Partners for Student Potential--Spring Reading Groups

If you haven't seen this article, which highlights the amazing opportunities PSCC offers our students, I hope you'll take time to do so.  It reminds me of what an honor it is to serve at an institution that impacts students and our community in such significant ways!

What's also true, though, is that PSCC's student population has its own unique set of characteristics--including both challenges and strengths.  This reality makes our work simultaneously exciting and difficult.   It also compels me to continually deepen my understanding of our student population and actively explore new ways to strengthen my work with them.  

Regardless of your role at PSCC (faculty, staff, administration, or student), taking part in a Partners for Student Potential Reading Group is a great way to do just that, and I hope you'll consider participating in one of three options being offered this semester at various College locations.   

For those located at Division Street (or perhaps Magnolia), Moira Connelly has offered to facilitate a weekly group and is currently working to determine a time and location that is workable for those interested.  Please feel free to contact Moira directly (maconnelly@pstcc.edu) to indicate your interest and availability.  

If you are located at Strawberry Plains, I'm delighted to announce that Tracy Sands has offered to facilitate a group at that location.  You can contact her directly (tdsands@pstcc.edu) to let her know you'd like to participate.

On the Hardin Valley campus, meetings will take place from 12:55-1:50 every Monday, beginning January 25.  If you're interested in this option, please contact me directly (bapharr@pstcc.edu) so that I can make sure we have adequate reading materials and space.

I realize these times may not work for everyone, so I hope you'll watch for the One-Hour PSP Workshops coming to all site campuses in a few weeks. ​

I'll close by emphasizing that any member of the PSCC community (faculty, staff, administration, or student) is welcome to participate; having a range of participants only enriches the experience for all of us.  

Thanks for your consideration, and for your good work with our students. I look forward to seeing what is in store for our College this semester.  

Sincerely,

Anne

Anne Pharr

Assistant Professor, English Department
Student Success Coordinator

College Success Program Coordinator
Pellissippi State Community College
865-694-6509
MC 317

 

Sustainable Teaching and Bad Math

It’s the second-to-last week of the semester, which for many teachers—perhaps especially those in higher education—is the most intense stretch in the academic term.  Though I’ve been at this job for quite some time, the sheer exhaustion I feel during these weeks often takes me by surprise.  All it takes is one stroll down the hallway of my department and a few conversations with colleagues to recognize I’m not alone.  Most everyone around me feels buried under a mound of work, and the word “exhausted” is one I find myself using and hearing more often.

The tiredness that teachers (and others) experience during this time of the semester is more than just physical, as evidenced by handful of articles making recent appearances in sources including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, NPR, and even Christianity Today.  Whether the authors acknowledge it directly or not, these pieces portray an all-too-common experience of teachers and faculty members: compassion fatigue.

I would imagine most educators—especially those who have taught for awhile—would at least admit to understanding the concept of compassion fatigue.  Some might even go so far as confessing they’ve experienced it from time to time—perhaps even to a significant and even detrimental degree.

It can be risky, though, to acknowledge having really struggled with this experience; truly competent professionals shouldn’t and wouldn’t have to cope with this sort of emotional and intellectual limitation, right?

Sure, a teacher’s inability to fend off compassion fatigue could be symptomatic of a deeper, more problematic emotional and intellectual frailty. 

Maybe.  

But maybe not.

Perhaps compassion fatigue for teachers—especially those in public education—can be attributed, at least in part, to simple numbers.

Professor Smith serves on the English faculty at an open admission community college with a student enrollment of over 10,000.  In some semesters, her classes consist of well over 100 students for whom she wants to be an effective teacher, which means not only covering the required subject matter, but also doing so in a way that is kind, caring, and compassionate.  Not only does Professor Smith want to learn all her students’ names, but she also wants to know their stories and understand what types of classroom experiences they do and don’t enjoy.  She wants to answer each of their questions, help them with their papers, meet with them individually to discuss study strategies that will work best for them. 

Professor Smith wants to accomplish all of that in addition to preparing for and teaching her classes with excellence, serving on committees, attending department meetings, participating in campus events, and serving as an academic advisor during the school's registration period. 

Then there is the paper grading.  If Professor Smith has 100 students in a given semester, and each student writes 6 essays, this means she will have 600 essays to grade.  If it takes Professor Smith approximately 30 minutes per essay (which, in some cases is a conservative estimate), she will need to devote 1800 minutes, or 300 hours to grading alone over the course of a 15-week semester.  And yes, that means 20 hours of grading per week on top of her other duties mentioned previously.  What still remains are the other assignments, quizzes, and reports she will need to evaluate.

If we're going to take a holistic look at the expectations Professor Smith must fulfill, we can’t ignore the time, energy, and attention she must give to students facing problems outside of class that interfere with their ability to complete their coursework.  During a recent semester in a single class, Professor Smith encountered the following issues:

Students who often couldn’t afford the gas money to drive to campus and attend class.

Students who walked to and from campus each day—regardless of inclement weather—because they didn’t own a car or a bike.

Students about to be put out of their current living situation.

Students whose work schedules conflicted with their ability to complete major and minor assignments.

Students who not only worked part- or full-time jobs, but also had young children at home.

Students whose first language was not English.

Students with serious, absence-causing medical issues who also lacked the health insurance which would allow them to seek treatment.

            

These students were in addition to those who simply struggled to make it to class on time, or to engage with the subject matter.

   

The above-mentioned student issues actually occurred in just one class during one semester.  Professor Smith taught other classes as well, each with its own unique set of students who brought their own unique circumstances with them into the class.

Professor Smith genuinely cares about each student.  But—like many of her colleagues as the semester moves into its final weeks—she also feels more than a little overwhelmed.  One result may be that Professor Smith finds it increasingly difficult to continue responding to student struggles in the kind and thorough manner that she hopes to demonstrate towards each of her students.

Perhaps these experiences are the result of poor planning, a lack of resilience, or inconsistently maintained classroom expectations. 

Maybe, though, Professor Smith's brush with compassion fatigue is the unavoidable product of an educational system that needs to be re-examined in the ways this article suggests. 

Everyday Dilemma

The last paragraph of the last essay I read this term--from an exceptional student whose unexpected end-of-the-semester struggles prohibited her from submitting work that more accurately shows her real ability:  "It is clear that the author didn't address the prompt [in this essay], but she honest only wrote this paper so that her professor couldn't fail her in the class on the premise of not turning in the paper.  She obviously understands that her behavior near the end of the semester is unacceptable, but she has been tired and has the final of her English class to pass."  This student's amazing potential was--at least temporarily--eclipsed by the kinds of personal challenges that so many community college students face.   I find her response simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening . . . .

What Did I Miss?

On Fridays, I meet with two sections of Freshman Composition II, a course centering around reading and writing about literature.   It's one of my favorite classes to teach--a wonderful mixture of encountering poetry, short fiction, and drama, and learning to appreciate some really amazing texts.

Today, the class and I were 20 minutes into an energetic discussion about Susan Glaspell's Trifles when a student walked into the room, late. That in and of itself is not terribly unusual, nor are tardy students generally a problem (unless the same individual is repeatedly late and/or disruptive when joining the class).  

Today, though, upon entering the room, this student stopped in front of me, interrupting the class discussion.  When I paused, here is what he said:  

"I am late because I had to run home and get something that I forgot.

What did I miss?"  

Yes, this is a direct quote.

I could be offended by the fact that this student would have the audacity to expect a teacher to drop everything and attend to his needs.  And yes, that was frustrating.  But that's not what concerns me.

What's really troubling is that this student showed no awareness of the inconvenience that his request created for the rest of the class.  Not only did he expect me to immediately stop and come to his assistance. This student also actually expected  the other twenty-some-odd students to wait patiently while I updated him on what we'd been doing and they listened.  

At this point, I'm tempted to chime in with the next verse of the endless song so many educators are singing about our students.  The most oft-repeated word in that song is "entitled."  Believe me:  it's not hard to find reasons to join in that chorus. 

Instead, though, I'm imagining this student in the workplace. What's going to happen when he takes a similar course of action with an employer?

I'm imagining this student in a relationship.  What's going to happen when he has similar expectations from someone important to him?

Here, though, is an even more sobering question:  What--and who--has allowed this student to believe his actions and expectations today were appropriate?  How has he arrived at that conclusion? 

I hope I'm wrong, but experience tells me I'm not the only teacher who experiences similar scenarios on an increasingly regular basis. Such behaviors are becoming less of an exception and more like a new normal in the classroom.  

This leads me to another question:  Have I done anything to reinforce such a point of view amongst my students?

What did I miss?

Before we join in the increasingly loud lament about this generation's lack of self-awareness, perhaps parents, educators, and leaders need to do some of our own reflection.  

Perhaps we need to consider how we may be part of the problem, by unintentionally cultivating these kinds of expectations in our children, students, and society.

Perhaps we need to examine our own actions and expectations, and ask ourselves:

  

What are we missing?

Compassion Coalition and Pellissippi State

A few years ago, my dean approached me about serving as the Student Success Coordinator for Pellissippi's English Department.  The Student Success Program allows faculty members to send the names of struggling students to a Coordinator, who can then connect these students to resources that might help them navigate whatever difficulty they have encountered.   My work in this capacity has given me the opportunity to learn a great deal about the PSCC student body.

Pellissippi State is an open admission institution, which means anyone with a high school diploma or GED will be accepted.  This fall, our total enrollment is approximately 10,000,students spread over five site campuses located at Hardin Valley, Magnolia Avenue, Division Street, Strawberry Plains, and Blount County.  As you can imagine, the students who make up this number represent a wide cross-section of the greater Knox area community:

* some are fresh out of high school and some are returning to college after time in the military or workforce; 

* some are focused solely on schoolwork, and others work up to 60 hours/week while in school;

* some live at home, some are self-supporting;

* some are in a partnership or marriage, and some are parenting one or more children;

* some students’ have parents or siblings familiar with the expectations of college level work, and others are the first in their families to enroll in college; 

* some students come from affluence, others are barely getting by financially;

*  some have ACT scores which indicate high academic preparedness; others—many—are in need of courses that will prepare them for college-level work.

By providing any high school graduate with an opportunity to get a college education, Pellissippi and other such schools are meeting a significant need for our community.  And our students have tremendous promise and potential.  As I tell them at the end of each semester—whether they recognize it or not, every one of them bears the loving fingerprints of a God who has created them with unique gifts and abilities that they can offer to their families, friends, coworkers, and communities.

However, like each one of us here today, these students are a mixture of abundance and lack.  Many of our students—so full of potential—also come to us as “the least of these,” which creates challenges for them as they pursue their academic goals.

Some of those challenges stem from insufficient economic resources.  Specifically, last year at Pellissippi, just under 40% of our students received the Pell grant, which is need based financial aid.  This year, that number has increased to just over 46%.  That means 4300 Pellissippi students qualify for need based aid.  In addition, 3300 students fall into the “zero expected family contribution” category.  This number is up from last year’s 25%.  In addition, an estimated 18 students have faced homelessness during the Fall 2014 semester. Clearly, a significant number of PSCC students face real economic hardships.

Although many of our students' difficulties stem from low economic resources, their struggles are also connected with other kinds of deficits including 

* poor academic preparation (going by ACT scores, in 2013, only 21% of Knox County high school graduates met all four College Readiness Benchmarks.  This means that 79% of our high school graduates were not fully prepared for college level work.);

* inadequate connection with friends and family members willing and available to provide relational and practical support;  

* still-developing communication and interpersonal skills that are so vital for interacting with members of a college community and in the workplace;

* an incomplete understanding of the time and energy it takes to complete college level work.

And this is where our partnership with Compassion Coalition comes into the conversation.

Through a series of events that I couldn’t have orchestrated if I’d tried (which, at least to me, looks suspiciously like God’s hand) I was asked by a colleague to meet with Compassion Coalition about strengthening the partnership between CC and Pellissippi.  This makes sense for two important reasons:

1).  Pellissippi has a growing Service Learning program, which allows students to earn college credit while volunteering for existing organizations in our community. Because Compassion Coalition has its finger on the pulse of justice and compassion ministries that already exist in our community, it is an excellent place for our Service-Learning students to locate organizations for whom they would like to volunteer.  This not only allows students to give their time to Christ-centered organizations, but also increases the chance that they will encounter and be impacted—perhaps in a life-changing way-- by the volunteers who are living the Christ-life day in and day out.

2).  As I mentioned earlier, a significant number of Pellissippi students find themselves needing the kinds of services Compassion Coalition partners provide. And Pellissippi is in the process of becoming a “hub” for Compassion Coalition, so that we can more effectively connect our students with needs to the appropriate Compassion Coalition resources. In order to make this a possibility, Compassion Coalition graciously shared two of its staff—Jessica Bocangel and Gina Whitmore—with a group of faculty and staff eager to attend a Bridges Out of Poverty workshop to our campus in June.  The materials were extremely well-received by those who attended—so much so that our college’s president caught wind of it and mentioned it to the entire faculty at our fall in-service gathering.  Now the college will offer the training to a larger number of faculty and staff in the next month or two, and also in the works is a semester-long reading group in which faculty members can delve more deeply into the process of understanding and better equipping our student population.  Another outcome from the workshop that Compassion Coalition provided is this:  A few weeks after the training, Jessica Bocangel told me about Faith Gilley, a Compassion Coalition volunteer who has co-facilitated three Getting Ahead classes in the Knoxville community.  Faith—a wife and mother—had decided to return to college as a non-traditional student, and she is now co-facilitating the college version of the Getting Ahead materials.  The college has plans to offer additional sections of this same course in the spring semester.

The very fact that Pellissippi State—a public community college—is open to such a partnership is, at the least remarkable, and from my perspective far more spiritually significant. 

By coming alongside Pellissippi’s students, faculty, and staff in meaningful, redemptive ways, , Compassion Coalition looks an awful lot like Christ — the word that became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood that is Pellissippi State.  I think I speak for many of us when I say how encouraged and excited we are by Compassion Coalition’s presence in our community.  I hope you are as well.

bargain education

Below is a paragraph from a student's discussion of why we crave technology.

Smartphones give students the ability to accomplish basic skills.  When texting or writing an online post, if there is a word that is not spelled correctly, auto correct helps spell the word out right.  Also, there are voice activated translators that help sound out words.  The reason we have "'allow me'' databases, is "Because to misspell is human; to have no idea of correct spelling is to be semiliterate" (Gelernter).  When smart phones correct every misspelled word, it is hard to learn commonly missed mistakes.  Students regularly rely on spell check that smartphones provide.  They like it because it is a shortcut to learning the simple words and makes life easier.  Basic skills are important abilities to learn, but having shortcuts for spelling and grammar is convenience smartphones provide.

This paper prompts two observations:

The cost for an app to correct errors in writing and pronunciation is free.

But what of the literacy and intellectual debt being mounted by education's heavy reliance on these popular "helps"?
 

E is for . . . .

Recently, I opened a discussion about the difficulties that are often inherent in school assignments such as science projects and research papers.  I ended the post with a question:

If requiring students to complete challenging projects (like a research paper) creates so much misery, why are we still doing it?

Today, an observation:  In many cases, educators aren’t requiring such projects anymore. 

Why?  Because so many students describe these kinds of assignments with words like this:

Time-consuming

Inconvenient

Challenging

Unpleasant

Uninteresting

Unnecessary

Perhaps one word builds upon another in this way:

Such projects are time-consuming, 
which makes them inconvenient.

This inconvenience creates a challenge,

which causes students to experience a certain amount of unpleasantness.

Unpleasantness causes students to grow uninterested.

And if students are uninterested,

such assignments must be, by definition, unnecessary.

In short, such projects aren’t engaging.

And, because the world of education has put such an emphasis on creating classwork which engages our students, teachers are working from a new set of criteria.  If an assignment is to be considered engaging, it must at least minimize--or, better yet, complete avoid--being labeled with one or more of the above-mentioned traits.

Yet as I work to meet this new set of criteria, a troubling question keeps emerging: 

Despite (and perhaps as a result of) all of our efforts,

are educators undermining the very skills we claim to be cultivating?

I hope not,
but I'm afraid so.

In our efforts to engage our students,
we are unintentionally but actively 
enabling their sense of entitlement
rather than encouraging their sense of efficacy.