Urban college teaching

Jennifer Tronti at Teachers College Record reviews a book that echoes her experience:

Like J. D. Scrimgeour, author of Themes for English B: A Professor’s Education In and Out of Class, I remember that my early experience as an instructor required a gradual “acclimation” (p. 7) to an atmosphere, not exactly foreign, but not fully native to my constitution. In an urban community college, my first writing course consisted of: one student with Tourette Syndrome, whose intermittent outbursts and discussions of his fictional work-in-progress punctuated the class period, one couple, recently divorced, who inexplicably sat next to each other during every class session, two deaf students (and their interpreter) whose academic well-being was far beyond my meager skills at that time, one outspoken former prostitute determined to write an account of her life and profession, several students who were part of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program who frequently wrote about their “past” lives (both legal and illegal) in their essay prompts, and a smattering of the general students to be found at any urban community college—young people just out of high school, one living in her car, others blindly following their “expected” path, and the best writer of the bunch, a soft-spoken young man whose white tank top, baggy jeans, and prominent tattoos silently proclaimed his gang affiliations. Like Scrimgeour, I also humbly cringed before these students, uncomfortably aware of my own sense of privilege and autonomy, an inherited sense of mobility that remains stable despite any wealth or dearth of academic and economic opportunities. So few of these students—his or mine—seemed to be in possession of this independent outlook.

Read the whole thing.

Vietnam's revenge

A tidbit from Stephen Kotkin's article on Vietnam in the January 30 New Republic
(requires $ubscription although you can get a taste here):

At 17.5 percent, Vietnam has a significantly higher degree of per capita Internet penetration than China (10 percent) or Indonesia (8 percent)....

Vietnam ranks sixth globally in recorded hits on MIT's "open courseware" site, which offers information from more than fifteen hundred college courses -- exclusively in English. If nothing else, this testifies to aspirations.

Actually, the site (which is not the same as an MIT education but no doubt a sight better than none at all) does offer at least some courses translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and both simplified and traditional Chinese. Among the most frequently visited are courses in classical mechanics, linear algebra, electricity and magnetism, and circuits and electronics.

New teachers

There are two kinds of new teachers, according to Public Agenda: those who come to the profession through traditional schools of education, and those who come to it via alternative pathways such as Teach for America, Troops to Teachers, and The New Teacher Project. A recent study conducted by PA and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality found that the two groups see their work rather differently.

Short version: the alternative-route new teachers are much more likely than their traditionally-trained colleagues to report administrative interference and to report that they were assigned hard-to-teach classes, and less likely to report helpful feedback from colleagues. The report doesn't answer the followup question,

whether the contrast comes out of differences in the
reception, training and support these alternate-route
teachers receive on the job or whether they stem from
different standards these new teachers (many
of whom come out of selective colleges and universities
or have served in the military) may bring to the job.

IOW, do they have higher standards, or are they soreheads?