Proof that the Education System is failing.

I’m currently studying Art and Interactive Media at the wonderful University of Delaware. This school has a diverse set of students, highly intelligent professors, and plenty of extra-curricular activities to be involved with. This semester, I’m enrolled in five courses, one of which is called Advertising. My advertising class has allowed me to gain more insight into the other side of attending college; the professors who teach us. Professor Bartoo holds this class and many others like it every semester. She has personally held various jobs in the fields of marketing and advertising for over 30 years. For nearly 12 years she has been a professor at the University of Delaware.

Bartoo’s teaching style is unique. Her energy levels sum to be greater than the combined levels of every student in her class. Not only does she know her stuff from front to back, but she actually wants her students to learn. She told us about previous classes that would actually take field trips to real advertising agencies to get real experience with professionals in the field. Over the years she explained how this became very time-consuming, and thus she made the decision to discontinue these field trips. However, her level of dedication to her students has only increased since then.

Three fourths into the semester we get our mid-term grades back. Most students did very poorly, including me. I actually failed the exam. I was disappointed in myself. My curiosity led me to engage other students about their scores, only to find out they did even worse. Sadness is something you commonly see conveyed through students, but almost never through the professor. One day after class, a student and I had some questions to ask Bartoo. I asked first and was about to leave when the professor told me to wait a second. The other student asked her question and then the most incredible thing happened.

Our professor asked US a question. Something not specific to the course material. She sighed and calmly said: “Why do you think everybody did so poorly on the exam?”. Being the guy that I was, I waited for the girl to answer first. Her answer was simply that they didn’t study, and that the exam was very difficult. Most didn’t even finish the exam, and the girl who was answering the professors question actually scored the highest in the class. This verified for me that the exam was indeed difficult. This was the point when emotions were disregarded, and comfort zones were left.

The girl left in a hurry to make her next class. My professor asked if I had a second, which I sort of did. It was my only class of the day but I had some things I needed to do. I decided to relax and live in the moment for this conversation. I like to think I’m a pretty good listener, so I focused as much as possible on what she was saying, acting as sponge-like as possible before responding or giving input. She opened up to me and explained how she felt. She was just as dissapointed in herself as the students were. The strange part is that she felt SHE was responsible for these poor grades.

Since she was being so open and honest with me, I knew the only way to make this a productive conversation was to be as equally blunt back to her. Respectfully I listened closely and sympathized with her. As a talkative person, her natural personality flooded out into my ears. At a thousand words a second I tried to take as much as I could in and decipher it’s underlying meaning. Her words were very spontaneous, but there was somewhat of an organized flow to them, one only an advertising expert would have.

I knew she was hurting when she said to me: “Kenny, how would you feel if you’ve been teaching something for so long and people don’t even seem to care. Am I doing something wrong? I try to make class as entertaining as possible and people just aren’t grasping it! They couldn’t even barely describe the main differences between marketing, advertising, and public relations!”. She continued blaming herself and eventually spiraled into a question: “What should I change? What would YOU change?”. I knew this was my chance to make things right and she had to know how it was. The truth is important, and she needed to hear it.

My perspective is limited to what I know and think, but this was an opportunity where I could make different and truly unique connections to what I believed and what she experienced. I could finally justify my own claims against her everyday reality. I have always believed the education system has many flaws, and I explained to her how she wasn’t one of them. She is one of very few people who actually care that the student walks away knowing material that will help them in future careers. We talked a bit about how the education system needs to involve more creative thinking, and how students shouldn’t be forced into classes that won’t benefit them in the long run.

She could now understand the very true fact that many of the students are only in her class because they need to fulfill a certain requirement or a certain minor/major. I explained that she shouldn’t take this to heart, because those student’s simply aren’t passionate enough to motivate themselves, they’re just simply trying to pass and get through the course. Many students are un-motivated because they feel they’re just going through the motions. After talking about these simple things, I could tell she was really looking for the answer to a more specific question. She wanted to know what she could change in-class, and how she could alter her teaching styles to better suit the class.

I offered several changes and solutions to some of the problems I have noticed over the past months. The first thing I told her was to turn the projector off. She teaches class with a slideshow, some lecturing and examples, and in-class discussions and projects. I explained to her how, to me, this was a visual-class, and that students should be learning visually rather than just memorizing information and vocabulary. When she has the whiteboard on, students naturally focus on that material, and not her because they believe the information on the board is what will result in a good grade if memorized. This has got to be one of the worst ways to learn. Again, this is not her I’m talking about, but rather the sub-conscious decision making that most students partake in.

With only one source to learn from, it’s much easier to interpret meaning and focus on what Bartoo is actually saying. She is not a boring lecturer, but rather and engaging and almost entreprenuerial speaker. Most of her discussions sound like elevator-pitches because she knows how to communicate well and get her message across. The only issue is that there are students enrolled in the class who are non-majors, and those students tend to fall back on the slides and belief that memorization is the key to success in class. The real key, as Bartoo explained to me, was the ability to actually apply these concepts and analyze ad-agencies while recognizing core concepts learned in class and how they are used in the field of advertising.

We had been talking for about an hour now, and somehow she still had more to say. I didn’t mind because I was immersed in this conversation. It had a lot to offer both me and my professor. I also mentioned how much I loved her class, and admitted to not studying for the exam because I thought I “understood it all”. This was a mistake on my part, because I am a visual learner and thus try to learn strictly visually. Reading is something I despise unless it’s of interest to me and beneficial to my creativity. She definitely loved me as a student for the main reason that I always came to class and participated almost always. Students would typically sign their names on a weekly sign-in sheet to prove they went to class. One day I thought it would be funny to sign my name for three weeks in advance.

She actually brought this up in the conversation. To my surprise she was actually impressed by my actions. “In all my years of teaching, not once has any student ever done that. I respect that so much because you know you’ll never miss a class.” Although these were not my precise intentions for signing in advance, I was quite humbled to hear this coming from her. I never have missed her class, and don’t plan to in the future. The conversation was coming to an end and she thanked me for all of my insight. We found out a lot about each other and even discovered we lived in the same state and she asked about my previous education and community involvement.

With a firm handshake I said “I’ll see you this Tuesday professor, have a great weekend.” She walked away with a smile. A smile of relief and new motivation. I walked away realizing just how passionate professors were about their jobs, and that everybody is just human. Some overwhelming sensation overtook me on my walk back to my house. This sensation made me so happy and fulfilled. It was as if I had unlocked another part of my sub-conscious that had been forever hidden. On the walk back I reflected on what I said and what I could have said. For me, there was nothing I shouldn’t have said. The truth was in the air today, and although I didn’t know it now, a storm was brewing up in Bartoo’s mind. One that would forever change this semester. With each step I realized I had made a new friend.

Next week finally came and I was excited to get back into the grind. Bartoo’s class was always a blast, and always prompted creative thinking for me. Upon walking in, I noticed the chairs were oriented much differently. Standard class had all desks facing the white board, whereas now they were in a semi-symmetrical circle, all facing one another. Professor Bartoo was in the middle of the circle. The second our class begun, so did she. She had some papers on her desk, a pen, and the sign-in sheet. The class begun very silent, but I knew something was up. Everybody was staring at her, and she looked like she was getting ready to finally say something to us. As usual, she discussed some general things about the course, but paused mid-way. It was like there was a glitch in the system, and she froze. She said “You know what?.” After pausing again, she held up a packet of paper. The packet was our class syllabus, printed out and stapled perfectly. Holding it up as high in the air as she could she said “This is our syllabus.” She proceeded to rip the packet in half, followed by five more intense rips. She held the scraps and thew them into the middle of the room with a celebratory attitude. “We aren’t following this anymore. This class is going to be different from here on out.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Hundreds of little pieces of paper were lying lifeless on the floor. The system was broken. Did I cause this? Was what I said meaningful enough to my professor that she would do something like this? Nobody in class knew what to do or say. She comedically said: “What do you think about that?” I knew what I thought; this was incredibly awesome. Never have I been so fulfilled in my life to see this fully grown woman obliterate something she had worked so hard on. She had begun to explain her new plan for the class. What was different about this plan? This plan was for the students, by the students. After five minutes, she thoroughly explained that the next time we met for class, we were going to re-design the entire rest of the course from the ground up. We had to come ready with ideas and pitch them to the class.

Keep in mind there is only about 4 weeks of classes left, including finals. This meant that our class would only meet 8 more times this semester. Class ended after some open discussion questions. I left and knew I had to make a change. I was quick to think of ways to finish up the semester, and wrote down ideas as they came to me. In total, I thought of five alternate endings to the semester. Some of my ideas included group projects, class projects, and individual essay assignments. None of them were particularly perfect, but combined they’d make a great collaboration. Now it was just a waiting-game until next class. The professor sent out the update for those who missed the class to her email list. I received an individual email from her with the sentence: “Well, how was that?” I responded to her, explaining how happy I was and how relieved the class must have been. I further explained how we should scale this type of thinking and teaching beyond just her classroom. I asked her about how education would be if we all adapted this style of teaching. In responses, she was happy to hear my input and wrote that she “needed a leader to step up.”

Wether or not I could be that leader was unclear. I knew I wanted to be, but I also knew I had to seriously bring something that was just as effective as her last class was in convincing students that we could still finish the semester strong. I had to create something that would touch on everybody’s interests. A collaboration of everybody’s ideas would be a great way to start. People were all for the group projects, but I knew there could potentially be a better way.