A couple of weeks ago, one of my professors gave an assignment to his class that really got me thinking. Each semester on the first day of class it has become a tradition of sorts in which he asks his students to write a paper on their interpretation of academic slavery. Once I started thinking, it began to flow like water. I immediately thought of several ways students are academically enslaved. One area that I think students can identify with the most at the beginning of the year is financial aid. For instance, on the first day of school on my fee receipt, it showed that I owed money to the university. Now if anyone were to look at my fee receipt, they would have clearly seen that if my financial aid had been changed from estimated to applied, everything would be fixed. Because of this balance I was unable to get a book voucher or register for classes. I felt as if shackles were being put on my ankles and hindering me from freely walking into the school year and jumping into reading the materials for my classes. Eventually, my issues were resolved when I finally got to speak to someone in financial aid. Another way that students are enslaved is by class cancellations and droppings because there are fewer than 10 students in a class. What usually ends up happening is the merging of smaller classes into one class, but this only offers an “underground railroad” stop until a student can reach freedom (acquire their degree) and can prolong the graduation process.
Another obvious category that can contribute to students’ enslavement is professors. One way begins with the first day of school with the syllabus. In some professors’ minds, they already have the days planned out when they want to have their test. If you are a student who has numerous classes on one day, you have already been enslaved to possibly have numerous tests on the same day and there is nothing that can be done about this unless the professor changes his/her mind or pace of teaching.
Rarely does a professor let the class decide. In addition, as a student I am enslaved to the teacher’s personal teaching style whether it accommodates or appeals to my learning style or not. I may not be a person who learns solely from lectures, but from visuals or hands-on exercises, but if the professor is one who likes to ramble on and on, I and my grade are at the mercy of his/her style. Another disadvantage of these professors are grading scales that don’t reflect actual grades.
Some students may receive grades that they may not have necessarily earned and others may get left with the scraps of the other grades that the professor dishes out when in actuality, both did the same work. Professors can easily add to academic slavery by these means.
These are just two of the four ways I believe that a student can be academically enslaved. I will touch on two other ways (through parents and fellow students) in an upcoming issue of The Panther. Until then, I advise all to learn to rise to the occasion and face your oppression head on.
Signed- That Girl