Just read "Grading System Gets an F" -- a campus newspaper article by a student at my alma mater, University of Oregon -- which is getting some great buzz and commentary at Jerz' weblog right now. In the article, Ailee Slater complains:

the University system makes absolutely no sense. Students pay teachers to educate us, yet they are then allowed to tell us how much we're learning. The whole situation seems akin to a boss paying her employee to clean toilets and the employee turning around and telling the employer how much she is or isn't happy with the cleaning job. If I'm paying someone to do my housekeeping, I'll be the one to tell the receiver of my hard-earned money exactly how well they did. Shouldn't it be the same with education?

I don't mean to pick on a student essay, but this viewpoint is so common that it begs discussion. Slater's argument is logical only in a consumerist model of education, where tuition is assumed to buy a diploma -- which is reinforced sometimes by institutions, in their zeal to generate profit, or by teachers who adopt Friere's banking model of education. I don't necessarily blame the students who feel this way because they are the symptoms of the economy of education, but what disappoints me is the lack of self-awareness that happens among some college students who are just in it for the diploma.

This is why I like having students write argumentative essays about "education" in my Freshman Comp course. In discussions I like to posit that college is sort of like a private gym: you pay to work. It is easy to confuse the "investment" one makes in education as "capital gains" -- but the company a student is investing in is himself. Moreover, what a lot of students don't realize is that college credit is social capital that must be earned, like a wage without currency. You get what you earn, but it's still labor.

Some students don't "buy" that point. Some think that college credit doesn't mean jack squat -- it's the diploma and the line on the resume that means everything. But that's not true: college credit is tranferable, and the diploma signifies a total of credits earned. Others feel they've already done the "work" by earning enough to pay for college or sweating through the ring-jumps it takes to get into a particular school, and therefore deserve the reward of the high grades or diplomas. But that's not true: even in the workplace, you are paid the same no matter if you have to crawl ten miles to get to work ever day or if you are carted to your workplace in a fancy limosine. Others are just spoiled and their sense of entitlement makes them feel like they shouldn't have to work at all. But obviously, "daddy" isn't doing the work for you.

It's important for students to learn the context in which they're immersed, particularly when it comes to the assumptions that surround the college education they're investing in. Applying critical pedagogy in the classroom can help make this happen.

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