Academic terrors

[sabrinamari]

Are you reading dr_pretentious's journal?

Today she wrote this:

http://dr-pretentious.livejournal.com/169778.html

My favorite part:

"I would dream I was teaching at a high school, and since I'm just under five feet tall and look younger than I am, the administrators would mistake me for a student and force me to go through high school all over again. These dreams typically ended with me shouting futilely, "But wait! I have a Ph.D.! I don't have to be a matriculated student anywhere, ever again!" as a great vortex of wind pulled me back into the classroom."


I used to have this dream. But in my case, my mom had re-enrolled me in high school because I'd failed to fulfill a math requirement. In my dream, I begged just like dr_pretentious begged, but to no avail.

I finally stopped having the dream after walking out of the school and refusing to go back.

It's nice to know that you're not alone in your neurosis.

****

Hey---TWO of the women I love have had this dream! And they're both brilliant! I'm sort of normal.

Big grin.

Comments

[wgseligman.livejournal.com]

I've had dreams like that myself. This clip from Top Secret describes my feelings exactly (47 seconds):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC5rD3UUKRw

(Hey! It's my youtube day!)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Had this one too. Hate it!

You have my sympathy.

[rio-luna.livejournal.com]

had this too, whern i started grad school at FIU.

[akrissy.livejournal.com]

Just started a Masters. Good to know what may come up in my dreams.

[puckmls.livejournal.com]

I've had similar dreams, most of which involved important exams that I hadn't studied for and decided to blow off. I recall that in the last one of these dreams, I actually had half a clue, took the exams, and did OK. Maybe I had resolved whatever life issue this series of dreams was helping me to work through. :-)

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion that any educational system that inspires so much fear, disengagement, and sadness as the systems I know to be in place in the UK and US (don't know about other countries) is a total failure.

Politicians keep acting like the system is fundamentally fine, and that there's some golden age we need to hearken back to because the problem's down to modern lack of rigour/discipline/standards (and has been for every single generation for the past hundred years). I prefer Philip Zimbardo's point that we need to stop looking at "rotten apples" and look at "rotten barrels".

The majority of people hated school, felt inadequate, got bullied/were bullies who were also bullied, and spend their lives honestly believing that they CAN'T do a wide range of activities because they did badly at related subjects at school. So why are we doing this over and over again? It's bizarre.

And it intensifies at uni. I have come to firmly believe that being too ill to continue at uni is one of the best things that ever happened to me. The systems and behaviours I heard about and saw during your PhD process and that of our friends showed me that your environment was actually abusive. It was like a non-physically violent domestic abuse situation in which individuals were isolated, undermined, subject to impossible demands, expected to read the minds of those who had power over you and provide whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it, starved of support, taught to live on fear and self-doubt and distrust, and given just enough in the way of "reward" here and there to make you justify and defend the process. From the outside, it was a horror show, and I'm glad you got out.

Yes, I am angry. Education should be a source of joy and liberation, not a way of keeping people stuck in fear and self-loathing.

[hypatia42.livejournal.com]

Hey---TWO of the women I love have had this dream! And they're both brilliant! I'm sort of normal.

No. This does not mean you are normal. It means you are also brilliant. *smooch*

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Even better. *smooch back*

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

I'm not having night dreams about the educational process---I'm living it. I have such a fear and anxiety about my math classes that I stress myself out---and I know I'm doing it but I can't seem to stop it. I am always afraid of olooking stupid, of being "not too bright', of having nothing worthwhile to contribute. The math professor this semester is German---and very strict. I'm not sure exactly what her standards are, but I'm finding myself jumping through her hoops, just to get a good grade. I'm not happy with this at all. If something is acceptable in one math class, it should be acceptable across the board---but it just isn't so. I'm spending a lot of time trying to be letter-perfect, and I can feel myself missing the point of the math (if there is one). All of this stress and anxiety is supposed to give me an end result of three math credits required for my degree---but it's SO not worth what I'm going through. Not at all. I am dreading the actula class, I am dreading the quizzes and the tests, and the knowing looks of the professor as she hands back my papers---with blue marks all over them befcause I didn't highlight asn answer, or didn't put the word "or" in the answer, or a hundred other little things that are hardly critical to my knowledge base---and my self-confidence takes a nose dive every single time.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Oh no - that's awful!

In the UK, we've the student union, the NUS,representatives and officers on each campus. Their job is to signpost resources and support for students. We also have pastoral tutors, tutors who have a set number of students assigned to them on registration; their job is to provide you with practical and emotional support, and to support you in difficult situations with staff, coursework, etc. What is the support structure at your uni/college? Have you spoken to any members of staff, such as your dean of department, about how this lecturer is affecting you?

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is anything that can be done about this particular situation---this professor has several classes of this particular course, and I think she's overwhelmed. She's also dealing with LOTS of middle-school behaviors---kids throwing paper airplanes, talking, disrupting the class---it's really getting on my nerves. I look at this as every professor having their own way of doing things, but I suffered over the summer with a teacher that made me feel two inches tall because I wasn't as adept in math as she was, and she kept throwing it up in my face (and in front of the class) that "Sharon needs to see the steps". I never got a chance to evaluate that particular professor because I opted to take the exam early so that I could do it without her breathing down my neck. This professor see that part of her job is to correct bad habits we may have gotten into, and she has her own way of math notation. I just have to learn it---but I DO hate getting those papers back with the blue markings all over them, because it means I haven't come up to her dard---and I don't like that at all.

This is a community college, and for lots of students, it's just glorified high school, and the professors treat them that way. For me, it's a two year degree at a much reduced price so that I can go on to a four-year university and concentrate on the classes that are my major---I get the General Education garbage out of the way cheaply, then take the higher-quality major classes in the university. Perhaps I won't feel so bad when I get to the four-year college---those folks will have gotten the piddly stuff out of the way and be serious about their studies by then. At least, I hope so!