For families about to spend big bucks or incur substantial debt for a
college education, a recent Gallup-Purdue University survey is food for
thought. Many of the graduates who participated say relationships with
their professors left them cold.
#
#
Among those who responded to the study of college graduates,
released yesterday, 63% said, “I had at least one professor at
[College] who made me excited about learning.” Far fewer (22%) said they
had a mentor in college who encouraged them to pursue their goals and
dreams.
Αs
the parent of a high school junior planning for the enormous expense of
college, I find these numbers extremely disappointing. Nor is any
amount of due diligence on visits to college campuses likely to answer the question of whether professors there will nurture or dash my son’s dreams.
I had a taste of both as a student at Barnard College. I went there
planning to major in English until my freshman English professor told me
flatly, “Unless you learn to vary your syntax, you will never be a good
writer. Every sentence looks the same.” I was crushed, decided not to
pursue a staff job on the student newspaper (something that greatly
enriched my life in high school), and settled on a major in political
science. It took nearly a decade for me to get back to my dream of
becoming a writer.
When I did it was at the urging of a far more supportive professor.
One summer, after practicing law for six years, I took a vacation from
my law job to attend an intensive one-week magazine writing course at
Columbia Journalism School. On the last day of that program, the
professor took me aside and said, “Why don’t you go to journalism school
and do what you love?” I hadn’t told him about my secret passion — he
could see it for himself.
I followed his advice. Changing careers has not only made me very happy — it may have also saved my life, as I wrote here.
Back in college, another professor, who was my mentor, had actually
discouraged me from going to law school, but I ignored his advice. He
cared deeply about his students as people — something that only 27% of
those in the recent Gallup survey experienced — taught me to take
nothing at face value and to dig for information (those were the
post-Watergate years). Perhaps most importantly, he was a feminist who
helped his female students believe in themselves and never give up on
goals that seemed like long shots.
I tell my son that if you have one great teacher at any school you
attend, you’re ahead of the game. He’s been fortunate in this respect,
as a student in the New York City public schools, to have one of those
life-changing teachers in elementary school, middle school and now high
school. Let’s hope he is so lucky during the highly
impressionable college years. With all that money on the line, we will
be playing for much higher stakes
#Source:
Teachers Who Change Lives
5/06/2014 @ 2:46μμ
#
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου