I have always referred to students as mine or my "kids" and somehow had convinced myself that this meant I cared about them, which I genuinely do. However, it never occurred to me, and apparently not to them either, that there are connotations of ownership and power contained in those possessive pronons.
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In response to Belle's comments about how we so easily reduce things to economic relationships, I think the same can be said of the educational community. More and more we hear about how there are achievement gaps for underserved students, yet the very measures aimed at helping those students are targeted at the students most likely to be successfull and not those that are neediest. We are about to offer scholarships to students who can commit to a full-time education and are triple-exempt from any type of remedial work. While this is admirable, it ignores a large population of students who have tuition covered by PELL grants, but cannot come full-time because most work to supplement the family's meager public assistance allowances. These students are often those who are in the lowest-level remedial classes, who may have GEDs because they dropped out of day school to work to support the household and who are now being excluded from an opportunity to get ahead. If we only wish to help those who don't need remedial work and don't need to work to help their families, aren't we making an economic choice to help only those who will provide the biggest pay-off to the college? Can we and should we be doing more?
Margot
