One of the syndicated comic strips I try to catch is "F Minus" by Tony Carrillo. The characters are so deadpan in how they behave. The humor seems like an acquired taste. "F Minus" is a play on our traditional school grading system in America. It is a system designed to browbeat you into fear. Don't you all remember?
There does appear to be liberation now. Aren't you struck by the extended length of the school honor roll lists now? There is an impulse among many my age to shake our heads about this. We are the new grumps, following in the footsteps of our forebears who talked about how far they walked to school every day. Through blizzards etc. Which reminds me of one of the most famous "Guindon" cartoons of his Star Tribune era. It showed some bundled-up kids walking to school on a blustery, unpleasant winter day. The kids were walking to school "backwards" so as to avoid the stinging wind! Totally Minnesotan.
My generation grew up looking forward to any "snow day" when school might be canceled. The Morris radio station had a song queued up and ready for playing right after the "no school" announcement. The song began "that's what happiness is." Why such a grim tone for school in past times? I have come to realize that kids today do not have the same aversion to the classroom. They seem to look forward to many aspects of school.
Isn't it counter-intuitive to think that kids should "hate" school? Think of all the hours kids spend in school from age 6 through 17 or 18. And after that, there is a strong belief that kids ought to attend college to spend even more time sitting in desks, being submissive to teachers.
It is in our interest here in Morris to keep this model going because we have our University of Minnesota-Morris. I'm only speculating here, but I think UMM classes are not as "hard" as they once were. This is not to say they aren't rewarding and fulfilling in genuine ways. A retired UMM administrator told me that the school had an issue with too many courses where too many books were assigned to read. Speculating further, I think this is not an issue or problem now. I think our educational philosophy has evolved as reflected in those swelled honor roll lists in high school. We no longer crack the whips with kids in classes. We want them to be there and to feel idealism about being there.
Re. the very mode of learning
Books? Aren't they largely a vestigial part of the pre-digital times anyway? You can learn without plunging through endless pages of books. We are realizing that the book publishing business was rather a racket where material was padded for reasons of marketing the product. Have you noticed how much more effective the presentation is on Wikipedia? No padding. Cut to the chase and separate out the chaff, the padding. Wikipedia and the Internet in general gets from point A to point B efficiently which is just what consumers want.
We take for granted now that everything on the Internet is free. The attempts at monetization strike me as negligible and impotent - you can always find what you're looking for. It's quaint to think of the days when people often said "you can't trust the Internet." Going back to its very early times, it had a mysterious and swampy quality as conspiracy theorists learned the ropes quickly to get established there. Yes, quaint, because today the "meritocracy" which is a foundation of the Internet guides us quite effectively.
The book publishing industry and traditional authors who make money off books might still scream about how you can't replace their product. It's a fool's errand. I used to value "Book TV" (C-Span2) because of the lectures you'd find on so many topics of interest. But today, you can use search within YouTube and find a lecture, multiple lectures in fact, on any topic within seconds. Battle of Midway? There's a bonanza of information there. And as with Wikipedia, the information is in such a straightforward way, efficient and uncluttered without the pretense of your traditional "book." The notion that the Internet is somehow "lowbrow" is being dismissed every day. We want knowledge in a form where we can simply use it.
The books we remember from school seemed designed to bore us and rather torture us. This reflected school's purpose in getting us ready for the work world of the industrial age. That work world was going to be devoid of fun or enrichment in many ways. That work world was not going to allow you to feel good about yourself very often. That was the world that induced us into seeking escape on weekends by consuming alcohol.
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| Students at our beloved UMM campus, Morris MN |
Put bluntly, I don't think college is "hard" in the way it once was, not to say (at all) that college lacks value. We're just in a new world.
The traditional professors were guiding young people into a world defined by the industrial age. Businesses did not bestow self-esteem very much. Because people felt some de-humanization in the workplace, schools reflected that with the grading system that instilled fear.
The new lengthy honor roll list at our Morris public school shows we have liberated kids from the old model. I smile as I wonder: How were all the teachers coached by administration on profoundly adjusting their approach, facilitating the new emphasis on success and optimism as opposed to the opposite qualities (the qualities I once lived with)?
A reaction of denial, disbelief?
I suspect some of the old college teachers are incredulous, perhaps even defying some of the new directives. They were brainwashed by the notion that a certain percentage of young people in their classes had to get a disappointing grade. It was pre-ordained. My goodness, our history includes the "curve" grading system! A certain percentage of kids literally had to fail! Heavens. Maybe this is the way the old industrial age treated human beings. In our new age of entrepreneurship and opportunity, this is not our attitude at all.
As with all profound changes, I'm sure there are many teachers who cannot adjust adequately. Many will be paid off to retire or go out to pasture. We certainly are generous about this, more generous than people put on the scrap heap in the private sector, n'est-ce pas?
Personal memories
I remember when a couple of us were on the verge of failing a class in about the ninth grade - most likely it was algebra - and our parents were contacted about how we might be kicked off the play cast. I guess we got through, but what an unnecessary source of anxiety for our parents. My friend and I meant no harm to anyone. But school had a dreary air in which we were forced to flirt with failure often.
I received a nice red "F" grade - yes, rendered with a red pen lest it not be noticed - in the final grading period of my high school life from Gene Mechelke, from whom I was proud to get an "F" grade, but I feel bad because once again, I'm sure it distressed my parents. Let me state emphatically: it was far more important at age 17 to go out and show I could hold a job, any kind of job, and master life skills, than to do well in some totally irrelevant pretentious class offered by Mr. Blowhard.
Years later I would be told by Diane Kratz that Mechelke "was in trouble a lot" as a teacher. Nothing ever got done about "problems" back then. The supt. just shined a chair with his rear end. It was in the mid-1980s when the public started pushing back against the educational bureaucracy and its stupid, draconian, self-serving ways. All such changes take time. I think today the environment is so much better.
I wish Mechelke had given me an F Minus!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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