I joined the staff of Community College of Philadelphia’s Learning Lab after having taught English at Temple for five years. The students at Community College of Philadelphia have made me newly excited about teaching. What defines them, however, has little to do with the assumptions people usually hold regarding community colleges, many of which glorify the courage and eagerness of the students while vaunting the noble mission of teachers. In fact, Community College of Philadelphia students might be defined best by their rejection of this student-teacher dynamic, one that is essentially hierarchical and fundamental to prestigious research institutions such Temple. In my experience, Temple students seem accustomed to this hierarchy. This difference between student populations at Community College of Philadelphia and Temple deserves consideration, for it reveals a subtle elitism, one that divides teachers (as the possessors of knowledge) from students (as empty receptacles). Such an elitism justifies the worst kind of pedagogy and has received just and frequent criticism; nevertheless, the structure is so pervasive in our institutions that it only becomes apparent when it is disturbed. Community College of Philadelphia students are unique because of their capacity to upset this standard of higher education and reveal the counterproductive smugness of the academy.
Because Community College of Philadelphia students are not usually molded by college-prep studies, they do not conform to the implicit conventions of the academy. They are not well-socialized into academic culture, as are most Temple students. They have not learned, for example, to anticipate what the teacher wants to hear, and they do not yet know the skills for getting by, skills that most academics will admit have little to do with learning and everything to do with good grades. When I taught at Temple, these “skills” always seemed to be my students’ most common and stubborn hindrance to real learning. I constantly repeated in class and in one-on-one conferences at Temple that I truly wanted them to produce their own ideas in their papers, that their ideas could be developed, supported, and read by others. I insisted that they write what they thought, yet they became easily frustrated by trying to compose short essays without having been told what to think. Their urge to prove they had collected the pearls of my wisdom and could then present them as their own was indicative of an education system that rarely trains students to conceive of their own arguments; it is the result of under-funded, over-crowded schools where regurgitation is valued more than independent and original thought. I spent a lot of time with students at Temple who were “well-prepared” for college attempting to un-prepare them. Happily, I don’t do this much in my teaching and tutoring at Community College of Philadelphia. People often assume that the lack of college prep is a problem for students. I have heard it often: “They never learned what they should have in high school.” But it is arguably their greatest asset that they did not learn the most basic “skill” of valuing the teacher’s thought over their own.
One might protest, “Are we teachers not different? Don’t we have information students need if they are to succeed in their careers and in the world?” True, in many ways, we are different. I, for example, know more about commas than any of my students. I also have a remarkable understanding of the five-paragraph theme (though I have never in my life written one). That allows me to lecture on subordination and restrictive essay structures; that is to say, it gives me license to put most of my students to sleep and hope that a few stay alert and remember just a little. That’s about it. If I want to teach students as they deserve to be taught, I have to inspire them with the possibilities of their own abilities. If I want them to remember any genuinely useful writing skills, I must first get them to care enough about participating in an academic discussion so that they will genuinely engage in a process of discovery. Then they will learn the basics that matter. Exciting, relevant learning environments allow for this. Granted, the task is difficult, especially in a Learning Lab class that meets once a week, and I will not pretend to have brilliant plans for transformation. But I am not simply trying to kick down the barn here, as the saying goes. My point is that we teachers cannot build anything if we begin by separating ourselves from our students.
We teachers should not fixate on vertical differences in the classroom, those between the teachers at the top and students at the bottom. We must instead consider the differences that exist laterally, among everyone. They are far greater and far more inspiring. They also offer remarkable potential for the sort of transformations we desperately need. Why do we ask our students to pay attention to us, I wonder, when there are so many different ways in which students can inspire each other? Their motivation towards the larger goals of learning, the goals that are worthy of a good mind, come usually from the people around them. Neighbors, friends, and family broaden the context of education—and students deserve an academy where they are partners working for a purpose in which they are truly invested. This is the context readily available in the minds and interests of their peers. When we teachers can turn to the interests and inspirations of our students to shape the environment of our classes, when we can give them a little control over how and what to learn, they will learn even the boring material, and they will learn it quickly. As they move towards larger goals that are relevant to their individual lives and interests, they will learn the stuff with which I currently lull them to sleep.
The students in our classes at Community College of Philadelphia are a remarkable resource. The fact that many of them have spent their time living in the real world, working at jobs and raising families, means that they bring something more valuable to the classroom than the college preparation skills that so many students at four-year schools have made parts of their personalities. They bring original experience, diverse histories, and singular minds. If we are to begin shaping vibrant learning environments, we must stop assuming that our ideas are the only starting point, and begin mining theirs to shape our classrooms. We claim that we honor difference, but we restrict the themes, ideas, and assignments that shape course work to our own interests, and we ignore the resource of our students’ own passions. We often teach diversity, forgetting that what most characterizes a community college is a remarkable mix of thinking individuals who live unique lives.
It’s not that Community College of Philadelphia students are unusual. They are just as ordinary and just as exciting as any cross section of Philadelphia; indeed, that’s my point. The people I’ve met at Community College of Philadelphia are not so much students as they are citizens. They are people shaped more by the world than by the academy, and as such, they present the academy with a challenge. If Community College of Philadelphia is to serve them well, it must transform into a place where we all learn from each other; it must become a true community to deserve its name.
©Copyright 2005. Contact author for permission
Maintained by Jay Howard,Apr 2005