by Susan Stuart
In the most recent Rostrum, the publication of the Academic Senate of California Community Colleges (ASCCC), new faculty president David Morse justifies with unwavering certainty why a student cannot re-take a class to advance or update his/her knowledge, understanding, skill, or performance level if the student has already passed successfully (with at least a C grade; there are limited exceptions).
Morse’s article speaks to “understanding the educational principles behind the regulations. The educational principle behind credit courses is based on achieving objectives and outcomes… If a student achieves those objectives and outcomes the student passes; if the student does not, the student should not pass. Given that principle, it is very difficult to explain to policy makers in Sac[ramento] why a student who passed a class, and therefore was judged to have done a satisfactory job of learning what that class was intended to teach, should take the class again—and, moreover, why the public should pay for a student to take a class that covers material which the student has already learned.” Morse fails to acknowledge that many taxpayers are actually students.
Unfortunately Morse’s approach assumes that a student has “learned” enough and won’t benefit from more “learning.” And it represents only one model of pedagogy: a straight ahead, linear approach to teaching and learning. In many fields, and for many students, learning is not linear; it is spiral or repetitious, or a combination of strategies necessary for the full development and acquisition of internalized skills. Students are not empty vessels to be filled with our expert knowledge. They must construct their own understandings and development through a variety of learning experiences. Some strategies are better suited to teaching certain skills and fields of knowledge than are others. Some strategies are better suited to certain student backgrounds, learning styles, and abilities. The pedagogical principles for the arts, technical skill building and kinesiology differ from this linear approach.
Morse goes on to say, “revising the regulations to allow for more course repetition is not a viable approach to the situation. The principles regarding the awarding of course credit, as well as fiscal and curricular responsibility, require that the California Community College System seek other solutions.” Again, fiscal responsibility to whom? Faculty working on this issue both locally and statewide believe a better “solution” would be to enlarge the range of categories exempt from these strict and narrow parameters to include some of the courses in kinesiology, visual, applied and performing arts, creative writing, and Career Technical Education (eg.: Culinary Arts, Early Childhood Education, Journalism, Welding). While some statewide limits may be needed, program faculty should be given broader control in designing curriculum that allows students to succeed in these disciplines rather than basing that curriculum on how much a student “costs.”
In a her recent dissertation, A Zero Sum Game? Eliminating Course Repetition and Its Effects on Arts Education (May, 2014), Ting-Pi Joyce Carrigan, a Dean from Cypress College in Southern California, cities national studies on the exact issue in question here.
- Repeated practice of a skill is pivotal to the learning process and necessary to achieve skill mastery in VAPA production.
- Community college students pursuing art education as art majors or as non-majors often lack an arts education foundation as well as financial means to pursue their educational goal.
- Cost-cutting discourse and restructuring narratives that were previously not principal to the discussions of post-secondary curricular formation are now shaping the curricula of disciplines and fields of study as cuts are made to specialized programs or departments.
In my view, and the view of colleagues on our campus and across the state, the President of the ASCCC should stand for pedagogical principles that make sense for the variety of courses offered to our communities, and should not be the one to advocate for how to save taxpayers money by undermining these disciplines. Student success rests on many approaches. Taxpayers approved Proposition 30 to help fund education, and our local community paid to build our VAPA complex (housing a nationally recognized music program, as well as visual and performing arts programs that rival any in the state). There is currently funding in the state budget for these changes to be made. Higher education is for all our citizens, after all, and our Academic Senate should be listening to all our voices, especially students and faculty.