Last two weeks of class, I could insert an exhaustible amount of obscenities here but I'll leave that out. Well, maybe one, FUCK MY LIFE! Alright that out of my system. This is always a very aggravating time for me and one that slams most of us with the dilemma of class assumptions in education from elementary ed to higher ed. The issue of time management in education usually references the concept of not writing papers the night before or breaking up your study sessions so as to ingest the information more effectively. There are obvious class obfuscation in this. Its much harder for someone who is working full time to write a paper or study for a largely inclusive exam, even more insurmountable for someone who also has a family they care for. The idea of writing a paper in sporadic busts of 30 minutes one week, 1 hour another day, staying up after work to write and go to work in the morning doesn't usually produce an essay worthy of publishing. There is to this also an issue a dual issue of cultural capital and crossing class tensions. The assumption that it is easy to insert in your daily planning the time to work on a research piece or studying for an exam his a very middle class twinge to it. Usually this time must be sacrificed from other activities that are for those of us in the working and working-poor are for purposes of subsistence and hygiene (cooking, doing laundry, or in some cases showering) [don't kid yourself many of us have skipped a few showers in the week for the sake of an extra few minutes of sleep] While the students from the managerial class and up may also endure the sleep deprivation they are for the most part not time investment in school work for time invested in life's necessities (partying, leisure, social obligations) The issue of crossing class arises in the tensions caused within any living situation when the activities of necessity are sacrificed for school work. Those who are either dependant on or assume the student to fulfill these requirements at home can at time become aggravated that their partner or child is ignoring their responsibilities at home for their school work.
There is another form of time management that represents a very class biased assumption made by higher education authorities and educators themselves. Now I know I've harped before on the idea that education is not a preset trajectory in which we can be segregated into year of progress, age, and so on. however, in the established institution this is not the reality of need for the working and working-poor student. for us it there is a very real and pragmatic need to obtain a degree in as little a time as possible while incurring as little debt as possible. The cost benefit balance of education for the working class student is very different for perhaps a more bourgeoisie student capable of "bettering themselves" over a long period of time without much of a worry on the cost incurred. Those of us with scanter resources are very sharply in tuned with the costs in time and opportunity in taking an extra semester, in dropping a class and pushing back graduation, in a 5 year education Ba program. (*COUGH *COUGH)
This is the paradox of class effects on time management in education for the working and working-poor student. We do not have the resources available for an prolonged educational career and thus endure enormous pressure to expedite the process of getting a degree to better our economic situation or gain some stability. While at the same time we also lack the cultural capital for appropriate time management to really excel in our class or are meet with resistance from push and pull forces in our homes from either necessary chores or personal relationship tensions. The educational institution provides little in the way of providing aid in dealing with this dilemma because it is based on a large swath of middle class assumptions about what a student is.
So we are in the current status of things doomed to write our papers after work while the laundry is drying and wondering if we'll get over 20 hours of sleep this week.
**disclaimer** this is not an attempt to convince professor Schuster not to assign the website analysis. But if by chance it did have that effect...it wouldn't be a bad thing
lucky for me I read this AFTER I assigned the web sites.
ReplyDeleteBut you are right working 30 hours per week makes it much harder to attend to a research project or an extended paper of any sort. This requires time for long rounds of thought and reflection and consistent attention. Each semester this time I have one or two students who are in over their head and I often find myself counseling withdrawal from a course. It's not because the student isn't capable but because something happened this particular semester - sickness, broken car, ill family member - that put them behind.