Tonight at dinner, R. reminded me that I had not written the post that I alluded to in this blog entry. You know, I must be the master of memory suppression because I had completely forgotten abut this whole episode! Anyhow, here’s another entry that should be subtitled “Things that Annoy Me about Sorta’ Cosmopolitan.”
You see, my University has decided that Service Learning is an *Important Part of Educating Undergraduates.* It’s not enough that we have a 4/4 teaching load (okay, I can’t bitch about that because I am getting administrative release time, but still … ) and research expectations. Now, we should be taking our students out into the Big Wide World, using community service as a tool for teaching. I’m not dogging on service learning because it is appropriate in many situations; the problem is that it takes a huge commitment on the part of the faculty member (and the students have to do more work as well).
Being a good little untenured prof, I decided to bite the bullet and integrate a service learning project into my methods class for the fall. I was smart about it and found a way to build a larger research project around my students’ work. Plus, I am getting a stipend for attending an institute, so that’s like icing on the cake. As a part of my project, the students are going to have to ride the public bus. I mentioned this during the institute and — holy crap — the other people in the room just about had a heart attack. “You better make them ride in pairs,” said one person. “Are you going to let them go into the bad part of town?” asked another. I was also warned that I would need to prepare the students so they wouldn’t be surprised by the types of people who ride the bus.
You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s not like I am sending them to the south side of Chicago! Sorta’ Cosmopolitan is one of the tamest cities I have ever lived in. I mean, here, a bad part of town is where you go to rent a ho or buy a little pot.* I guess some people automatically assume that black people = bad part of town. {Blah!} Of course, when I said something along these lines, I was told that my perspective was skewed. After all, someone pointed out, I have used mass transit in Amsterdam, Mexico City, Chicago, Miami, and D.C.
I could go on and on about how we need to break down stereotypes, make our students more worldly, etc., but I’m too tired to really think about marshaling the arguments. And really, shouldn’t we be encouraging the kids to ride the bus, seeing how gas is $4/gallon?
* Okay, I was downplaying this a bit. You can buy meth in this city, but then, you can get meth in the middle of the boonies too.
Holy cow!
I cannot imagine that SC has any part that is really dangerous, so to speak, and students should be capable of handling anything that comes there was on the bus in SC.
Send the kiddies to Istanbul where the trams and buses are often so packed that its tighter than a sardine can, and where the buses go down the street with the doors open so that (a) the bus will have air conditioning; and (b) people can hang on more easily.
I am amazed…
God forbid you put the little snowflakes on public transit in San Francisco:
http://cynicalqueer.wordpress.com/2006/06/29/calling-dr-feel-good/
Heh, at Former College, this was the students’ reaction to learning they had to leave campus for anything! Thankfully, the faculty/admin were actually all about getting students out and about into the broader city. But to students who thought Former College was “in the ghetto” (if by ghetto you mean, surrounded on one side by one of the toniest residential neighborhoods in town, and on two sides by quite nice residential neighborhoods – in fact, something like half the profs lived within 2 miles of the place! The fourth side, admittedly, bordered on a kind of a strip-y main drag. But still!), the idea of going into the city for anything was met with OMG, we might be mugged!!! I don’t suppose it really helped that Former College was also entirely gated – kind of sends mixed messages. (Strangely enough, when leaving campus meant going downtown to the street o’bars that sell buckets – literally – of beer for $5, the students were much less concerned…)
Anyway, if they want you to do service learning, what do they expect – you’re going to rent a limo??