Wed 28 Oct 2009
Wick Sloane, engaging at 12am
Posted by Jr. Mom under Wick Sloane '76 at 9:02 am
Thanks to ‘12 for linking us to this article in the NY Times featuring Professor Sloane and his midnight class at Bunker Hill Community College.
Wick Sloane, who teaches the midnight writing class at Bunker Hill, tried to transport Mr. Chin and the other students from the windowless, concrete-walled classroom one recent night with an essay by Edward Abbey, the nature writer, about encountering a mountain lion in the New Mexican desert. When one student answered a question with a giant yawn around 2:15, Mr. Sloane asked, “Can everyone make it about 15 more minutes?”
For homework, he assigned an essay analyzing Calpurnia’s rhetoric in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” leading one student to ask whether Shakespeare used an alias. The room started buzzing with opinions.
“Do you want to stay and debate who Shakespeare was?” Mr. Sloane asked.
They did not, but not for lack of enthusiasm. “He’s got me engaged,” Mr. Chin said, “which is not easy at this time of night.”
Read the whole article. Not only is Wick strengthening writing abilities, it sounds like he’s building his biceps as well.
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41 Responses to “Wick Sloane, engaging at 12am”
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David says:
Is “nature writer” really the best short description for Edward Abbey? Is that the description that the author of The Monkeywrench Gang would have preferred? Just asking.
As always, Wick is an inspiring teacher. But is teaching basic composition to a bunch of students who are highly unlikely to ever have jobs that require meaningful amounts of writing doing them any favors? Why not teach them how to write poetry? That would do them about as much good.
David says:
Does anyone else find this depressing?
It would nice to see a little truth in advertising. How many of the students that were in Wick’s class ten years ago had similar dreams? How many achieved them?
That Chin wants to better his situation is as American as Plymouth Rock. The scam is that the medical/industrial complex, with its myriad of licensing regulations, forces Chin to read Whitman before it allows him the opportunity to (try to) become a nurse. Why not just an occupational test? Pass it (and perhaps serve an apprenticeship) and you are a nurse.
The reason, of course, is that current nurses benefit from a system which makes it very difficult and expensive for someone like Chin to become a nurse.
Needless to say, none of this is Wick’s fault. But articles like this serve mostly to hide the real injustices of American life behind a Potemkin Community College of strivers.
Jr. Mom says:
Dave,
First of all, none of us have any idea what the future holds for these students.
That aside, anyone and everyone benefits from learning how to write well. Whether our jobs call for “meaningful amounts” of it, or not, the way we string together a sentence plays into everything requiring communication, from writing a love note, to applying for a grant, or a loan. Plus, knowing and appreciating good writing makes us better readers, etc. etc.. Not to mention, learning, for the love of learning…
rory says:
*feels a sickening sense of deja vu over david’s comments*
post: why i love ephblog
comments: why i hate ephblog.
it is what it is.
David says:
“love of learning?” Yeah, OK. Send Wick an e-mail and ask him how many of his students are showing up at midnight because they have a “love of learning.” (They may love learning as much as you or I, but that is not the reason that they are enrolled at BHCC.)
Want to really understand community colleges in America? Start here.
How, indeed.
Welcome to midnight English with Wick Sloane.
Jr. Mom says:
@David:
So, they may sign up for the class because it’s required, but with a teacher like Wick, I bet most of them leave with more of a love of learning. At the very least, they leave with an appreciation for the written word and better writing skills.
rory says:
@David: was repeating from the same article as the last time we discussed Wick’s work really necessary?
glitch in the matrix of ephblog? can we fix the glitch and not repeat the previous comment section?
JG says:
@David:
Actually no, I find it inspiring. You want to see how many Williams kids don’t end up doing what they planned when they started (hint: what is the number of wannabe doctors in tears after bio 101, lab #1). But just because people don’t take the path initially set out doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from the process.
What exactly is it that you find “depressing” about people working their asses off to get an education while working and supporting families? I find absolutely nothing to be depressed about in anything you quoted.
The fact that there are for-profit schools should be something you like, being the only-about-money capitalist type that you are. Education is a product people want to pay for, so be it. And if you think Williams doesn’t “profit” from the absurd amounts of money people pay, you have a narrow-minded vision of profit. It doesn’t go into individual pockets, but the endless (over) development and measuring and crowing over the size of our peni…oops, I mean endowment is certainly a reflection of a similar motivation.
Ugh. I echo Rory. This post is everything I love about Ephblog and your comments are everything that I dislike.
David says:
JG writes:
Please read what I wrote above. I’ll quote it for you.
This depresses me. Is the world a better place because Chin, who just wants to become a nurse, is forced to study Walt Whitman rather than spending some time with his family?
Jr. Mom says:
@rory:
I have to say, I thought twice about linking to the last post I did on Wick. But then I foolishly thought that if I did, it might keep this one from becoming the same thing. I mean, no one likes to have the same discussion over and over, right?
Wrong.
David says:
JG writes:
That is another depressing topic! How many of those students would have been better off at a less competitive school than Williams? How many got in because of admissions preferences of various sorts?
Ethan Brooks ‘96 had hopes of being a doctor. (Page 224 in Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today’s NFL.) He got in to Williams with 1,170 on his math/verbal SATs. He took the initial pre-med classes, got C’s and switched to psychology. If Brooks had gone to Bucknell, he might be a doctor today.
JeffZ says:
How many hours have you “wasted” on Ephblog, DK, bitching about certain college policies, with no tangible results nor any substantial likelihood for such results to materialize? Judging by that metric, I’d say these folks are spending their time quite wisely. But really, what JG / Rory said. In all events, glad to see Kane 2.0 (“going to post the occasional carefully thought out screed rather than repeat, ad infinitum, the same talking points geared primarily to inflame via ‘uncomfortable learning’ — what everyone else on the internet calls trolling”) lasted all of two weeks.
Vicarious'83 says:
@rory:
I never want to see you say you suck at haiku ever again!
Your deja vu haiku in comment #4 is outstanding! Well done, sir.
David says:
The last two Wick-related posts are here and here. Maybe it is just me, but they seem fairly different (although still connected to writing and to college) than the conversation we are having here.
It is funny. People use to complain that I would do a post like this and insert my comments in the body of the post. Why don’t you, they said, just do a straight-forward post without all your crazy ideas? A reasonable point! But now people complain when I put my ideas in the comment thread!
I think that the problem before was not so much with where I put my (unusual) opinions but with the opinions themselves . . .
Jr. Mom claims that this is the “same discussion over and over.” How so? My main point in this thread — and I have only had to repeat it twice so far! — is that it is depressing to see that a hard-working fellow like Chin has no choice but to study Whitman if he wants to be a nurse because of the rules/regulations of the medical/industrial/educational complex.
Do my critics actually disagree with this? Would they care to defend the current system? Or would they prefer to bath in a stew of pleasing Stand and Deliver images of Wick as Whitman with his barbaric Yawp?
Dick Swart says:
Good Morning, everyone!
I see that the comments are roiling along. In David’s defense, I read his new tack of thoughtful and measured and researched as applying to posts.
I supposed that in the spirit of give-and-take in the comments, he might spew the Vesuvian vapours for which he is noted.
Those who choose to enter into the discourse do so at their own risks and are fully informed aforehand of the dangers involved with the fumaroles of volcano activity.
Hey, JG. I enjoyed Viva’s reading at Powell’s. There’s a post up somewhere down below. I had a nice note from her in response.
David says:
Vicarious’83: Haikus have 5 syllables in their first line, in general.
Jeff writes:
Lots! But I am under no delusions as to the likely outcome. I write/bitch because I like to and because my dad likes to read it.
But do they know that? This is the other depressing aspect of the article, and one that, I admit, we did discuss the last time around.
BHCC should make public the outcomes of its students. Ten years ago, it enrolled 1,000 (or whatever) students in introductory English. (Alas, not all were lucky enough to have Wick as their teacher.) How many graduated? How many successfully transferred their credits to other schools? How much student debt did they graduate with? (I think that BHCC does very well on the debt metric.)
I know what blogging gets for me. Do these students know what attending BHCC does for them? I have my doubts.
Nothing wrong with dreams. When I was 17, I dreamed of playing for the US national soccer team. (Not kidding.) Alas, that was a ludicrous dream. And, if I had been better informed about my soccer ability relative to my peer group, then I would have realized that then.
But, fortunately, that ignorance did not hurt me. Will the (similar?) ignorance of these students about the likely odds hurt them? Tough to tell. But they are unlikely to have as much of a margin for error as the typical Williams grad.
How many students who started their educational careers in Wick’s class went on to medical school? Don’t those students deserve accurate information as they plan out their lives?
Jr. Mom says:
Dave,
I really don’t have a problem with your opinions. And I apologize if it came off that way, it’s just that the last conversation we had about Wick’s midnight class started off very similarly to this one.
But rather than criticize your opinions on community college, let me ask you this: Don’t you get the feeling that there is significant change happening?
For example the boom in community college applicants:
I think in a funny way, some of your beefs are being addressed with this boom.
Dick Swart says:
leaves fall in comments,
slippery to tred upon.
colors drain. EphBlog
David says:
Not really. Newspapers are infamous for writing “trend” stories without any meaningful evidence for the trend in question. I am happy to believe that community college enrollments may be up this year. Perhaps they are always up during recessions. Perhaps this just reflects a move from more expensive state schools, and the total number of students in school is the same. (Here is some data, for those interested in diving in. I’ll start providing some R code for those interested!)
I have two central points.
First, I do not think that schools/society provide enough accurate data to prospective students about what past students have gone on to do. Part of the reason is that this is difficult to do. Part of the reason is laziness. Part of the reason is the knowledge that the results would be quite ugly. How many of the graduates from BHCC have gone on to be doctors, homicide detectives and state troopers? Prospective students deserve to know this. I think that schools/society don’t give a very accurate picture.
Second, I think that parts of society use educational credentialism to an excessive extent. Part of this is a good-faith belief that reading Whitman makes one a better nurse. Part of it is guild-like protections that keep incumbent salaries high. Part of it is implicit collusion with the educational/industrial complex.
I think that if we a) Gave students full information and b) Removed restrictions and replaced them with civil service-like tests, available to all, then many fewer students would take English with Wick.
Dick Swart says:
Perhaps community colleges need to anticipate growing job opportunities in their local areas.
http://www.cgcc.cc.or.us/Academics/WindTechnologyPage.cfm
Jr. Mom says:
@David:
words spring to my mind
of the way, the path taken
not destination
;-)
@Dick Swart:
ultimate challenge
comments, only in haiku
thoughts few and lovely
rory says:
vicarious–that was an accidental (near) haiku. nice catch (almost!)
david–lightened up at least re: things like a haiku. a smiley face (as corny as they are) can help make clear a joke or a serious statement. If you’re seriously chastising vicarious, well, you’re no fun.
to serious conversations (kinda):
“How many of those students would have been better off at a less competitive school than Williams? How many got in because of admissions preferences of various sorts?”
I’ll abstain from elongating this thread any further except to say that this theory, while seemingly very compelling, is far from a proven empirical reality (and has been shown to be highly dubious when tested), anecdotes about williams football players notwithstanding. :P
JeffZ says:
“The Man” pities us
Fools looking to get ourselves
All educated
JG says:
@David: You should read your own comments. Your question was placed above a paragraph about how hard people work to better themselves. That is not depressing.
And no, I actually don’t have a problem with people taking a writing class before having a job that requires reading and understanding instructions, as well as having to write and pass on instructions. Sorry. That seems pretty basic. Reading Whitman or Shakespeare or whomever expands comprehension and the ability to analyze information and express complex thought. What about that is anathema to being a nurse? Your comment implies that you think it is a job that doesn’t require analysis and comprehension, I would think your wife (doctor, right?) might disagree.
And as for those Williams kids who decide not to be doctors after taking Bio 101 – that doesn’t mean they should go to an “easier” school. It means they had to figure out ultimately what they wanted to do/be. None of that means Williams was too hard for them, it means maybe they weren’t cut out to be doctors, so what?
Dick Swart says:
Four from the Masters,
more or less on thread.
the dim path, where is the hope?
Tilling the field:
the man who asked the way
has disappeared
Basho, (1644 – 1694
Husking rice,
a child squints up
to view the moon.
Buson, (1716 – 1783)
An exhausted sparrow
in the midst
of a crowd of children.
Issa, (1763 – 1827)
A hundred labourers
digging earth:
the long day.
Shiki, (1869 – 1902)
Vicarious'83 says:
@rory:
The haikus are rolling in – wonderful!
Rory, I half-suspected that your comment #4 was not intentionally a haiku, but that makes it all the more striking – a truly spontaneous and organic expression that just naturally fell into the haiku format. So it’s not that your are a telented poet – you’re not. You ARE THE POEM, Dude!! You’re the Happy Gilmour of Haiku!
rory says:
@Vicarious’83:
who is the bitch now
bob barker or david kane
i am the poem
rory says:
arrgh…screwed up the quote!
the price is wrong bitch
vicarious makes a claim
i am the poem
JeffZ says:
Hey Rory, listen:
How about a nice warm glass
Of shut the hell up?
Basho says:
@JeffZ:
JeffZ-san,
A temperate outlook to contrast with bombast may be more in the spirit of haiku.
Rory: a warm glass,
please. my friend, in a silence
against clanging words.
(added later using the brush setting on his Mac-san)
Old Basho has forgotten to include the word so necessary to complete the 17 moras.
Old Bashu lives far from the maddening city and perhaps becomes careless without stress.
He begs readers forgiveness at his carelessness and returns to his seat by the fire.
PTC says:
Good deal. I’d like to meet wick.
As far as David’s comments go… uh… err… learning how to write well and think critically is important for everyone.
I think I understand more about Davids feelings towards education now though… and why he defends Willaims’ neglect of the local high school…
Some folks beleive that not everyone should learn as much as possible in life… I never have understood those folks line of reasoning. Life is about learning. It is odd that a person who supports the goals of enhanced and free dialogue as expressed in this blog would not support others efforts to excel in writing. Of course… there is always money. All about the money.
JeffZ says:
Well done, Basho … hope you come back often, this blog could use a little zen now and then …
Vicarious'83 says:
David,
Haiku hai-jinx aside, I respect your reaction to this article and take your opinion seriously. I tend to agree with your second point in #19 that professions frequently use unnecessary/irrelevant higher education credentials as barriers to entry. I think that this does indeed inflate demand for expensive and unnecessary 4-yr degrees, and “Executive MBAs.”
Regarding your first point in #19, I think it may also be very true for 4-year schools and Executive MBA programs that they don’t give out sufficient information about the liklihood that their degree really will turns one’s dreams into reality, but I don’t think you can include Community Colleges in that criticism. In fact, I think CCs are the antidote to the other issues.
In #5, you write:
The Atlantic article you link to is a compelling first-person account, but as evidence, it’s mere annecdote. Today’s NYT article presents an equally compelling article with more annecdotal evidence that simply runs counter to the Atlantic piece. Moreover, Wick’s own first-person articles in Inside Higher Ed also provide an alternative viewpoint to your selection.
In #2 you write:
Here is the BHCC Fact Book. It has quite a bit of statistical information. Most of it is regarding enrollment rather than employment, but on page 37 it provides some employment statistics regarding one section of its Nursing Program.
Now let’s look more closely at Mr. Chin’s situation. The requirements for the BHCC Nursing Program include 16 required courses for 69 credit hours, after which one is considered qualified to be hired as a Nurse. At most, five of the courses totaling 15 credit hours could be considered unnecessary to preparing one to be a Nurse: 2 courses in college-level writing, Quantitative Thought, Priciples of Psychology, and Principles of Sociology. Tuition is $116/hr, so tuition for the full degree is $8,004 (less any financial aid and tax benefits Mr. chin might qualify for). Eliminating the 5 courses could save a maximum of $1,740. Not immaterial, but nowhere near anything I would call a “scam.”
So what about the “Truth in Advertising” concern? Namely, what are Mr. Chin’s chances of landing a job in Nursing? I’d say pretty good, assuming he can complete the program.
So from what I can see, it looks like CCs are doing a good job in providing relevant education at a very fair price.
You offered in #19 to provide some analysis of census data. Personally, I would be very interested to see how your statistical analysis would line up with the Atlantic and NYT articles.
Sam says:
Vicarious,
With all due respect, I would strongly disagree about the courses you mention. My wife is a nurse. She comes home every day and tells me stories about her work. In addition, for a variety of reasons, I have been in a wide range of hospital settings, for extended periods of time, over the past decade. From all of this, I would have to say that psychology and sociology are central to the nursing profession. Much of what my wife does involves either recognizing psychological disorders in patients or, at the very least, understanding the psychological dynamics of care (how can you motivate an elderly person to take their medications, etc.). And patients are not isolated individuals, they are embedded in social networks, and understanding those social relationships can influence care plans significantly.
Also, college writing, as I am sure Wick will attest, is all about thinking. Clear writing reflects and engenders clear thinking. Needless to say, clear, precise thinking, and mature communication skills are important to nursing.
And, given the quantitative nature of much of medical science, some quantitative skill in also required.
I suspect the people at BHCC think long and hard about the training and education they are providing for their students. David Kane, on the other hand, is quick to denigrate those who do not fit into the very narrow world view that he holds. He tosses around words like “scam” and “fraud” in irresponsible and disrespectful ways.
David says:
Sam: Do you think that I am the only one who “tosses around words like “scam”?” Consider Forbes:
Read the whole thing.
Is “hoax” a more polite word than “scam” or do you not view Forbes magazine as a credible news outlet?
Wick Sloane says:
Never dull here.
I have to get to bed early because tomorrow, I have a midnight class.
OK. I am not teaching/providing a bachelor’s degree. I am, by design, teaching College Writing I. As noted, I want people to use writing to think clearly. I want them to write a successful job letter. I want them to be able to evaluate good medical care for their children. I want them to be able to write a credible threat to their landlord or the cell phone company that has overbilled them. I have this crazy idea that if I can help to think a little more clearly and to be able to make a credible argument for what they want in their lives. If that’s college, fine.
Anyone who thinks the skills I teach are effete or unrelated to the lives these students might lead has not read the exams to be, say, a utility lineworker or a firefighter or a healthcare MRI operator.
Most first responders are community college student. Everyone you meet in healthcare except the doctors probably trained at a community college. I think we want these people to be able to articulate and analyze problems of some complexity. A whole BA? I have no idea. I have faith that my students can figure that out for themselves.
Many comments here imply that classes like mine offer a ticket some unrealistic dream.
Ronit says:
@Sam:
I strongly agree with this. The ability to organize one’s thoughts clearly, and communicate them to others, is important in damn near every skilled profession.
David says:
Vicarious: Alas, the only census data that I could find (as provided in the link) was through 2006. But the news for 2008 is out here. Short version: enrollment is higher ed continues to grow at about the same rate as it has been growing for 20 years. Given the huge numbers of people involved, I would bet a ton of money that you won’t see any big divergences from this trend when the data for 2009 comes out.
Ronit: No one argues that “clear thinking” is a bad thing. The issue is: Why does society have certain requirements for, say, being a nurse and would a different set of requirements be better?
A naive person thinks that the current requirements are perfect, being designed by some impartial technocrats. In fact, that is not how the world works . . .
If clear writing is so important, why not require 2 classes instead of 1, or perhaps 4 classes? Why not require prospective nurses to get a Masters in clear writing?
David says:
Sam writes: “From all of this, I would have to say that psychology and sociology are central to the nursing profession.”
Agreed! The issues are a) What sort of licensing requirements are in place with regard to these and other fields; b) Why do we have these requirements? and c) Should we continue to have them?
It might be that all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds, but I doubt it.
Assume, for a moment, that the Massachusetts were considering a new law that required all (new) nurses to have 8 college credits in psychology and 8 in sociology. Given that these fields are “central to the nursing profession,” wouldn’t that obviously be a good thing?
I have my doubts . . .
JeffZ says:
David, you’ve now moved from, essentially, “community college is a big waste of time” to “pre-professional programs could possibly be better designed at the margins” and acted as if you are making the same argument throughout. This is a rhetorical technique you love to employ. It’s like the difference between me saying, “economics / finance majors completely screwed our economy, so we should abolish the study of economics entirely as it is obviously a complete waste of time, and it is really depressing to me that anyone would ever study economics or finance” vs. “perhaps we should consider how to improve finance and economics curriculums.” In each case, the latter statement is really beyond dispute for, but here, you started out with the former.
rory says:
haiku’d jeff:
goalposts move by kane
bad writing technique to use
enroll in wick’s class!