As a writer, I once made my living from the reality that many highly functional people can't write as well as their as their jobs require. Jack Miller teaches "developmental" English at Normandale Community College, where he sees students who arrive equipped with "life experience" but not the rudiments of written language. For some of them, it's a new language; for most, it's a language they have used for decades but not learned.
Some of his essay for Center of the American Experiment makes the liberal in me cringe, the college scholarship reviewer in me nod, and the citizen in me glad for teachers like Miller.
Don't judge the essay just by these excerpts. The whole thing is worth a read. [h/t Hal Davis]
Other causes, less tangible, contribute to students’ poor record and performance in college (especially that 20 percent or so who demand extra time and energy from the professor), and here I venture on more speculative ground. Some are not sure what is done in the classroom—how to behave. They don’t know when or how to take notes. They perennially miss due dates, drift in late, drift out during the break not to return. They sabotage themselves and then seem to expect forgiveness and accommodation from their professors. Someone showing up one day after having been missing for five or six weeks, only vaguely recognized by the professor, will assume that a way can and will be found to bring him up to speed and on track with the rest of the class. Is all this the result of repeatedly being forgiven in the past? I think so.
[...]
A system is in place to cushion failure, and students who have always been praised for just showing up need it. They have been told time and again, “You can be anything you want.” All that is needed is “passion.” So when the academic path contains a detour, explanations to yourself and to others can come easily. Scholastic problems don’t emanate from within but from without. So determined is the college to offer “support” and so long is the list of reasons to receive that support that almost anything can be explained by or blamed on an external cause—poor time management, attention deficit disorder, you name it.
