HI! Been a while, eh?
I couldn’t do it, guys. I couldn’t write about the damn virus. I couldn’t write about politics. I couldn’t make myself sit down and produce something worth posting. I’ve been writing. But I’ve been keeping my thoughts to myself for the most part. But, suddenly I’ve got something to say that you’re not going to hear on your favorite news channel.
Now….this post is going to start off sounding like I’m bitching. I’m not. This is a public service announcement for the most part. More importantly…considering the average age of my blog reader…this is a PSA that will benefit your kids or grandkids more than it will you.
So….I started going back to school in 2013. I went year around…through all the summer semesters and mid-term semesters. I finished up with my BA from Marshall in December of 2015. Once I moved up here I decided to go back to school at the local community college and pursue four Certificates in Appalachian Cultures (Literature, Science, Social Science, and Communications) I finished all four of those and used up the last of my GI Bill just taking history, literature and communications courses that interested me. All of my Marshall classes were online courses and two-thirds of my CC classes were online.
For the most part, I’ve been ass deep in collegiate level academics for most of the last seven years at either a University or a Community College. To say the least…I’m not impressed. Truth be told, I’m a little disheartened.
Okay, so….yeah…I ran into quite a few politically uber-liberal professors. But truth be told, they really didn’t do anything to try to sway my opinion. Most of them just spoke their piece…exercised their rights….and for the most part, they really liked it when I argued with them about one thing or another. But this post isn’t about the politics on college campuses.
If you went to high school in the 80’s and have decided that you’d like to go get your degree after a couple decades away from the classroom…by all means…go do that. I’m telling you right now, your high school teachers in 1985 taught you better and demanded more of you than any professor you’ll run into on a college campus today. If you sat in English class with me in high school, your grammar is better than most of the professors you’ll encounter. You may be the oldest “kid” in the class, but damned if you’re not the best educated. I could go on a 200 page rant about the product that the K-12 system is pouring into society these days….but this post isn’t about K-12 failures either.
Alright….so, what burnt my ass most of all as I was working through these classes were the exams and quizzes in the “online” courses. I’m sure there was one or two….but damned if one comes to mind….so I’m going to say “EVERY”. Every test, quiz and exam I took in the online courses were incorrect….blatantly wrong in a lot of cases. Let me give you some examples:
Sometimes a question or two didn’t come from the material we’d covered:
As discussed in the chapter on Edgar Allen Poe, what was the slowest recorded reentry speed of the first space shuttle?
A) Raven
B) Fall of the House of Usher
C) Tell-tale Heart
D) 227 Km/H
Sometimes the question was good, but the correct answer wasn’t listed in the multiple choice options:
If you’re facing North and turn left what direction are you now facing?
A) Green
B) Turtle
C) X-Ray
D) Half the speed of terminal velocity
Sometimes there were two or more possible correct answers, but you were only allowed to choose one:
If you are lying on your back, which direction are you facing?
A) Up
B) Skyward
C) Toward the Heavens
D) Down
Okay….So the first couple times it happened, I laughed it off, wrote the professor an email and they corrected my scores accordingly. No harm, no foul…right?
As the frequency of these occurrences increased I started to get a little frustrated with having to take time out of my life to email an “Academic Professional” and tell them to un-screw their exam. Now….keep in mind….when I write these emails, I leave nothing to chance. I restate the questions, state the answer that I gave and the answer that the test said was correct….then I reference the book, chapter and page number to show where the pertinent information is located and write a statement explaining why my way of thinking is correct and your test is jacked up. If I have to do this for four or five questions, it becomes a lengthy email.
Initially, I assumed the professors would go in and correct their exam in the system and the problem would be solved. Remember…these are online courses, so you don’t really have contact or conversations with your fellow students. Then I had a student in one of my Appalachian Cultures classes take a class that I’d already taken and he was doing poorly in it. He said no matter how hard he studied, he just couldn’t break a “C” on the quizzes. When we pulled his exams up and looked at the quiz results, he’d missed the exact same questions I’d emailed the teacher about almost two years earlier….for the exact same reason I’d sent the emails. Apparently some of the professors are okay with letting their students suffer for their own laziness.
Okay….so…for everyone who hasn’t worried about a grade point average in a while…understand this. If you’re taking a twenty question quiz and there are five questions on it that resemble the examples I’ve written above, your grade is a 75% before you ever look at the first question. Miss one on your own and you’re now pulling “D” on that quiz. I’ve seen situations like this on more than one occasion and believe it or not, I’ve seen worse. I had to argue eight of fifteen questions on a quiz in a 400 level history course. I went from failing that quiz to acing that quiz….but it took me a six page email on top of taking the quiz to get there.
Now…I’m a 50+ year old irascible prick of a person. I like to argue. Hell, I love to argue when I know I’m in the right. But….how many 18 year old Freshmen in college do you think would dare to tell their professor that the quiz they just had to take was an absolute mess? If you guessed “very few”, I’d agree with you. Most that I knew were just glad to get the “C” out of the class.
The more I peeled the onion back on this issue the more it frustrated me. This goes way beyond the grade point average of the typical college student.
If you’re carrying a load of “C” grades and actually struggle in one class and pull a “D”, what’s the damage? Well, for starters, you have to maintain a 2.0 GPA to continue to receive financial aid. So these quizzes and exams could be unfairly pushing kids out of higher education by inadvertently cutting off their money.
At the community college level…..**sigh**….at the CC level, you meet a lot of students that struggled through high school due to no fault of their own. Shitty home life, poverty, crummy school system….pick your poison. You meet a lot of others who didn’t finish high school for some of the same reasons. You can almost pick them out of the crowds. Their posture is seemingly defeated. They almost look like they’re in over their heads from the first minute they walk through the door. They lack confidence, some lack social skills and regardless how intelligent they might be, they’ve been told that they’re academically challenged (a.k.a stupid) their whole life.
Put yourself in one of those kid’s shoes for a minute. You’ve decided that you’re going to better your life….you need an education to move forward with your plans. You convince yourself that you’re not as stupid as people have been telling you. You muster up the courage to enroll in school….you take out loans to afford the tuition. You just studied your ass off for the first quiz in what you know is one of the easiest classes you’ll take in college….we’ll call it “Breathing 101”. You sit down at your computer and take the first ten question quiz, and damned if you don’t know the answer to every question just as quick as you read it. You get to the bottom of the quiz, proud of yourself and feeling like you’ve successfully navigated the first step on the path to your future. You confidently click on the “Submit” icon….the screen flickers and shows you that you just got a 60% on a test that you were sure you aced.
How many kids have dropped out because those quizzes incorrectly reaffirmed the negative moniker they’ve been saddled with their whole life? How many have had to quit school because they lost their financial aid? Hell….how many parents refused to help the kids out because the grades weren’t what they expected? The scenarios are endless.
Now, I don’t want you guys to think I’m bitching just to bitch. I’ve brought this matter to the attention of both the University and the Community College. Every class evaluation I’ve ever given has reflected the issues on the exams in detail. I’ve sent very detailed emails to the administration of both institutions. I’ve even hit ‘em where their heart beats….I’ve gone as far as to point out that when a kid drops out of school or is denied financial aid that the learning institution LOSES MONEY. Still, I get no response.
Ya know….through all the course evaluations and all the emails over all the years…I’ve got not one response. Not one. At least the guilty professors had the decency to nervously laugh it off when I sent them emails about their exams. The administrations have never responded in any way, shape or form. I have friends who are currently professors…they’ve never mentioned to me that my email was read at a meeting or forwarded out for the faculty to reflect upon….they know my angst with this issue, but none of them have ever told me that the administration was taking measures to solve the problem.
Let me reiterate my statement from earlier in this post: I’m sure there was one or two….but damned if one comes to mind….so I’m going to say “EVERY”. Every test, quiz and exam I took in the online courses were just wrong. It’s 2020, ladies and gents….realize that with this whole social distancing atmosphere we’re in…well, a ton of typical classroom courses have been moved online.
With that thought in mind…I sat down to write this evening. If the learning institutions are not willing to take the steps to solve the problem, the students need to be aware to the problem. They need to know to look out for it, and they need to know that it’s okay to confront their professors. The only way they’re going to know that is if you tell them. The schools aren’t going to tell them, and they’re damn sure not going to listen to me. So, it’s up to you….if you choose to do so.