ME AND ONLINE COLLEGE

Let's just say that I had a working relationship with an online college.

Further, let's say that I couldn't, for obvious reasons, say what college that might be.

So, for the sake of pseudonymity (if that's a word) let us just say that this Online College is called Embellish College and it is the online organ of the Not Quite Institute of Technology. And while my relationship with Embellish U. i ended, it was an affair to remember.

And why?

Because the students were so.... so ......it's hard to find the right phrase..... but perhaps... SO EFFING DUMB!

And given their advanced dumbnosity, they were not well served by Embellish U. Maybe this is even worse. Stupidity is an inherited condition, but a stupid student has about no chance to learn anything new at E.U. The classes are optimized for speed and instructors rarely step in to correct anything. In a post to come I might thrash out why I feel E.U. fails its students, but for a while I'm just going to focus on the student failures.

Because I like to play the blame game. That's why!

Let us consider a science course to remain nameless.

I should have known, in week one, that it was going to be a trip back to a pre-Copernican universe when a student answered the following reflection:

some scientists argue that Global Warming is an immediate problem while others argue it is not

thus:

This statement makes since. You really give me something to think about. Making a decision in haste can be damaging but waiting to long can also. When is the right time? Is there are a right time? IT maybe that what ever is done maybe damaging to our survival.

Ack Ptooie! I can only hope this student has yet been through the Embellish U. writing courses, because that level of writing wouldn't get past a basic-level ESL course in the worst Community College in the deepest ghetto of the most underfunded state in the Union (BTW - I'm pretty certain that would have to be in California somewhere).

There is also the fact that the statement means nothing. That and it has nothing to do with science.

But there it was....

other students veered off into incoherent critiques (if that is the word) of capitalism:

The horrible thing is that big corporation will use the inconsistencies to their advantage. They will use this information to fill us with fear and we will purchase the item they tell us will help save our planet as well as line their pockets.

or equally incoherent critiques of the media

I agree with you (Name Redacted). The media really needs to stay out of most things. They send out conflicting messages to everyone so no one knows what to believe. But like I said in my response to #2, "Until there is a new science that is found to always be accurate, then there will always be debates about the facts." And the media can report whatever they want.

Note that not one whit of these responses has anything to do with science. Everyone goes to their own little stalking horse and rides around in circles.

Having some experience with beginning writers, I call this the "I kept my baby" argument. The "I kept my baby" argument is the personal one and I first noticed it many years ago in a writing class that tried to keep its topics current. And whenever an assignment related to abortion was given you could be morally certain that at least one single-mother would completely ignore the assignment and write a long, illiterate tear about how abortion was a crime because the writer had kept her own child when her Baby-Daddy had headed for some less pregnant bint. It is the inability to look beyond personal experience to general arguments and it was at Embellish U. in spades.

So, here we had a student body in dire need of education. And here we had an educational body. How would they interact? Would they interact? Would we all keep our babies?

The babies, I'm afraid, all died.

The good news?

I got my degree. And so did most of the other ijdits