After a fantastic presentation by Michael Miller on Saturday one of my students came up to me very upset. Please understand that the UMass Boston student would be upset if I said the sky is blue so this shouldn't have surprised me. The student (we'll call her an angry, postmodern gal) felt "devalued" (the true term she used) because Michael's presentation ended about 2:40 and the whole workshop had 3 pm as an end time.
Never have I gotten complaints from students about ending early on a Saturday of training. She said she'd like to speak with me about this at another time. I think my calendar might just be booked from now until forever!
Devalued...unbelievable!
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3 comments:
1. You wrote this at 6:35am. You crazy girllll!
2. Post-modern girl...?
These kids wake me early, I tell you. They just sit in my mind and I now feel compelled to wake up and blog!
The post-modern reference was me trying to use all of the fun stuff I've learned in grad school. You wouldn't believe the garbage I now have floating in my brain!
Post modernists are critical of the system and believe the system has basically been set up by "the man" and is patriarchal. Those who aren't in the hierarchy are then marginalized and they can't get their views known, blah, blah, blah!
I fear that WE - people of the student affairs ilk (and I do mean ILK) have created such a focus on the importance and primacy of each and every individual student (through "mattering" and the like) that we have removed every shred of their objectivity. So, programs ending "early" somehow "devalue" someone's personhood. Or, upon arriving late and not being allowed into the halloween ghost chasers lecture because the venue has reached capacity, students "rights" are somehow being "violated" and they are not being "respected" and therefore deserve a "refund" of their student activity fee.
Really -- the best things we can do for today's student "post-modernists" or not is give them a chance to get PERSPECTIVE. Their helicopter parents, lord knows, have not. Nor have their previous teachers for that matter. So let's explore ways to increase students' PERSPECTIVE and decrease their at times SELF-FOCUSED, SELF-CENTERED nonsense!
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