a dozen years my junior, they desperately needed me to be the competent, reliable grown-up. They needed a Daddy figure, most of them, because they needed to fall apart. And though they were brave and very good to each other, it was still evident to me that they weren’t all fully adult. They were in that strange transition time that is college, so full of maturity and sophistication on the one hand and so terribly fragile and uncertain on the other. Thousands of miles from home, away from their families, facing the possible death of a companion and a friend, that fragility became abundantly evident.

We made sure the kids ate. We gave them time to talk. We talked to their worried parents for them. We bought them coffee, and, I’m not ashamed to say, we bought them cigarettes. (For those who were already smokers, I figured now was the time to use abundant quantities of nicotine. I smoked more in the week after Rocky’s accident than in any other seven-day period in my life.) My co-director and I went from “older buddies” to “Mom and Dad” overnight.

Rocky’s family flew over. Rocky survived, and the student insurance company footed the astronomical bill for a private air ambulance to carry him and his family from Italy back to Los Angeles. We finished up the semester, and in the final few weeks we had in Florence, we got back to partying and dancing and going out together. But I was more careful to keep strict boundaries in place with my students. The gap between 33 and 18 was wider now, and the distinction between peer and professor was infinitely clearer to me. Frankly, one of the great silver linings of this tragedy was, I suppose, that it taught me not to confuse legal and physical adulthood with genuine maturity; it taught me to better honor my role as a mentor and a professor. And it taught me that in a time of crisis, I am well-suited to the role of Daddy, when I’m surrounded by folks who suddenly need a father figure on whom they can rely.

Yikes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 10, 2006
in Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 2 Comments

I can’t keep up. I just checked my email, and I have 46 emails from as many students in the past 24 hours. For some reason, the number of students who email me keeps rising each semester. If I take a while to respond, you know why!

I’ve written on this subject before.

A note on studying abroad

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 6, 2006
in Pasadena City College, Teaching and Traveling
. 13 Comments

I’ve had several students come to see me this year, asking whether or not I think it’s a good idea for them to participate in the college’s Study Abroad programs. For years, we’ve offered a fall semester program in Florence and a spring semester in Oxford; both have proved wildly popular. The three-month semesters aren’t cheap ($7-8,000), but financial aid (at least in terms of loans) can offset much of the cost.

I always tell the students that it’s worth it. I taught one semester in our Florence, Italy, program. It was the fall of 2000, and another Pasadena City College instructor and I took 45 students off for three months. The two of us taught the main courses of the program, and the students also took Italian language classes. They lived with roommates in apartments scattered across the city, and in general, they had a marvelous, life-altering time.

Several of the kids who went with me to Italy had never been on a plane before; nearly three-quarters had never left North America. Though they all suffered from temporary culture shock, for the most part they blossomed in the radically different environment. Many had never lived away from home, and merely having the chance to escape the watchful eyes of overprotective parents was liberation enough — being able to live out that escape in Europe was even better.

Of course, there were problems. Many of our students, most of whom were under 21, struggled to adjust to a culture where they were allowed to drink at 18. We had a few cases of alcohol poisoning, and one dreadful incident where one of our lads fell from a sixth-floor balcony while drunk and high. He nearly died, and ended up paralyzed. That was a horrible experience for all concerned. I did a lot of comforting and a lot of telephoning, and a lot of smoking (Gauloises, natch); the worst part was phoning the young man’s family back here in California to let them know that their son was in critical condition with major organ failure and a crushed spine. If I never have to make a phone call like that again, I’ll be happy!

Tragedies aside, it was a tremendously succesful trip. My students grew intellectually, emotionally, and culturally; they became more tolerant and less rigid. They ate better, they slept later, they read more, they walked more, they pushed themselves out of their cocoons. It was a wonderful thing for them.

If it were feasible, I’d love to see all of my students spend at least a semester, if not a year, in a foreign country. For my students reading this, if you’re considering borrowing the money in order to go to England or Italy, let me urge you to do whatever you can, within reason, to make this happen for you. You will not regret it.

Eventually, I’ll teach abroad again. Married to a woman who has an insatiable travel bug, I spend plenty of time abroad these days. (And we have chinnies to worry about). But there’s a difference between living out of hotels and living in an apartment for a few months. Perhaps when we have children old enough to appreciate the experience, we’ll take them.

“Narratives of suffering overcome”: admissions essays and a lamentable trend

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 27, 2006
in Ethnicity, Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 36 Comments

It’s a frantic week around these parts. The deadline for applications to all University of California campuses is November 30, and I have a great many students who are desperately finishing up their personal essays. UC doesn’t ask for letters of recommendation or examples of scholarly papers; the only thing they want — besides grades and test scores — are a series of personal essays.

It’s been a decade since California did away with affirmative action by passing Proposition 209. Race can no longer be considered as a factor in admissions to public universities, a change that seems to have led to declining black and Latino enrollment at the most prestigious schools (Berkeley and UCLA). What the end of affirmative action has meant, of course, is a huge rise in the significance of the personal essay. While a student’s ethnicity is no longer automatically factored into an admissions decision, a student is free to mention their racial background in their essay. And judging from the large number of essays I see (I am often asked to help craft admissions essays), an exceptional number of my students do just that. The hope, apparently, is to make a legal, oblique appeal to “diversity.”

This is not a post about the wisdom or merits of affirmative action. But count me among those who has always considered class to be as important as race; I’m a fourth-generation Cal grad from an educated, prosperous family. I’m also white. Obviously, I didn’t need or deserve any affirmative action from the state; my culture and my class had already bequeathed to me more than I deserved. But I went to school with a kid whose parents were Spanish — pure Castillian — and wealthy as could be. He shamelessly (and accurately) checked the “Hispanic” box back in the affirmative action days; I also went to school with poor whites from the Central Valley. Descendants of “Okies” and “Arkies”, they shared my skin color but not much else. Race is often linked to class, but not inextricably.

In any event, I digress. My point is that far too many of my students insist on writing essays that I can only describe as “narratives of suffering.” About half of all the essays I see are blatant appeals for sympathy, usually based on a constellation of socio-economic, racial, and historical factors. Some of these essays are poorly written, but many are actually quite good. They all follow the same game plan: tell the reader about all the obstacles you’ve overcome. If your parents are immigrants, mention it. If one of your parents drinks, or is in prison, don’t hide it — wallow in it! If you moved around a lot, if you grew up surrounded by drugs or violence –share, share, share! It’s the modern version of the apocryphal story about “walking fourteen miles every day to school, in the snow, uphill both ways.” It’s shameless, it’s vulgar, it’s repetitive, it’s tiresome,and it seems to work.

I’ve been in the teaching game long enough to notice that these “narratives of suffering endured and transcended” have gotten much more common in recent years. I did notice a sharp uptick after the end of affirmative action in 1996, but it would be wrong to suggest that only ethnic minority students employ this technique today. Even the relatively small number of my students who come from what might be thought of as “privileged” backgrounds (white, middle-class families where college education is a multi-generational norm) have fallen prey to the seductions of competing in the “suffering Olympics.” If one’s family wasn’t disadvantaged economically, perhaps an inspiring tale of battling anorexia will suffice. (Indeed, the “let me tell you all about how I overcame my eating disorder strategy” is one I’ve now seen three times in the last few years. It suggests a trend.)

I can’t remember much about what I wrote in my college essays when I was a high school senior twenty-two years ago. (I applied to just two schools: Cal and Vassar.) I think I wrote mostly about my love of history. They weren’t very interesting essays, but I remember being told that the point was to convince an admissions committee that I could write well and that I had a certain amount of intellectual ambition. And though I was hardly underprivileged, I was a chubby, clumsy, unpopular teen who grew up as a child of divorce. By the time I was a senior in high school, my problems with alcohol and depression were already emerging. I am sure that had I wanted to, I could have crafted a serviceable sob story, demonstrating both my facility with the English language and my capacity to transcend my own special and important misfortunes.

So, my beloved students, I’ll be happy to read your essays before you pop them in the mail this Thursday. I want you to do well, and I hope you get in to the school of your choice. Write whatever you (and your counselor, who probably knows the admissions committees better than I) think best. But if you want my two cents, talk about your accomplishments, your goals, and your dreams outside of the context of your own narrative of disadvantage and oppression. I’m all for sharing stories, mind you! But when appealing for admission to a selective university, consider that constructing a narrative that is obviously designed to elicit sympathy is, well, pretty poor show.

“Bless your lil’ right-wing heart”: loving me some young conservatives

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 14, 2006
in Pasadena City College, Politics and Teaching
. 56 Comments

A colleague of mine (a poli sci prof) and I were chatting in the hallway yesterday, talking about last week’s election.  She and I are both solid liberals, and we expressed our satisfaction and relief at the national and local results.  And then she said something interesting: "You know, as much as it pains me to admit it, some of my best and brightest students are the most politically conservative.  They often seem more articulate and passionate than the others."  I agreed that all things considered, my experience in recent years had been the same.

No, I’m not going to make the argument that the most intelligent and insightful of students are natural conservatives.  Rather, I’m convinced that most young people are, at heart, naturally rebellious against authority.   Though Pasadena was once a reliably Republican town, it is so no longer.  And I know full well that with a few exceptions, my colleagues on this campus are reliably and nearly uniformly left-wing.   Oh, there’s the odd Libertarian or two, and I have one colleague who still hasn’t outgrown his fascination with Ayn Rand.  (This is a sign, mind you, of developmental disability.  When you’re 19, you are permitted to find the Fountainhead inspiring and brilliant.  If you still find it so when you’re 39, instead of seeing it correctly as turgid, overwrought garbage, then you are experiencing some form of mild intellectual retardation.)  Many of my senior colleagues are veterans of the civil rights or "brown power" movements.   We sit around sometimes and swap stories of various protests we’ve been involved in over the years.  I know of only one tenured member of my department who voted for Bush in ‘04; he was not only outnumbered by the Kerry voters but by the Nader voters as well.

Bottom line: it’s tough to rebel on this campus by moving to the left.  On the other hand, "coming out" as a young conservative allows you the wonderful thrill of tweaking the noses of your elders, a temptation that many of the young find difficult to exist.    In my childhood, lefties drove around with bumper stickers that said "Question Authority."  Well, their children and grandchildren are doing just that — except that in order to do so in a truly satisfying way, they’ve got to challenge their mostly left-wing teachers and professors.  Not for one second will I concede the intellectual superiority of conservative ideas or values; I merely acknowledge that on campuses like my own, it’s "more fun" to be a young Republican thanks to the cachet of counter-cultural rebelliousness that it carries.  Trust me, I’m not going to spoil the fun for these lil’ right-wing whipper-snappers; if they like, I’ll happily play the liberal foil for them.

Of course, there’s another kind of student whom I often see drawn to conservatism.   Often, these are kids who come from turbulent and impoverished backgrounds.  Stereotypically, they "ought" to be reliable Democrats (if they have any politics at all.)  But many of these kids become infatuated with the Republican gospel of stern self-reliance and the "up by your bootstraps" mentality.  They see family members and friends who seem stuck in poverty, and they have come to believe that that poverty is less a result of racism or social structures and more a consequence of poor personal choices.   Filled with ambition and eager to transcend their class, these boys and girls see themselves as "exceptions to the rule."  Many of them, frankly, are also filled with a strange mix of hunger and anger: the hunger is to succeed, the anger is at those around them who have not taken advantage of what these kids believe are myriad opportunities for self-improvement.

These young conservatives aren’t just rebelling.  Rather, what appeals to them about conservatism is the notion that people ought not to be insulated from the consequences of poor behavior.  (Pace, my fellow liberals, we all know damn well organized Republicanism inoculates the wealthy from that very thing.)   While conventional liberal ideas encourage them to see culture through the lens of race and class, conservative thinking encourages them to see themselves as bold individuals bravely pursuing their private destinies.  Thus, in an odd way, conservatism can become an expression of hostility towards their own race and class. Sometimes, I’m convinced these young folks are saying to their families:

We’re not poor because we’re black/Latino/what-have-you, we’re poor because you  (mom, dad, etc.) made bad decisions.  Well, I’m going to show you!  I’m going to make something of myself, not merely to make you proud but also to show you that I am different from you and not defined by the same things that you allowed yourself to be defined by!

Seeing poverty and despair as the result of individual decisions rather than as the result of massive social forces allows the young conservative from a poor background to create an immensely flattering personal narrative: in his or her own mind, he or she becomes the "special one", clever and brave and ambitious enough to transcend the self-created, self-reinforced adversity that grips everyone else in the family and culture.  While there may be some small grains of truth in this worldview, the insistence that most suffering is self-imposed and the consequence of bad decision-making is a convenient excuse to avoid the obligation to be profoundly compassionate.

Do I think we pick our politics primarily for psychological reasons?  For the most part, yes, though I’m not enough of a reductionist to insist that’s the only reason.   My liberalism comes partly from my mother, partly from my own life experience.  On one level, it comes from a reflexive desire not to have my private behavior scrutinized and judged. On another level, it may indeed be rooted in a sense of "white guilt".  Those who have ought to share with those who don’t, and I still believe that government is best prepared to serve as the primary instrument through which that sharing takes place.  And of course, I’m desperately eager to protect the environment and to protect animal life, but those are not high priorities in either of the major parties.

Bottom line: I love me my young conservatives.  One of my best students this semester wore a "Tommy Girl" t-shirt to class on election day; she loves ultra-right-wing politician Tom McClintock, who narrowly lost the Lt. Governor’s battle last week.  For her, conservatism is about creating the ideal mix of freedom and responsibility; she sees it as the best vehicle for achieving her dreams.  And she loves tweaking her fellow students (generally either apathetic or left-wing) and her liberal professors.  She comes to argue with me a lot.   I’m an indulgent old guy; rather than quarrel or allow myself to be provoked, I listen to her seriously, challenge her from time to time, but in the end, I always finish with a warm "Bless your heart.  You’re right where you oughta be."  And that’s what I generally say to my earnest, passionate, young right-wingers. 

Just get your papers in on time, kids.

Another note on RMP

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 2, 2006
in Body, Pasadena City College, Ratemyprofessors and Teaching
. 4 Comments

Scott Jaschik, the editor of the splendid Inside Higher Ed, called me up yesterday to chat about the latest Ratemyprofessors wrinkle: photos.  His article appears this morning, and begins:

There’s a new reason to worry about students with cell phones in your classes. RateMyProfessors.com, the Web site whose popularity with students is matched by the grief it gives professors, has launched a new feature, encouraging students to shoot photographs of their faculty members and to post them along with the anonymous ratings of professors.

Think RateMyProfessors is going to ask your permission to post a photograph that you may not even know was taken (camera phones are being recommended to students)? Of course not, although RateMyProfessor asserts that it has other quality control mechanisms in place.

In the 48 hours since RateMyProfessors posted information about this new service on its site, it has received more than 1,200 photographs of professors and it is in the process of reviewing and uploading them.

Well, my students know that using their cell phone in class to take pictures, text-message, or talk to friends will result in their names being stricken from the Lamb’s Book of Life. I have connections, you know!  Still, I am sure someone could snap my pic surreptitiously.  I do note that someone has already uploaded a picture for me on RMP — they simply took the photo from this blog, which I don’t mind.  But some of my pictures need to be seen in a certain context! 

Jaschik kindly quotes me at length:

Hugo Schwyzer might seem like just the kind of professor who would like RateMyProfessors. A historian at Pasadena City College, he’s on the hottest list, has great ratings on RateMyProfessors, and has no hesitation about sharing life details or photographs — along with his philosophy and ruminations — online, at his blog.

Indeed Schwyzer said that he had high hopes for RateMyProfessors and thought it might provide a good source of anonymous feedback for him so he could improve his teaching. But he said that by asking students to send in photographs of professors, without a system to check first on whether the photos were taken with permission, it was clear that “the primary function is to humiliate.”

Schwyzer said he’s seen “the speciousness of the whole system” in recent weeks. He offended some men’s rights activists on his blog, and they responded by posting numerous critical comments on RateMyProfessors to bring down his scores. While some of those comments have been removed, Schwyzer said he witnessed “a remarkably detailed discussion of my appearance.”

To the extent RateMyProfessors could have served a valuable purpose, he said, it would have been about teaching and classroom performance. The non-scientific approach to those subjects and the increasing emphasis on physical appearance take away that potential, he added. By going with the photo feature, Schwyzer said, RateMyProfessors “loses whatever shreds of legitimacy it had.”

PCC in the news

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 31, 2006
in Pasadena City College and Politics
. 6 Comments

Not that I care all that much, but folks, let’s be clear that Senator Kerry’s now infamous remark about education and Iraq on Monday was made right here at Pasadena City College.  No, I wasn’t in attendance at the rally that featured Kerry, Antonio Villaraigosa, and Phil Angelides; I was giving a lecture on the Roman gods and the role of paranoia in the expansion of the Republic at the time, and that struck me as far more worthwhile for my students.

If Kerry’s remark ends up hurting Democratic chances of retaking Congress, I will be one disgruntled Pasadena City College Lancer.

I don’t blog Iraq or national politics.  But those of you who do, and want to talk about Kerry’s words on Monday, make sure you mention Pasadena City College.  The darned New York Times just talked about a "California college", and that was disappointing.  But a quick check of Google news shows at least some of the coverage of this minor tempest does include a specific reference to PCC.

“Hugo hasn’t clued in yet”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 24, 2006
in GLBTQ, Pasadena City College and Vanity
. 12 Comments

Since I posted about gay youth this morning…

After my 10:25AM class this morning, I was walking back to my office and ran into one of my colleagues, a popular and handsome professor about my age.  He and I were dressed similarly today; and we greeted each other briefly.  My  colleague is publicly out as a gay man.  As we separated, I heard an older student say to another, apparently referring to us, "Yeah, both of them are, but only one of them knows it.  Hugo hasn’t clued in yet."