Yes I know its final exam week. But half an hour, 10 minutes won't kill me. Especially now that I know that yes, I can get this out without swearing profusely. Also, I know a lot more now then I did last year. And there is the convenient fact that I don't have to be scared for my grades now. I'm actually kind of sorry I wasn't brave enough to bring this up before.
Dear Drew School,
I'm typing this out because think you seriously need to rethink your writing program, specifically Humanitas. Yes, I know that I'm first semester college student and that I'm not any kind of authority. But honestly, here is what I think:
I finished sophomore year at a different school with some semblance of confidence in my writing capacity. You work hard to improve, and you read in order to gain insight. Then I transferred to Drew. Nothing notable occurred my junior year, but senior year I took a class named Humanitas. First of all, I know every senior complains about this class, but right now I'm in college and I still think it has some major issues.
First of all, I hope this doesn't turn into a tirade against a certain teacher or the subject material. I actually was interested in philosophy when the class started, but quickly began to lose interest. The class discussions where a sham. How can you expect a student to go head to head with a teacher who is that intimidating? Its not just the volume or the french accent, but the way he throws his superior amounts of knowledge in your face. I felt that the entire time he was teaching, he was trying to instill us not only with knowledge, but with his own opinion. He doesn't lecture us, he yells in your face. Philosophy quickly became boring to me when I felt like I was just being lectured at. I don't mind lectures or memorization, otherwise I wouldn't have taken Cell Bio.
No, my problem is that within the first 5 or so classes, any ideas or arguments I brought up were immediately shut down. It was either insignificant, so insignificant that the teacher didn't even need to listen fully in order to deliver an irrelevant flood of words, or I was just plain wrong. I started hating Plato just because this teacher loved him. Plato was the authority on everything, and his one contradiction? Minor. It was just that philosopher kings were just that awesome. I learned to keep my mouth shut in class or risk being labeled as that person who always makes Mr. Cusin angry by talking about irrelevant stuff.
The way he delivered his lectures made me feel like I was wrong. It was a constant bombardment of knowledge tainted with the fact that my teacher, the innately superior one, was bestowing us with this knowledge that was inherently right. We were given a paper topic that he lectured us on so that we knew what to spit back at him.
Sadly, he doesn't even grade his own papers. If Cody hadn't been so patient with me, with the entire class, if it had been left up to Mr. Cusin to give the grades, I probably wouldn't have graduated high school. But this isn't about the grades. If I remember correctly I graduated with an A in Humanitas for the last term.
This is about writing. I've never been all that great with putting my ideas down into a concrete form, but I do try hard. I have problems with grammar and organization, but I don't think I'm a bad writer. This class I was required to take from high school made me feel like a bad writer. I was already insecure about writing even though I had worked writing skills for a long time. Taking this class, made me feel like I was stupid. Mr. Cusin constantly hammered the fact into out heads. We were stupid high school students who knew nothing. And here was the truth.
The paper topics we were meant to write on weren't bad at all. But the presentation was lacking to say the least. He more or less straight out told us what we were expected to spit back out for him. Because the TA (Cody) graded papers, this seems insignificant. Everyone turns their papers in, everyone gets an A. For me, taking a class isn't about getting the grade, its about learning and understanding. I feel like I wasted that entire year of class. If I hadn't been interested in philosophy, I would have forgotten all the material already. As it is, I didn't absorb nearly as much as I wish I had.
Whenever we were supposed to write papers for the class, I couldn't present material we learned in class without being torn between spitting out what Mr. Cusin dictated or writing about something while adding in my own critical remarks, which seemed to me to attack the teacher as a person because I did not agree. Most of what I wrote that year ended up being a very long brainstorming process with lots of ideas, no organization, and a vague thesis so that the entire thing could be squashed into a 5 paragraph essay.
A teacher is supposed to be inspiring and is supposed to be someone who wants you to learn. At the very least they should present the material to you clearly. This teacher did neither of these. I left the class feeling like writing was my weakest point and that I should avoid writing at all costs in college because I was inferior to this teacher. I wasn't one of the people he agreed with or whom he thought was intelligent.
Well the starting point for this thought was the research paper I got back. The point isn't that I got an A, its the commentary that the teacher wrote to me. She thought my ideas made sense, and the letter typed out on the end was helpful, it addressed strong and weak points of the paper and a response to my analysis. I put hard work into the paper, put my own thoughts in and didn't get shut down for being just a student.
So I think that despite the actions of Cody in Humanitas (he was patient, understand and most of all, thoughtful), Humanitas ended up being a class where students ended up not being treated with any degree of respect by the actual teacher. I had the impression that most of them brushed it off because as long as the grade looked good, then they could get into college and get away from high school.
On the first day of Humanitas we were told that this was a simulation of a college course. In regards to that, the amount of effort you put in, as long as your turned in paper, you got an A. That is false, almost hilariously so. Another thing is that all my teachers I've had here even if they are knowledgeable, they are willing to listen, to explain and even to learn from students. Most of all there is a feeling of respect. Students go to school, pay tuition and attend class in order to learn. If I wanted someone to tell me I was stupid, it would be an easy favor for me to ask of any of my siblings.
Its taken me over 7 months to realize how bad I really felt about writing and about my own intelligence after exiting that class for the last time. In reality, writing is probably the one thing I'm doing well in in college, thanks to other classes I've taken in the past that have reinforced good habits, not because of Humanitas. Looking back I did a lot of things wrong: I already knew how to write a decent paper, I didn't need to have a panic attack just because a teacher told me I couldn't and that I was stupid. I probably could have researched on my own and refuted all the points I disagreed with. But right now I'm doing the only thing I can, I'm putting down what I think.
I really don't think this class is going to change just because I had a hard time. At the same time I don't think it will change at all, or for the better unless someone speaks up. Sadly, the only time something changes is when parents of people who are taking the class get involved, and that only happens when the grades are bad. I don't really understand, but since when has it been okay to put down your students and the buy then off with an "A" for turning in their work?
Either way, I don't think I'm making a difference, but maybe I'm secretly hoping a specific teacher will read this and understand what I'm saying for once