I'm picking up what your puttin' down...

Jeff, I am not entirely sure how I feel about the whole situation. On one hand we want more parental involvement and accountability and on the other hand we want to "cut the cord." But I think the problem lies in the fact that WE as TEACHERS give the students about a hundred mixed messages. Allow me to get passionate (or rant)....

I am going to use males in my explanation because I am a male and I understand them a little better than I do females. We ask boys to grow up and become men. Then we tell them that there is no pattern for men. Some people see men as rough, some as intellectual, some as nice, some as mean, some as effeminate, some as masculine. Essentially we tell them that there is no mold of what a man is or should be. At the same time we tell them that everyone is right. Well ladies and gentlemen, someone has to be wrong (GASP). If we want kids to become adults we need to show them a better model of what an adult really is. I have a pretty solid construction in my mind of what a man really is...or can be. I cheat myself by tailoring MY construction of what a man should be so everyone has a chance to be right. Forget that, they are wrong (concrete thinking? Or someone that is decisive?). It does not surprise me at all that the parents of college freshman are calling the professor. These parents are the same ones who do not see their sons' as men but as little boys off to school. I fear that this is only going to get worse. Our society is soooooo scared to hurt someones feelings that no one is willing to have a backbone and say what really needs to be said.

Here is a little stream of consciousness for you. I am going to say what must be said so that we can all be better teachers and we can help our youth fulfill their proper position in life. Here goes: No one can be better at being a man than a man. The inverse is true as well, no one can be better at being a woman than a woman. The minute you begin to mix the two to create some homogeneous being that cannot choose between becoming a man or a woman then you have a being that is incapable of "growing up." Of course they see college students as kids, we have no right of passage. We have no male sphere or female sphere. We are failing the students by teaching them that a woman can do everything a man can do and that a man can do everything a woman can do. This is false. We are different.

While I realize that this is only a small portion of the grand topic that Jeff presented about fear in our society. I think that much of this fear comes from people not knowing their own roles. Am I a parent or watchdog? Am a friend or a teacher? Am I a role-model or just another person with a job and I should be allowed to get sloshed in front of the students I teach (I am fully aware that I blew that topic out of proportion, but seriously, where do we draw the line)? I don't know, I just felt like some of these things needed to be said.

To Jeff: What do you attribute the fear shift that happened from the 80's to today to? Just wondering. Everyone have marvelous weekend!