If the Door Slams in the Forest

[COBLENTZ@DT3.DT.UH.EDU]

This thread is a little scary to one who teaches at an open admissions
university where 60% of its students are first generation college students.

After teaching here for 19 years, it's still hard for me to understand the
unrealistic goals and dreams of our students and their families.  In my most
cynical moments, I mutter that we prepare students for entry-level jobs (and
not much more).  In my most idealistic moments, I know we are reaching a
deeper human need, the need to understand the world.  Most of the time, I'm
complacent.  Thank Heavens!  Neither of the other two attitudes really
answers the questions about what a college is for.  Complacency at least allows
me (we're all implicated in this) to break some people's hearts, to wipe up
their tears, and to help them find ways of carrying on.  It also allows me to
celebrate success and to feel inclined to climb up to roof and crow about 
the kids who get those dead-end jobs and who have have their dreams and
their determination and the discipline they learned here to make something
out of themselves and to lead lives they relish.

Make no mistake, these educations are just as expensive to our students as
our more lucky sons' and daughters' are to us.  My students vigorously resist
suggestions that a college degree may not be worth the paper it's written on.
Their faith may be foundationless, but it's refreshing.  These are the folks
that believe in the future.  It may be they, not our sons and daughters, that
carry us through.

After this belated Fourth of July message, I think I'll duck for a while.

Linda Coblentz
UH-Downtown