Career School Stress
I see many of the participants in this course are dealing with students that think they are buying their degree; a common issue for career schools. Many career school students cannot get accepted in a traditional college. Consequently, if they want to get a degree and or further their education they seek out career schools. I concentrate on the fact that at least they took a step to change their life.
There are some students that think they just need to pay the bill to get their degree; however, I find that most do try to get the work done. Working for a career school is more challenging than working for a traditional college because of the type of students and the school retention requirements for continued employment. I concentrate on the students that are trying and document all efforts toward getting other students to participate. The school’s reputation will come to fruition in the workplace by the quality of students graduated.
That sounds really tough Tony. I know a lot of instructors who are in your exact same situation. It's driven in part by the economy.
I have the same issues at our career school. In fact, to acheive higher retention levels our corporate management decided to lower acheivement levels across the board in all classes. The intended affect was accomplished but it added futher stress to staff as we were told to "demo,demo, demo",etc. Now granted that we were already doing demo's, but there is only so much time available. And still we are "called onto the carpet" when classes have high failure rates. This atitude of "entitlement" coupled with "ever high retention levels" becomes overbearing in today's enviorment.
I would not recommend lowering your standards. While it will likely decrease stress in the short term, you'll ultimately face some long term consequences like increased requests. Ultimately, the students are paying for an education and we serve them best when we hold them to the highest standards. This being said, I would make it very clear that students don't 'get grades' they 'earn grades.' Within this framework, it's up to the student to make things right, not the instructor. Students own both their success and failures.
Wow - I totally understand the "entitlement" problem. There are two particular comments that I seem to get quite a bit: "Can I do extra credit - I need to pass and can't afford, financially, to take this class over" and "I really tried hard on this assignment - I don't feel that I deserve such a low grade!". These are major sources of stress, since our school does not offer extra credit and this is clearly known to the students, and I grade strictly by points and even post the rubrics ahead of time and I still have students who cannot or do not turn in quality work. Should I lower my standards to lower my stress levels?
That sounds like a difficult problem Nancy. I would set expectations in your syllabus at the start of the semester - clearly identifying what's free and what belongs to the school. Then make reference to your syllabus throughout the semester.
I work in a culinary school that student steal from like it is a free glass of water! The justification is that they "paid x amount" and are "entitled"--yet I explain that to have the equipment every needs, shrinkage is their problem, too. They need to police each other so that their stress doesn't escalate.
We can only do so much David. While we try to reach all of our students, it does make sense to prioritize the ones who are really trying to get the most out of the learning experience.
I agree with you that a lot of students believe that because they pay then we just open thier head and pour it in. I try to get them to believe in themselves and that getting thier education is a lot of work. I try to give ALL of them the help they need but I work with the one more if they are really trying.
