Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 29

It's a strange business. Because unlike almost all your other businesses, we're selling to kids. We're marketing to adults, but if a mom or a dad comes home with a toy that a kid doesn't want to play with, it's not making their kid happy. So we're really talking to the kid through the adult. I mean, we try to make the adults happy, too. To basically influence them to come in with their kids to buy the products that are in our store. To make a special trip to the toy store, just for their kid. But bottom line is: It's all about the kids.

And you can't bulls.h.i.+t a kid. At the end of the day the kids are going to be the people that tell us what is hot and what is not. Kids know if it's a good toy. Kids know if it's a good property. Kids know if they like it. And you can't bulls.h.i.+t that. You can't dismiss that as just saying, "Okay, you know, we're going to make this. We're going to invent this thing and spend all this money and kids are going to love it." It doesn't work that way, you know.

I'm forty-two years old. I'm at the mercy of seven-year-olds. [Laughs] I am totally at the mercy of seven-year-olds because a sevenyear-old is going to tell me whether or not she loves or hates what I've done. And no matter what type of marketing I try to put behind it, if it's not a good toy, if it's not a good property, if they don't like watching it on TV or they don't want to watch it on the big screen, I'm completely at their mercy.

It's all for them. I mean, you look at a kid. And you've basically schlepped them around to the doctor's office. You've schlepped 'em around to the post office. You schlepped 'em to the bank. You schlepped 'em to the supermarket. Now you're in Toys "R" Us and- watch the kid's expression when you bring 'em into the store. There's nothing-it's so cool. Because a kid just opens up and says, "I'm in my element. I can go in every aisle here and find something that I want." You know? We try to make that visit as painless as possible for the adult and as rewarding as you possibly can for the kid. And that's so cool. And that's what I do.

I experience such mutual adoration-

me toward them and them toward me-

and then I get into, like, the adult world

where people don't do it any more.

SECOND-GRADE TEACHER.

Katy Bracken.

I was one of those people who was pretty much totally unable to decide what they wanted to do with themselves. When I graduated from college, I moved to Chicago. Why? I was dancing a lot and I just wanted to be in a city. Any city, it didn't matter. I didn't have any kind of long-term plan or anything. Then I started waitressing. [Laughs] That sobered me up a bit. I was too tired to think, much less dance. So I was like, "Okay, I'm going to get a normal job where I'm not running around all night, so I can do the dancing thing." And right away, I saw this teaching position advertised, an a.s.sistant for second grade. I lived right near the school, and it was in this old building and I thought that was cool, so I interviewed, and they hired me. And that's how I got into teaching [laughs]-randomly.

But I was so thrilled by it. I mean, there were problems-that first school was kind of weird. It was sort of going bankrupt and it had some very bizarre children-tough kids-a boy who'd been adopted that year, when he was nine, who had something seriously wrong and really didn't talk. Another boy who was always grabbing and fighting with other kids. It wasn't the best situation. But I just loved the teaching thing-with even the worst kids there was something interesting and kind of lovely. I was really into it in a way that I just hadn't been into anything before. So I started looking for another school and I found this place where I've been the last seven years. I had a friend who used to teach here and she got me an interview and I walked in and it was like I couldn't believe I'd been at the other place that was so dilapidated. This school has so much energy, so many happy kids. I just knew I had to work here. And, fortunately, I got along very well with the woman who interviewed me.

I started in the library, because that was the only position open, but I made sure that during every free moment, I went into cla.s.srooms and helped out with the kids-reading books with them and stuff. And after two months, a woman that I had been helping a lot was, like, "I want her to be my a.s.sistant." So I went into her cla.s.sroom as an a.s.sistant teacher and I guess I did very well at that because, at the end of the year, I was offered a head teacher job for the next fall.

And suddenly, things got very weird because I wanted to do the job-it was totally my ambition by that point-but I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. Because I knew what a big deal it was.

Being a head teacher is incredibly challenging. It's all up to you. There's twenty kids and you don't have any breaks during the day. You eat lunch with the kids, you're with them constantly, and you're responsible for everything. There are times, even as an a.s.sistant, where I'd be like, "I don't know how I'm going to make it." Like I want to go the bathroom just to get a minute's peace. The level of exhaustion is that high. There's also times when your responsibility is just overwhelming, like being responsible for their safety. Like three weeks ago I couldn't find a kid in the park. And I just-my whole life was flas.h.i.+ng-this kid's been kidnapped and-life is now over. [Laughs] I mean, she was just away collecting sticks. But there are these moments of intense stress.

So I was just scared s.h.i.+tless to become a head teacher. And all that summer before I had to actually start doing it, I took cla.s.ses at a teacher's education program to kind of prepare me. It was a very hands-on program, but still, I was totally nervous. I was inheriting my cla.s.sroom from this woman who'd taught here for twenty-five years. She hadn't cleaned her room out, so the weeks before school began, I would go in each day and try to whittle down her stuff to what I wanted for my teaching. I was wading through like twentyyear-old mimeographs and just losing it because I couldn't make any decisions. I had, like, tremendous insomnia. I was crying a lot. I would ask the most ridiculous questions to every other teacher I could get my hands on: "Do you put the lined paper above the white paper? The white paper near the construction paper? What kind of sign should I have on the door?"

It was ridiculous. I was deluded. I mean, these things are important, but at the same time, once you get them down, it's like who cares? [Laughs] But there's a lot of obsessiveness in that first year being a head teacher. And, you know, just generally, I think I've always been a kind of anxious person-like I said, a little afraid of deciding what I want to do. My dad is a very successful pediatrician and he's great, very supportive and all that but, well, I've always felt one of the biggest crises of my life was deciding that I didn't want to do exactly what he does-even if that meant I didn't know what I wanted to do. I mean, I'll never forget the college thing of my dad- he thought I could do anything-and so I would go home on vacations from college and get infused by his confidence in me being able to be a doctor or whatever. I would be, like, "Right. I'm going to do the pre-med thing!" But then, back among my friends, I would be like, "I have no desire to do that. I want to dance or act or write poetry, or whatever," you know? It just took a while to just get past him-and realize that I was doing it fine the way I was going along.

Anyway, a lot of this kind of thing came to a head that summer before I became a head teacher. [Laughs] I was a wreck. But then, somehow, I finally set up my cla.s.sroom and then my first year came. [Laughs] And I got a new bunch of problems.

This is a private school. And it's kind of known for artsiness, for letting the kids excel in the things that they're naturally good at. Our director doesn't like to hire people with education degrees-she wants people who are going to teach what they are pa.s.sionate about. But what happened to me my first year is I was having these conflicting ideas because I'd gone to this summer teacher's ed program that was kind of philosophically entrenched. It was like you teach kids first what's around them and then what's far away. They actually had a code phrase for this that they said all the time: "Here now, far tomorrow." It meant that you first teach the here and now and then you teach the faraway. So you don't teach Native Americans first, you teach Lake Michigan. Because that's what's right here.

So I got very excited about teaching the kids about Lake Michigan. I did this unit on it and we went there a couple of times and it was okay, but it seemed to go on too long. The kids weren't that excited about it. And our director wasn't into it at all because she hates that "here now" philosophy. She feels like it deprives kids of their imagination, because the here and now is so concrete. So then my second semester that first year I hadn't planned to do this, but I decided to do India. Which was instantly a huge success. Like it was so full of color and s.e.xiness for the kids. I'd get these dance videos from the library that were amazing and I brought in all this Indian music and stuff and it just went great. It was basically my salvation. I've taught India every year since then. [Laughs] It's gotten to the point where parents often think I'm Indian, because of my [laughs] skin color and I'm so into it. And I'm not Indian at all, but so what?

The Indian G.o.ds are really exciting. I love them. I always start with Ganesh because he's a fat elephant who loves eating sweets and stuff. Very kid-friendly. And then the other Indian G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, they're very nongendered-everyone wears makeup and there's these awesome warrior G.o.ddess women. There's just a lot of imaginative things to tap into with them. And there's also yoga- that's another way I get them into it. I do a lot of yoga, and all the stories and all the G.o.ds are related to physical poses in yoga. So that's instantly something to get the kids moving, you know, doing the s.h.i.+va's bow, which gets them involved.

It's been great. Over the years, I've just become more and more at ease. I mean, each summer I go through this anxiety about starting again. And I feel like, oh, my G.o.d, the kid's are going to hate it, or I'm going to get tired of teaching the same thing. But it always works out. It's always so enjoyable.

I've had some years that were less good than others. Three years ago, the character of that cla.s.s was much more athletic, and the boys were-you know, it was the furor of the Bulls. The Chicago Bulls. [Laughs] So the boys were kind of macho and I could tell they weren't all that into this Indian stuff. But still, they had so much energy and they got into some of the dance and music. And I got through that year fine. I'm pretty confident that, now, given the time, I can make almost anything okay-at least in my cla.s.sroom.

I really get along with kids this age. And I feel like this is a little bit weird, but I love their love. I don't know if I want to have kids or not. I can't picture it for many, many years. [Laughs] Because I don't really know how I'd do it-how I'd manage it. But I love the brand of love that comes from this age of kid. And I sometimes think that I'm being duped, because I experience such mutual adoration-me toward them and them toward me-and then I get into, like, the adult world where people don't do it anymore. Like they just-life is not about loving. Like in that direct way. Like there's no spontaneous hugging [laughs] which happens with these second-graders.

Sometimes I get done with a day and go home and I just miss that affection, that closeness. Like in a certain way, I just feel very blessed to have these kids, you know, in my life. They teach me, you know, they make me less nervous or something.

I think my ability to be affectionate has been very deeply influenced by this job, by being able to experience affection that's not s.e.xual during the day. I have a lot of nons.e.xual affection with my friends now. Which is so healthy. I guess, basically, I just feel more comfortable with the world since I started teaching-and that comfort comes from, you know, hanging around with kids. It's had such an affect on me. I'm just, you know, comfortable. I feel like I'm in a good place. Like I like my job a lot. It's tiring and blah, blah, blah, but I don't have any long-term plans except this.

And it's funny, because last summer, I didn't plan to do it, but there's this two-week intensive dance cla.s.s here with this semi-famous guy-and at the last minute, I decided to take it. And I was shot back in my head to those times before I started teaching when I was dancing all the time and I was all conflicted about what I wanted to do with my life. It was the scariest thing because at first I felt this euphoria. I felt like so powerful and so, like, I don't know-I just felt like I didn't need anybody. Like I wanted to get back into dance again. But then, somewhere in the middle of the two weeks, I just got totally sickened by it and scared by the selfishness of it. And I realized that I've been, like, redeemed by teaching. Like teaching was right for me. I'm a person that should be a teacher.

My kids know that I'm the boss and not

to f.u.c.k around and not to f.u.c.k with me.

HIGH SCHOOL MATH TEACHER.

William K.

I graduated college with a business degree in Options and Finance. Why? I don't know. College was a haze of drugs. Actually, haze is an understatement-you can really see through a haze. This was thick. We're talking a wall of drug using. I was dealing, too. I was getting theoretical business training in cla.s.s and practical experience outside of cla.s.s, selling everything. Pot, acid, mushrooms, c.o.ke.

I thought I was going to be a stockbroker. [Laughs] I thought that was gonna be an easy job to get. [Laughs] Then I quit drugs and I got a little more realistic about matters. The chick that I was living with at the time was teaching and the starting pay is actually decent. So I followed her. I started subbing, did that for six months, and I dug the environment. I went back to school for my credentials and got a job, weirdly enough, at my old high school. Suddenly, I was peers with my former teachers. None of them knew what a f.u.c.kup I'd been in college. Everyone was really helpful and friendly. The transition was really smooth.

I've been here six years now. I teach Computer Science and Math-the very basic stuff. Like my computer cla.s.s, it's how to turn on the computer, that's the second day of cla.s.s. The first day is, "This is a computer!" [Laughs] It's that basic. Later, we get into how to use Windows, word processing. We do some graphics, I get them on the Internet. Some of my advanced kids make their own web pages, but that's because they're interested and want to hang out with me and learn more. Most of my students don't come close to web pages. They're just in cla.s.s, sitting there.

Kids these days are so apathetic. I keep on hearing everyone say, "Oh, it's the MTV Generation, they process information so fast, they're used to videos with these quick edits." Hardly. The kids I'm dealing with are usually dumber than dirt. You've really got to slow things down. People say if you do that they're going to get bored, but unless you do that, they're not going to accomplish anything.

When I first started teaching, I thought I had realistic expectations and realistic standards and I wanted to uphold them. But the kids now are a lot different than they were when I was in school, and after two or three years, I not so much realized it, but I reacted to it and started modifying the a.s.signments I give and the way I structure my cla.s.ses and grade them. I made everything a lot easier.

Like I've stopped covering word problems in Algebra. I don't do them in cla.s.s, I don't test on them. Word problems being, "There's a garden whose dimensions are so-and-so, there's a path around the garden whose dimension is so-and-so, the area of the garden is x, what's the area of the path?" Anything having to do with words. It's a shame because I find those problems interesting. They make you think. But the kids do not want to think. They want to do the absolute minimum. Whatever it takes just to get by. They're happy with a pa.s.sing grade, which is a D. If a kid asks what his grade is, I always feel bad saying, "You got a D." But they go, "Yes! I'm pa.s.sing!" They're happy.

It's gotten to be a pretty f.u.c.ked-up world. I really just concentrate on teaching them the absolute minimal skills needed to do mathematical calculations and work with the computers. I'd love to go beyond that, but the kids have a real hard time when I do. It's too much for most of them. Out of a cla.s.s of thirty, maybe one or two will really get it. That b.u.ms me out, but I have to teach them something. I can't just waste their time. That would be worse.

I don't think my students are getting a good enough preparation for either the workforce or for college. They're not learning individual study skills. They literally need to have their hand held through everything. They don't know how to take notes. They can't read something on their own and then answer questions about it, or discuss it. You need to go over everything with them and explain everything with them. They're just going through the motions to get their diploma. And what's a high school diploma going to get them? Pumping gas?

My school is about seventy percent Latino and the other thirty percent is black, Asian, and white. When I went here, it was mainly white. Some of my best students are Latino, some of my worst students are Latino. Same with blacks. I don't think that the ethnicity of the student is the problem. It all stems from their family and their upbringing and the value that their families have placed on education. And unfortunately, the majority of our families either don't give a s.h.i.+t, or that's the appearance. I mean, I've got five cla.s.ses and my homeroom, which means there are like a hundred and seventyfive students that I deal with every day. And when we have an open house or a parent conference night, if I get twenty parents to show up, I'm the baddest motherf.u.c.ker in the world. That's a big turnout. To have twenty parents show up out of a hundred and seventy-five kids.

Or like, whenever one of my students gets a D, I put a comment on their report card. I write, "In danger of failing, parent conference requested. Please call school." Two or three weeks ago, I probably put that comment on maybe fifty report cards-and out of all those fifty, I had two parents call me. And it's not a language problem, either-if a student's home language is other than English, and in our case it would be Spanish, my comments are in Spanish. I've called some of these parents myself. I used to do it a lot more than I do now and I would probably feel better about myself if I still did do that a lot, but it just b.u.mmed me out-the total lack of response. It's bulls.h.i.+t.

The saddest thing is, to me, that I really do like these kids. I have meaningful conversations and good relations.h.i.+ps with a lot of them. And I enjoy just hanging out with them, you know? I think I create a pretty great environment in my cla.s.sroom. They're not always the brightest kids, they don't always want to keep on task, but, for the most part, I get along great with them. I know that some of them are gang-banger types, but in my cla.s.sroom, we get along.

I very rarely have any kind of discipline problems. I've never had to take a gun away or put out a fire or anything like that-all of which has happened in this place. I mean, maybe they're not always doing what they should be in terms of work, but my kids aren't doing anything bad. Like we recently had a lockdown situation because I guess the cops were chasing somebody who went underneath the school and we were all locked in our cla.s.srooms for four hours. Students and teachers. So we couldn't go to the bathroom, there was no food. The kids were losing it, I was almost losing it. But my cla.s.s was for the most part pretty well behaved. While in other cla.s.ses, kids started smoking, peeing in the cla.s.srooms, were way out of control. My kids know better.

And, you know, my kids do learn some things. I hear stories about other cla.s.ses being real chaotic and the teacher not being able to do any teaching-the kids are never in their seats, they're on top of their desks yelling and screaming and never getting any work done. My cla.s.ses are always mellow. Whenever any teacher subs my cla.s.s-if I'm like sick or something-they always say, "Your cla.s.s is amazing. I just sat there and did nothing and the kids worked, they don't talk, they don't screw around. They stay in their seats." They're amazed that even when I'm not there, they're good. It's all about training. You have to train them from day one. I can be cool and friendly, but my kids know that I'm the boss and not to f.u.c.k around and not to f.u.c.k with me.

Discipline is a whole att.i.tude. A lot of teachers send their kids down to the dean's office for real minor things-like because they didn't have a pen, or they didn't have paper. That's ridiculous. It makes you look like an idiot in front of your kids. I try and handle all of my discipline problems in the cla.s.sroom. I very rarely send a kid down to the dean's office. Maybe I'll do it once a year, if that. Even with serious stuff-like I was walking through the halls last year and I saw a cloud of smoke and when I turned the corner, there were two students of mine-and I didn't see them smoking, I didn't see a joint or a pipe, but I knew that's what they were doing and they knew that I knew. So they started walking away real fast and I walked toward them real fast. I caught up to one of them and I called the other kid over. When they were both in front of me, I just looked at them, shook my head, and smacked their heads together. Then I went to my next cla.s.s. The next day, when I saw one of them, I told him, "Don't ever put me in that position again." I told him the next time I'm even suspicious, I'm going to take him down. And now, whenever I see them outside my cla.s.sroom, I tell them, "I hope you guys are keeping out of trouble." And they're always going, "Yes, we are!" [Laughs]

You have to follow through like that. You can't ever have them say, "He let me get away with this, which means it's okay." Because it's not okay. I'm here to teach these kids, not be a cop, but you've got to have basic discipline in place to teach.

I think I'm making the best of a bad situation. I can't fix up these kids' homes, make them different people. Maybe I can get to one or two in a cla.s.s, but not all of them. No way. It's not like the f.u.c.king movies, you know? I've dropped my standards to a realistic level and I'm teaching them what I can in a reasonable way-at least that's what I tell myself. And I don't have a problem with it. I'm basically happy with this job. I plan to keep it.

The toughest thing, to be perfectly honest, is controlling my s.e.x drive. Girls at this school like to wear real low-cut outfits. That seems to be very popular with the Latino group. I've had a couple of girls who really flirt big time with me. I've been able to just kind of laugh it off or blow it off and control myself because I do value my job- and that would definitely jeopardize it-but it's not always easy. My rule is basically, they have to be out of high school. A couple of girls have come back after they've graduated, but I wasn't attracted to them, therefore, I didn't pursue it.

At this moment, I've never done any of my former students. [Laughs] I'm not saying I won't. I'm still waiting for a couple of them to come back! [Laughs] I'm sorry-I do keep things professional, but some of these girls are eighteen, nineteen years old, or even older. There's another teacher here who always seems to get these twentyand twenty-one-year-olds in his cla.s.s. They were held back or ESL students or something. We've got this inside joke where he will have them run errands for him and come to my cla.s.sroom with bulls.h.i.+t messages just so I can check them out. He'll write me a note saying something like, "I've got the twenty boxes that you wanted!" And the "twenty" means she's twenty years old. [Laughs] I know it probably sounds awful, but we're just fooling around with each other.

I think I'm basically a good teacher. I'm prepared, I care about the kids, I've even written my own course handbook instructions for them-to make everything as straightforward as possible. I think what makes a good teacher is being able to explain something clearly and antic.i.p.ating problems that the students will have. And I do that pretty well. And, you know, I look around here and there are some teachers who are just counting the days until retirement. They see nothing wrong with showing up to cla.s.s every day, popping a videotape in the VCR, pressing play, and taking out their newspaper. There are a lot that are doing that. We've also got plenty of faculty members who are completely unsuitable to be working at a school or maybe even working, period. Like certifiably insane teachers that have no right being here. We had this one guy last year, he got in trouble for threatening students with violence-with his machete and his dog. One of the a.s.sistant princ.i.p.als came in and the first thing he said was, "I guess you're here because you heard that I'm drunk." He got fired, but he was extreme. He got away with a lot of s.h.i.+t for months. So, you know, obviously I could be doing a lot worse.

I do think that I'm doing some good. At base, I think I'm helping most of these kids in some way. At the very least, I try to teach what I consider to be good values. And these good values are: treat everybody cool. And like always try your hardest, try to make something of yourself, make good decisions, set good goals, know how to achieve them. That kind of stuff. It's not rocket science, but it's appropriate to the environment here.

There is nothing I hate more than

three weeks after the semester to still

be getting fifty to sixty e-mails about

people arguing with you why they

should have an "A."

COLLEGE PROFESSOR.

Kate G.

I was born and raised in a country with very serious problems. I'd rather not say where. But we had racial problems, poverty problems. Huge inequalities and violence. And I grew up and went to school with all that and I decided to become a journalist-partly because, I think, to try and address some of those problems. But my entire career was during a time of severe restrictions on the press. Censors.h.i.+p and worse.

And without dramatizing this, I felt it became reasonably dangerous or at least uncomfortable to be a journalist in my country. So I realized I needed to leave. And one of the most obvious things to do-to leave-was really to study in America. So I came here, to California, and I got a Ph.D. in international journalism. And I liked it. I like the climate very much. [Laughs] And I realized that I liked-in some ways-the academic environment in this country. So I thought about becoming a professor. Because, you know, while I was in graduate school, I worked for a while as a professional journalist. I was writing for a newspaper here. Which was wonderful. I liked very much not having any censors.h.i.+p. But I think I liked even more the freedom of researching what was interesting to me. I guess I think I made the transition from the journalism to the academic world just because that's kind of the greatest freedom, right? Just to be in your office and think about what you want to.

Of course [laughs] that's not what academic life is really like. I'm right now an a.s.sistant Professor of Journalism at a university in California. And my life is-well, I'm on the tenure track. So after five years, they'll decide whether I'm good enough for tenure so I can stay here my whole career-or they'll tell me to never return to this school. [Laughs]

And it's a lot of pressure, this situation. You go through annual reviews of your work in research, teaching, and service-those are the three areas where you have to perform. And then you have to be excellent in one of those three.

It can be very cruel. You get people who never do any research ever again-even if they get tenure. They are so worn out by the tenure process. I know of two people who are close to me who have recently gone through it-one person went on a drinking binge and has been on Prozac since. He has kicked the habit but is permanently on Prozac. The other person I saw recently, and he was never remotely heavy, but he has lost about thirty pounds, and he is short, and he is kind of a mustard color. And when I looked at him I said, "G.o.d, is this what tenure is doing to you?" And he said, "Nah, just cutting out some sweet things in my diet." He is in total denial and doesn't know what is going on. So these people are not terribly productive anymore, but they were successful at getting tenure.

I personally am trying not to think about it too much. My tenure decision is years away, so I try not to think about it. Besides, I am very busy with my teaching and research. Especially teaching. Even though I want to go up for tenure based on excellence in research, seventy-five percent of my time is spent on teaching, so I have no problem keeping busy.

I teach two writing and journalism cla.s.ses-two sections each. And I teach one history of journalism cla.s.s. My students are primarily undergraduates. And [laughs] okay, teaching-it's a big part of my life. And in some ways it's very energizing. But it's also very taxing and the students are often very upsetting to me. [Laughs] Because- well-before I really go off, let me just say this-in every single cla.s.s there are fantastic undergrad students. People that blow your mind. People that, you know, I look at and think of in terms of not undergrads but-they could be friends of mine. But the majority unfortunately are extremely needy and obsessively focused on grades. So much so that I think it is hara.s.sing to the teachers.

For example, not only is it by now a total requirement in large cla.s.ses to have PowerPoint presentation, but the style in which you create these PowerPoints are now dictated by students and if you don't adhere to these demands, they will report you to the department chair or the dean and complain about the notes that aren't to their satisfaction.

And PowerPoint notes? Do you know them? It's just a computer program that's projected onto a screen-like movie t.i.tles-and so you list your note "points" like: "Things to watch for in newspaper headlines: Clarity. Active verbs." [Laughs] You know? And sometimes there will be a moving graphic or something like an arrow will move to a word. It's actually kind of stupid. But it seems that undergrads are not able to follow your cla.s.s and take their own notes. So they need the PowerPoints. They have a serious problem doing notetaking which really concerns me.

They also [laughs] seem to have a serious problem just coming to cla.s.s. What they really want is for the PowerPoints to be put on the Web, so they don't have to come at all. But I won't do that, and they haven't yet been able to force the department to make me do that-so my cla.s.ses, they still have to come.

I don't know why I care. They have very little interest in learning and they are absolutely obsessed with grades-more than anything else. And they all must have A's. Getting a B today is interpreted by students as failing. But it's not that they are working so much in extraordinary ways to get these A's. Instead they are just really trying to please professors so they can get good grades rather than exploring and experimenting and putting pa.s.sion into a.s.signments and taking risks, taking chances.

Professors want to be surprised, they want to see minds at work. I wish students would get that. It is so clear that students will try and please you, try and a.s.sess what would please you, and just spit it back at you so they get a good grade. And when they get the B's and C's they deserve, my G.o.d, then they start pus.h.i.+ng in a hara.s.sing way to up grades. There is nothing that I hate more than three weeks after the semester to still be getting fifty to sixty e-mails about people arguing with you why they should have an A, as if my Excel spreadsheet is incapable of calculating their grades properly. I think that is unheard of in the rest of the world. I have students very rude and obsessive after the semester is over.

And, you know, I look into the cla.s.srooms sometimes and I just think, "G.o.d, these are the next generation of journalists?" Grading their work, it is so strange to me. I see so many story ideas that are missing the target so far that you just know there is nothing I can do to instill pa.s.sion or drive or insight into this person. To snuff out his or her tiny little world and see what is going on in a larger sense. I mean, for example, after long lectures of saying, "I am not interested in getting story ideas about how you partied last night, that is of no consequence to humanity, unless you are driving while drunk. I am not interested in your little world," I get story ideas like, "Oh, I'm in a fraternity and there is this bridge on campus and it gets painted so many times a year and I want to do a story on that." I don't even know what to say. [Laughs]

These are things that show you how small a world is and how hard it is for students, some of them, to snap out of it. There are no homeless, there aren't any environmental problems. But there is a bridge being painted by their fraternity, that is the extent of their life experience. I don't have hope for them to become journalists and cover really important issues.

But I don't want to seem like just-you know-a highbrow, an academic complaining about her students. I think the really popular thing is to be really dismissive and condescending about students and their MTV and their attention spans. And I think that's wrong. I think young people can process a lot of stimuli at once and process really fast-moving images and really obtain quite a bit of information coming at a very fast pace. They are really good at that. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm not this kind of highbrow, ivory tower person. I mean, really, my research-I am studying celebrity journalism, the way we know everything about famous people, you know? And there's a whole history to this kind of journalism, but n.o.body talks about it here.

I mean, it's funny, in the mornings when everyone in my department pats each other on the back and says, "Did you see the Times this morning?" Which is the New York Times, of course. They talk about the Times and the Was.h.i.+ngton Post every morning. Sometimes they'll talk about a California newspaper. And that's all they talk about. You never hear anyone say, "Did you see the new People?" But I am studying that. I am writing a book about celebrity romances- marriages and divorces, how they are reported. Because, you know, I think there are a lot of messages hidden in those stories. I think a certain kind of morality is being promoted. So I'm looking at that and I'm also testing-doing studies on why people can remember everything about what, you know, Matt Damon is doing, but they don't know who is running Russia. If the goal of journalists is to inform citizens, surely they must be worried how they retain that information.

And, you know, the audiences for this stuff are enormous. And they can never get enough of it. So, my argument is, G.o.d, we need to understand how people respond to the most popular outlet of journalism. Right? But then, the argument from my fellow faculty members goes something like this: this stuff is sensational, unethical, not enough like the New York Times, bad for you, superficial and therefore shouldn't be studied. [Laughs] Well, I may be wrong but I will find out. I will study it instead of just sitting on the sidelines and making a quick evaluation that this is trash.

I think academics should be alive, in the real world. We need to deal with issues with life and living and death. So that's where I am in the larger issues. Not highbrow at all. [Laughs] But you know, again, in my day-to-day life, I am a teacher. And my students-I just don't know. Maybe I seem highbrow. I try to stimulate them, I try to light fire. But I just-I don't understand them. I keep wondering if this obsession with grades, and also the demands for study notes before a stupid multiple-choice exam and insisting on study notes-I don't even know what that means. But it's quite sad. It's the wrong emphasis, the wrong definition of getting an education.

I mean, it is awful to grade. But that's all we have and I wish students would understand how arbitrary and irrelevant it is. You know, stop fussing about it. Yes, typically scholars.h.i.+ps go to people who perform academically well-but also well-rounded in other areas. I have even served on the school's scholars.h.i.+p committee and we are not looking at only GPA, we look at personal statement, extracurricular activities, interns.h.i.+ps, things like that. It shouldn't be just about grades, it seems so obvious to me. But still, it's all I hear from students.

And parents, they are paying for this-and they are paying a lot, I know, an incredible amount-but all they care to see are the grades. I think they never spend time talking to their kids about the a.s.signments they have done. Never read the essays and look at the photographs they have taken in cla.s.ses. Just grades. That is their interest.

I plan on being an academic for the rest of my life-if not here, then someplace else. And I don't have any illusions of changing the situation, but I am certainly going to fight it. There will never be a time when I will just give A's to keep students out of my hair. I will not do that because I feel I owe them my honest evaluation-it's mine and it's objective. It might even be unfair, but it's my evaluation. And I am not going to lie to them. That is the worst thing people can do, give A's to not hurt them or disappoint them. Because they get hurt by a low grade, but I think they deserve our honesty. But there are many professors who have given in to grade inflation, they see grades as just a subjective measure. They'd rather give all A's instead of hurt anyone's feelings.

I don't really care about people's feelings. I mean, I care, but not in this way. I think, you know-it's just a very strange position to be in. At this point in my career, having been a journalist, having done all of these things and having grown up so far away from all this-I'm here, fighting all the time over who gets an A. It's just strange. I don't understand it. I mean, in this country-especially for these kids, college kids-there's so much freedom, so much to be pa.s.sionate about and learn about. And this is what they put their pa.s.sion towards? It's just so-I don't know. I'm confused.