Horizon

From her blog:

I've written "This stinks" on student assignments.

Some teacher.

It's yet another "worlds collide" case in which someone made the mistake of not applying the normal rules of life to the Internet. We're going to see a lot more of these as Net life and analog life integrate more closely.

If yall haven't already, I recommend checking out the comments below that article. Some of them are pretty funny.

That blog is a pretty good read. I particularly like this one. And a line from it that particularly struck me, that seems in some small way to indicate the really interesting thing about this whole issue, is the following:

So he started a little import business. And here I have to be careful. I don't want The Buildings to crush me.

(She's referring to a rich student as "Bob Building" and the importing business is of course drug smuggling.)

Goes along well with the gloating of some of the "Ashleys" in the comments to that article.

The comments below the article are certainly worth reading; my favourite and one I very much agree with is this one from Ralph E Luker:

What would be wrong with SMU authorities simply deciding that “we are a great university, secure in our ability to absorb insider/outsider criticism without need to retaliate"?

The problem with SMU behaving like a great university is that it is an organization, and the dynamic that drives it is that of an organization. Few organizations would tolerate a phantom blogger. Maybe they should, but they don't.

Universities may be thought of as bastions of free speech and academic freedom, but that is not why they exist. They exist in order to educate students. In other words, the students are the customers, and educating them is the business of the school. Free speech is a means, academic freedom is a means; they are not goals.

I really shouldn't talk about colleges because I know so little about them, but I've been involved with the public education system for nearly two decades and worked for enough businesses to know that people employed by these organizations often forget why they were hired.

In the private sector I've run into plenty of people angry at their employer because it is doing nothing to advance their career. The business isn't there to advance anybody's career. If it can make money (by taking care of its customers) and advance your career, then great.

And I suspect that most colleges/universities are just big businesses that have a slightly different take on what constitutes a profit.

I don't know Bobby, can't an organization have more than one objective? Is there no room for complication? Judging by your average mission statement I'd say there is.

I agree with Ralph Luker in a general way, but I doubt SMU retaliated against Liner because of a kind of institutional irritability, nor out of a fierce concern for the education of its customers. Does it make me a cynic to suppose that the last thing SMU administrators wanted was to upset any students of wealthy, civically-minded families? It is a private university after all; money for the cafeteria and the observatory has to come from somewhere. And Liner was easy to get rid of.

On the other hand, I can't imagine Liner never saw this coming.

Oh, and I see nothing wrong with telling a student that something they wrote is junk. They are supposed to be adults after all.

Aren't they?

I'm sure there must be successful organizations with more than one objective in their mission statement, but it has to make acheiving any of the goals more difficult. A university may have significant research facilities. Is it an institution of education that conducts research or a research facility that educates?

I think you're right that SMU was making a business decision when it dumped Liner.

Why does someone being an adult make it okay to insult them? I don't see how telling someone their work stinks is an effective teaching method. She's a writer and that's how she communicates?

Why does someone being an adult make it okay to insult them? I don't see how telling someone their work stinks is an effective teaching method. She's a writer and that's how she communicates?

Well, I think she makes a pretty good case for it herself. The way she sees it, her students have been taught that everything they do is just wonderful and are not prepared for the kind of criticism they are liable to get in the real world -- especially being a writer!

I think in some cases this kind of bluntness may be useful. I mean, that's education for you. Nothing like a failing grade for breaking it to them gently. Sometimes students need a kick in the pants.

"This stinks" doesn't mean anything. It's lazy. It's not teaching. I had an instructor tell me once that my writing was facile. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, but at least I knew what he meant.

Next year (not this year since the kid deferred a year - which ticks me off greatly) I will be paying for someone's college education and I will expect the teachers to teach.

I'm not suggesting teachers should go easy on students. They should be demanding, they should be tough, they shouldn't accept unacceptable work.

If we acclimate our children to the world of bullies, we'll just end up with a world full of bullies.

Ah, well, of course if she refused to elaborate that would be bad. I suppose I assumed that she went on to say something about why the essay in question stunk.

Bobby Farouk wrote:
"Universities may be thought of as bastions of free speech and academic freedom, but that is not why they exist. They exist in order to educate students."

But is this true. One professor I know believes that educating students is just an irritating distraction. The purpose of a university, he proclaims, is to create new knowledge.

Either way a self-confident organisation should be able to absorb mockery.

I'd think a university's quest to create new knowledge is a means for its becoming a stronger educational facility.

It is unfortunate that organizations don't seem able to tolerate even the smallest criticisms. Perhaps that is why, in a free society, we put so much vigor and vitriol into our complaints about our government. It's the one organization that is legally required to put up with it.