Lindsay Brown-Response #5

“I knew that Ms. L.’s paper would fail. I knew it that first night in the library. But I couldn’t tell her that she wasn’t ready for an introductory English class. I wouldn’t be saving her from humiliation of defeat by a class she simply couldn’t handle. I’d be a sexist, ageist, intellectual snob
In her own mind, Ms. L. had triumphed over adversity. In her own mind, she was a feel-good segment on Oprah. Everyone wants to triumph. But not everyone can—in fact, most can’t. If they could, it wouldn’t be any kind of a triumph at all. Never would I want to cheapen the accomplishments of those who really have conquered college, who were able to get past their deficits and earn a diploma, maybe even climbing onto the college honor roll. That is truly something. ”
The interpretation that I got from this text was rather simple really. Professor X is telling a tale of one of his students that he had, who was just not set up to succeed in his class. Or for that matter he seems to imply not ready for college at all, or that she ever will be. Of course this is why he knows he would sound like an intellectual snob if he told her he didn’t think she was going to do well. Since she was an older woman she just didn’t have the skills with technology that we use today. She may not have been fit for this class, or college, or should have taken a tech class first, but who wants to tell someone they can’t?
The story of this student Ms. L. is a story that backs up his earlier stories of how he has many students that fail, one or more times. But the fact is, he can’t just tell them “no you will not be able to succeed ever.” Not only because it would hurt the students’ feelings but because in all honestly it would not reflect on him well. It could make him look like a “sexist, ageist, intellectual snob.” Along with him not telling people they aren’t going to do well, he has to give them the grade they deserve. How would it reflect on him if say it was--as he mentioned is a fear of his-- a news paper reporter, and he gave them a better grade then they deserved. His reputation could essentially just get bashed in the teaching community.
The reason that I chose the passage that I did to reflect upon was because his tone was rather hard to grasp in this article. I couldn’t tell if he felt bad, worried or if he was just stating the facts. It was interesting to me because he was explaining how he handled the situation and how he handles situations like it, yet he didn’t really say how he felt about it. The structure was basically “I did____” but there was no “I felt___” type of sentence or tone. It was a rather difficult passage to understand at first because I had a hard time just reading it and understanding his message. I really had to dissect it as I reread.
When I first read this part of the essay, I thought he sounded rather rude. Saying that she felt she had triumphed in her own mind, relating it to having an Oprah segment sounded rather unsympathetic, and almost had a teasing tone. After re reading it a couple times I’m realizing that all he is trying to say is college is not for everyone, or at least for everyone that is trying to return to school. Just as some jobs are not for everyone.
As I was thinking about this, and Ms. L.’s case in particular, I realized how big of an affect technology is having on all of this. As technology is developing more and more rapidly, including the amount we use it in school for our resources--sometimes our only one--and simply to get our education in general, people that are not in school and are coming, wanting, or hoping to return to school are falling more and more behind. The more out of date you are with technology the further behind you will be with school as well. I guess it really isn’t as simple as it seems to come back to school, and that in some cases technology really isn’t making getting an education any easier.