The end of a long year

I have finally arrived at the end of a long year. Between my regular obligations, going on the job market again, and class cancellations, I feel like I have been behind since August. Now, though, exams have been graded, grades have been posted, and responses to students accusing me of single-handedly preventing them from graduating have been sent. Finally, I can relax look for housing, start thinking about moving, and try to get some research done.

Is it fall yet?

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Today’s “welfare queen” has a big-screen TV and an iPhone

One of the challenges when discussing poverty in class is the looming specter of the “welfare queen.” Ronald Reagan’s version may have driven a Cadillac with the money she made from scamming the system, but Ronald Reagan’s version was also imaginary. Today’s “welfare queen” is more likely to have a big-screen TV and an iPhone, at least according to my students. A few recent articles at Slate bear this out, but they also do a good job of detailing why a student’s* perceptions of what poverty should look like don’t match up with the experience of what poverty is.

The first summarizes a recent New York Times article highlighting changing costs (as seen in the graph above) showing that although prices of consumer goods have fallen dramatically, the prices of things that are necessary for escaping poverty have risen just as dramatically. The second highlights some of the things that the bottom fifth of American households spend their money on, noting that they “devote a combined 78 percent of their spending, on average, to housing, food, utilities, transportation, and health care. In fact, they spend more on those basics than they make in total pre-tax income, which they can do thanks to government supports such as food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.” Because they spend more than they make, they are also not able to save for a rainy day, which many Americans would define as “job loss” but those in poverty might be more likely to define as “missed a shift at work” or “visited the doctor about that nagging pain.”

The lack of savings causes problems for some students (and conservative pundits), who argue that the poor should not be buying big-screen TVs or smartphones if they aren’t saving for unexpected events. I wonder if these practices might be connected to Allison Pugh’s concept of symbolic indulgence, in which poor parents sacrifice in order to provide their children with things that will allow them to participate in peer culture. Applying this to adults, a smartphone or big-screen TV (which today is basically just known as a TV) may help adults ease some of the mental burdens of poverty because they are not denying themselves of everything that other Americans have. Pugh also mentions that purchases are sporadic, coming after a tax refund or some unexpected overtime, so this may also be when people make big purchases.

Of course, somebody’s TV may also be rented, in which case they are not only paying a high price in order to have it, but they risk losing it if their economic situation gets worse. Maybe predatory lending and rent-to-own stores will help students gain some compassion for those in poverty, especially when they can relate**.

*These perceptions may also be held by your grandparents or racist uncle.

**Obviously, student loan interest rates are nowhere near the effective interest rates charged by cash advance businesses or Rent-A-Center, but students probably perceive them to be.

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The lessons of Monsters University

As a college professor, I am interested in depictions of college life. In addition to seeing whether they “ring true” with my own experiences, I like to consider how they might affect the perceptions of the general public regarding academic life. As a movie aimed primarily at children, Monsters University may be the first depiction of college life that many are exposed to. What, then, does Monsters University teach us about college life (other than the fact that imaginary institutions can have better-designed webpages than real ones)? (Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber covers some of this, but focuses more on the institutional aspects of the university.)

Lesson One: College is largely vocational. The students enrolled at Monsters University take courses that are very narrowly focused on particular employment outcomes. While the Scaring program is the most prestigious, there are also programs related to canister design and door making. As depicted in the movie, none of these programs prepare students very well for unforeseen changes in the workplace (such as those that occur in Monsters Inc., as Kieran points out).

Lesson Two: No matter how hard you work, you may not be able to attain your dream. The Scaring program at Monsters University highly competitive even though some students clearly have more innate talent for scaring than others. Applied exams mean that those who are books smart but lack this innate talent are likely to fail the program. It does not seem like there is much room for theoretical work in scaring (Mike Wazowski seems like a prime candidate for a Ph.D. in Scaring).

Lesson Three: You need to go to college to get the job you want, unless you don’t. Despite the applied nature of the courses, the link between education and employment in Monstropolis does not seem very strong. The closest analog in the American higher education system seems to be acting. Some actors undergo years of training at prestigious universities while others are discovered looking cute at the mall. It would have been interesting to see Pixar approach scaring as something more closely aligned to college athletics, with most monsters using college to continue doing something that they enjoy but a few in high profile programs using it to hone their skills for the big leagues and an even smaller number going directly from high school to the pros.

Lesson Four: Coursework is unimportant (especially courses outside of your major). Students at Monsters University are shown attending two courses during the movie. For a large portion of the movie the characters do not mention anything about class at all, focusing instead on an extracurricular competition. Since this competition takes place during the semester, I assume that these students were attending other classes. Of course, in a vocational system like this breadth doesn’t seem to be that important.

Lesson Five: College life revolves around the Greek system. The aforementioned extracurricular competition has the highest profile of all campus activities (it is sort of like the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter). Students must be affiliated with a fraternity or sorority to participate and even the Dean is heavily involved in the organization and outcome.

Lesson Six: Things will be okay even if you cheat. Without giving too much away, some of the students at Monsters University cheat. They are punished for doing so, but not to the extent that they are unable to fulfill their lifelong dreams.

Lesson Seven: Computer graphics are getting really good. Okay, this is not a lesson about college, but the level of technical detail in Monsters University is incredible, especially in the lighting and textures. The Blue Umbrella, the short that precedes the movie, is similarly impressive.

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Why can’t you just be happy?

Recently, Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half returned after a long absence, first with a warning that she would be posting again, and then with an actual post about her depression, which she previously described here. As many around the internet have noted (it seems they like it, alot), the post as a whole is a great description of what depression is like but I want to focus on the part where she discusses the experience of others trying to help her and the reasons that their help failed. I think that she does an excellent job at capturing both the desire of others to help and the frustration that arises on both sides from the lack of intersubjectivity. I imagine that this is how a lot of the advice we give our students comes across, as well. I have excerpted this section below, but you really should read the whole thing.

And that’s the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn’t always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn’t even something — it’s nothing. And you can’t combat nothing. You can’t fill it up. You can’t cover it. It’s just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.

The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren’t necessarily looking for solutions. You’re maybe just looking for someone to say “sorry about how dead your fish are” or “wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though.”

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What would you do?

In the wake of shootings that involve classrooms, whether elementary, middle school, high school, or college, I ask myself what I would do in a similar situation. I have been fortunate to never have a a student that I was genuinely afraid of, but that is no guarantee against violence. Claire Potter, a.k.a. Tenured Radical, has had such an experience and discusses the possible ways that the situation may have played out:

So because I knew nothing, except that this had occurred in a small town near my old rowing club that I had driven through multiple times to get to I-84, what I thought about was the campus shooting I experienced on May 7 2009. On that day, a young woman at Zenith was gunned down in front of her friends at the campus bookstore by a man who had stalked and threatened her for several years.

And on that day, the campus went into, as they say now, “lockdown.” We had very little information about what had happened, or what might happen next. My office was in a small building: we locked all the doors and gathered upstairs. I, at least, was well aware that if the gunman proceeded up the hill towards the main campus, ours would be the first building he got to.  As we waited, for hours, I turned different scenarios over in my mind. Most of them had to do with running away: how thick was the front door? If the gunman entered our building, could we all escape in good order through the back? And as Director of the building, would it not be my moral duty to help everyone else get out in front of me, be the last to leave, and assume the greatest risk?

In case you have never had this experience, these are the kind of things you think about as you are waiting to see if you are going to die you are going to become a casualty. After a bit, my co-teacher, a young postdoc, and I quietly confided to each other our worst fear: that the shooter was one of our students, a young man I will call Jack. Jack’s eccentricities had morphed, week by week, into what both of us believed was a full-blown psychosis, resulting on odd to scary behaviors.

…

Suddenly, the front doorbell rang: we looked out the window and — it was Jack. What to do? If he was the shooter, could we keep him out? If he was not the shooter, he was in danger, and as his teachers, we had a moral obligation to help him. What if, floridly psychotic or not, murderer or not, he had come to us for help?

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