4.0097 Classes and Lectures; Forms of Address (64)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 22 May 90 17:14:16 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0097. Tuesday, 22 May 1990.
(1) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:38:08 EDT (24 lines)
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: "Classes" vs. "lectures"
(2) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 09:38:40 BST (19 lines)
From: N.J.Morgan <gswa03@SUN1.ARTS.GLASGOW.AC.UK>
Subject: Classes
(3) Date: Mon, 21 May 90 17:05 PDT (21 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0091 Forms of Address
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:38:08 EDT
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: "Classes" vs. "lectures"
I was fascinated by Edis Bevan's remarks about North American academic
terminology. S/he is so clearly striving for an open, democratic,
non-regimented terminology, but the terms cited resonate (to me) with
precisely the opposite values. "Lecture" is a no-no here (though I
still use it); it implies no interaction with the students. Mass
learning is certainly a vice in North America (because of budgets; what
the British call "the cuts") but it is by no means any one's ideal. And
as for regimentation, I would like to see Bevan dealing with an
argumentative class (yes, class) of American undergrads (Canadians are
more passive; we need our energy for quarreling about the Constitution).
Is the difference perhaps caused by the fact that so few British
school-leavers go on to university in comparison with North America? The
figures I have seen suggest about 12-15% in Britain, contrasted with
nearly 60% in the US and nearly 50% in Canada. Our students enter much
less well-prepared than the British entrant with his/her three glossy
A-levels. But by fourth year they are quite the equal of their
contemporaries abroad. Bevan seems to me (Open University or not) to be
in a very privileged situation!
Germaine Warkentin (Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------33----
Date: Tue, 22 May 90 09:38:40 BST
From: N.J.Morgan <gswa03@SUN1.ARTS.GLASGOW.AC.UK>
Subject: Classes
I'm sorry to contradict a British colleague, but some British
Universities still have classes; most, if not all, are in Scotland. In
our four year degree structure we have an Ordinary Class, a Higher
Class, an Advanced Ordinary Class (for students taling an ordinary
degree in three years) and then Junior and Senior Honours Classes. We
have Class Essays, Class Exams, and (of course) Class Prizes. And, if a
student completes the work of a Class, he or she receives a Class
Ticket, without which a degree exam cannot be taken. It is not that
long ago that Professors collected Class Fees from students at the start
of each term as a supplement to their meagre salaries.
Nicholas Morgan
Department of Scottish History
University of Glasgow
Glasgow
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Mon, 21 May 90 17:05 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0091 Forms of Address (88)
Master/servant; officer/ranker. Well, GB is not a republic, nor a
democracy, and we dont usually put people down by their accents in the
USA, amusing as various ones are to various geographical areas,
mutually. Americans always took delight in the wild variations, and
dialectal jokes were the rage in the 1820's-1850's, as various humorous
collections of stories and peices tells us, Mark Twain and Faulkner,
etcetera. It began, I would say even before the Revolution. But, as
far as first names go, if the professor doesnt want to be called by the
first name, then what right, except that of master or boss,has the
professor or teacher to use the first name, after the age of 13,
say...? None, in the States. I wait till the student graduates, or is
agraduate student, since the latter status deserves friendly intimacy,
if it the same gender, that is, and if one likes and is liked. After
all, who has the brains and energy? the graduate student. The graudate
student is the person who catched the prof nodding, yawning and
plagiarizing, usually. Kessler at UCLA