Re: our students

[Merry Farrington <merry@mail.wsu.edu>]

Kate,
I am sorry I'm late in responding to this. To your perceptive son --
touche. I took the first list of assumptions about entering
freshmen to class with me and used it as an icebreaker. The students
eagerly went at deconstructing the assumptions about what they
theoretically could know or have been exposed to based on their 18 or so
years on earth. They found many of the assumptions to be offensive and
reductive and proceeded to educate me (I'm 46) on many of the
topics mentioned.  They responded both to issues of a perceived lack of
knowledge as well as to the many socio-economic implications embedded in
in the assumptions. 
Merry Farrington
Washington State University

On Mon, 31 Aug 1998, Kate Pritchard wrote:

> I recently received the posting about the social context of students
> just entering college.  After sharing it with my son, an 18-year-old
> first-year college student, he responded with the following:
> 
> As we prepare for the beginning of another academic year, these facts
> may help us to remember the social context of the people who teach us.
> 
> Many of the people who are teaching college this fall across the nation
> were born between 1946 and 1964.
> 
> They have no meaningful recollection of the Charles I era, and did not
> know he had ever been executed.
> 
> They were pre-pubescent when the Korean War was waged.
> 
> The Panic of 1907 is as significant to them as the Era of Good Feelings.
> 
> There have been only two Japanese Emperors.
> 
> They can only really remember one English monarch.
> 
> They were 4 when the USSR fist tested an atomic bomb, and do not
> remember the Great Depression.
> 
> They have never lived under totalitarianism.  "The Long March" is a
> missile to them, not a historical event.
> 
> NKVD is just a bunch of letters.
> 
> They have known only one Italy.
> 
> They are too young to remember the U-2 shot down, and Prague Spring
> means nothing to them.
> 
> They do not know who Michael Collins was.
> 
> Their lifetime has always included genocide.
> 
> They have never had swine flu, and likely, do not know what it is.
> 
> Futurism predates them, as does photography.  The expression "A penny’s
> a pound the world round" means nothing to them.
> 
> They have likely never played stickball, and have never heard of it.
> 
> There has always been Marxism, and Maoism is not new.  Anarchism may
> have special meaning.  What do you mean there used to be Hegelianism?
> 
> They may have heard of a Victrola, but chances are they have never
> actually seen or heard one.
> 
> NATO was introduced when they were 1 year old.
> 
> They have always had a telephone.
> 
> Most have never seen a TV set the size of a chest of drawers, nor have
> they seen a cylindrical wax LP
> 
> They have always had light bulbs.
> 
> There have always been movies, but they have no idea what the Brighton
> School was.
> 
> They were born the year that COMECON was introduced by the CCCP.
> 
> Driving has always been "in a car" for them.
> 
> They have never heard of the Hanseatic League, East India Co., South
> Seas Co., or White Star.
> 
> Dada is what Marcel Duchamp’s son called him.
> 
> They have no idea when or why corsets were cool.
> 
> Radio has always had frequency modulation.
> 
> They have never seen or remember a pro sports team like the Washington
> Capitols, South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, Cleveland Rosenblums,
> Pittsburgh Ironmen, Chicago Stags, Providence Steamrollers, Cleveland
> Rebels.
> 
> They do not consider the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers "expansion
> teams."
> 
> They have never seen Knute Rockne play, and isn’t Bob Cousy an
> announcer?
> 
> The World War I is as ancient history to them as the Russian, American,
> or even the English Civil Wars.
> 
> They have no idea that Holy Roman Empire officials were ever
> defenestrated in Prague.
> 
> They don’t know who Dr. Caligari was or where he came from.
> 
> They have never heard the phrases "54’, 40" or fight,"  "Join or Die,"
> or "Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead."
> 
> They do not care why Sacco and Vanzetti were executed and have no idea
> who Sacco and Vanetti were.
> 
> Ma Perkins, Just Plain Bill, Amos n’ Andy, and The March of Time are
> shows they have likely never heard of.
> 
> King Tutankhamen’s tomb was found?  I thought we always knew where it
> was.
> 
> New Hampshire and New York have always been "new."
> 
> They cannot remember the St. Louis Bombers ever winning a NBA
> championship, or even being in one.
> 
> Waterloo, Odessa, and Toledo are places in Europe, not America, and they
> have no idea Cincinnati is named after a Roman statesman.
>