CSotD: Consumers in the classroom
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Oh, that liberal Doonesbury!
This is an unusual strip, not because Doonesbury doesn't regularly target liberal foibles — of course it does, and always has — but because Trudeau is generally pretty specific in assigning them, and Walden (this professor's claim to be the exception not withstanding) has always seemed to epitomize the kind of school that does whatever it takes to keep the classrooms and dorm rooms full, and academic ethics be damned.
But then BD has been less of a rightwing kneejerker since he got back from Iraq, and, while Boopsie has gone back and forth between practical wife and ditzy bit-part actress for some time, she seems to be settling more into the wife role.
The strip and its characters have grown.
These days, the most cartoony, one-dimensional characters — aside from the perpetual man-child Zonker — are the youngsters Zipper and Jeff, who continue to frolic their way through life without a lot of vision, forethought or discipline. Mike's daughter, Alex, is equally challenged by reality, but with the saving grace of her boyfriend Toggle, an extremely focused, blue collar, disabled Iraq veteran attempting to build a civilian life.
In fact, some of the best younger-generation cartoons have focused on Alex and Toggle, since, despite a somewhat bookish nature, Alex still sees college as "what you do next" and enjoys slacking off, while Toggle is utterly mystified by the idea of spending time and money on school and then not showing up for it.
Which brings us to the topic of grades and rewards.
In my day — and Trudeau's — flunking out of college meant becoming vulnerable to the draft and, with an increasingly unpopular war on, professors were often reluctant to fail a student who was marginal, while there were a couple of colleges, with Parson's the best known, that seemed to exist simply to preserve the II-S deferments of their students.
But this was also the time when, as the wave of boomers hit 18, we began to see the "everybody needs to go to college" theme spring up. It was a huge market, and what was once an elite opportunity to take four years to contemplate truth, or to pick up some very specific engineering-type knowledge, became a loosely defined consumer product that people began to feel entitled to.
I remember a lawsuit in Detroit in which a student at a junior (now called community) college sued because she had paid her tuition, attended class and turned in work but failed the course anyway. I honestly can't remember how it turned out, but one of my conservative friends was particularly outraged by her sense that, having paid for the course, she deserved a passing grade.
And that was an important angle: The issue was less the "everyone gets a trophy" liberal feel-good approach as it was the consumer angle, which, in turn, is a consequence of promoting "college for everyone" without imparting the vaguest sense of why they should go or what they would find when they got there.
If I bring my car to the shop and pay to have my brakes fixed, my brakes should be fixed when I leave the shop.
Similarly, if I go to college and pay to become a college graduate …
And there's the disconnect, because you're not paying to become a graduate. You're paying for the chance to take courses. And that has not been made clear to students or parents. Or, in some cases, educators and lawmakers.
I'd like high school superintendants and principals to stop saying what percentage of their students are headed for college at graduation time, unless they also report back on how many remain enrolled two years later and how many obtain a degree within five years of graduation.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of Toggles in the world and we ought not to despair entirely. A friend was getting his doctorate at the University of Chicago while teaching at Roosevelt University, and reported that there was a massive difference in the orientation of students at the two schools.
His fellow students were all roughly the same age and few had any experience beyond the classroom. The students he taught at night were mostly returning students who had seen a bit of the world, and he mentioned one older man in his class whose grandparents had been slaves. The airy theorizing of young students could quickly be brought to earth by the contributions of that old fellow, as well as those of the various Toggles in any of the college's classrooms.
As for Zipper's "Most Improved Camper" trophies, a translation for those who have not done time at summer camp: It's not simply a "Miss Congeniality" award, given to the runner-up whom everyone liked.
Quite the opposite: It's an award for the kid the counselor feels sorry for, the little guy who isn't going to win any real awards and didn't make very many friends, and who will feel bad about the whole experience if somebody doesn't acknowledge him.
Having nine of them shows a prodigious and consistent talent for non-achievement.
In case you were wondering:
Each year, native son Garry Trudeau creates a souvenir button for the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, which ends today. Here's this year's edition:
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