Here's What's Left: Academic standards

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January 17, 2005

Academic standards

You might have read about a student at a California college who claims that a professor refused to pass him because an essay he had written was too "pro-American." Pandagon had a thing about it today, and they link to a Washington Times article with some background.

David Horowitz's group, Students for Academic Freedom, has, among other things, a press release, apparently from the Foothill College Republicans, of which the student in question is president, which said:

Yesterday, Foothill College Political-Science Professor Joseph Woolcock tried to intimidate student Ahmad Al-Qloushi into seeing a therapist because of a Pro-American essay he wrote in Woolcock's class. The thesis of Al-Qloushi's essay is that the US constitution was a very progressive document, which has contributed to freedom beyond America's borders.

And which ends with a reminder that

Cori Jenab [Vice-President of Foothill College Republicans] and Ahmad Al-Qloushi are available for immediate interview.

So we decided to see how immediate his availability is. We wrote him an email.

Dear Mr. Al-Qloushi,

We recently read about your experience in Prof. Woolcock's class. In looking to find out more information about it, we happened upon a press release on the website of Students for Academic Freedom. The press release says, "Cori Jenab and Ahmad Al-Qloushi are available for immediate interview."

We are the proprietors of a blog called "Here's What's Left," which we'll tell you, in the interest of fairness, espouses an unapologetically liberal viewpoint. We'd be interested in interviewing you about your essay, which we've read online.

Please let us know if you're available to talk.

Thanks,
Michael and Heather
http://hereswhatsleft.typepad.com/home/

We're looking forward to his response.

The essay is here, if you're interested.

-- Michael and Heather

Posted on January 17, 2005 at 11:58 PM | Permalink

Comments

I taught English composition for four years while in grad school, and had one of my students turned in an essay like that one in response to a question like the one cited, I'd have done exactly what that professor did, and what James Joyner suggested (link from the Pandagon piece).

My experience as a teacher was that when a student either had no clue or was cheating, they would try to get around it by answering the question they wished had been asked, rather than answering the question at hand. That might work for Scott McClellan, but it didn't work in my class, and it shouldn't work in any class. The guy failed because he didn't complete the assignment, not because of any political bias.

Posted by: Incertus | January 18, 2005 at 08:17 AM

I guess it was so bad at least he probably didn't just copy it.

Purpose of the exercise in part appears to be to challenge students to think about something they may be familiar with but from a new direction. This student proved he simply couldn't do it.

I don't think it would have been so bad to refuse to take the angle of the question if he'd at least explored the question being put and given evidence for his view point - he couldn't even do that. There was very little reference to the question posed and what little there was factually absurd ("The right for men to choose their own representatives was unheard of in the rest of the world").

Most of the (very very short) essay was on more recent history.

If liberals tried this sort of tactic Republicans would go on about how liberals felt anyone with an opinion had a right to get an 'A' even if they couldn't do the work. "Hey I deserve an 'A' for my crap and if you don't give me one I'm going to complain about teacher bias"

Posted by: DavidByron | January 18, 2005 at 09:59 AM

Is that really the essay? The idiocy of it is monumental, though I must admit that the question was asked in such a simplistic and one-sided way that it did not seem to allow for any debate. The rightwingers may well have point here. I'm not a troll, and I know nothing more about the circumstances of this case than what we see here. I know the right-wing campaign against allegedly leftist professors allegedly brainwashing students with their ideology is mostly crap, and is part of their design to shut us up and take over the last bastion of reality-based debate left. But before we jump too much on the bandwagon, we have to realize that there are thousands of profs in the country and there will be a few who actually do get out of line. Let's not discredit ourselves by assuming a priori, before we get the facts, that none of these charges can ever have any merit. Most of the time the truth will prove that a student is whining without justification (indeed, I am struck by the rising number of students who aggressively assert their entitlement to a certain grade. Sometimes they even get mummy and daddy-- oblivious to the fact that Junior is majoring in beer-- to intervene on their behalf). But issues of professorial ethics DO occasionally crop up. When they do, it's the University's job, not Mr. Horowitz's, to investigate whether the charges have any merit. But if we don't police the cases that do have merit, Horowitz wins. By the way, for what it's worth, is it accidental that the institution in question used to be "Foothill Junior College" ? When I lived in California it was a two-year institution.

Posted by: the exile | January 18, 2005 at 01:14 PM

Speaking again as a former teacher, let me defend the question asked on the exam. I know that personally, I often structured questions in just such a way in order to keep my students from wandering too far afield. It's a defense mechanism--I was seeing if my students were paying enough attention to actually answer the question I was asking, and most of the time, they were, even if they didn't personally agree with the direction the question led them in. I used it as an exercise in critical thinking; being able to argue a position one doesn't necessarily agree with helps one see multiple perspectives on issues. It helps beginning students get out of the right/wrong dogmatic thinking that they often come to college with.

Now, I warned my students that I would be doing this, and I also stayed away from particularly explosive topics (death penalty, abortion, gun rights, etc.), in part because I didn't want my students to feel too uncomfortable, and in part because I didn't want to have to read forty-five essays on the subject. I should note that on occasion I asked questions that led to conclusions opposite of my personal beliefs, just to show the students that I was being fair, and was grading them on execution, not on their beliefs.

It's certainly possible that this professor was out of line, but based on the evidence at hand, it certainly seems to me that the grade was warranted, and that the question was a legitimate one.

Posted by: Incertus | January 18, 2005 at 09:59 PM

The essay is direct evidence of the successful brainwashing that the Republicans have waged against the US population since Reagan's 'Morning in America' campaign.

This student is jeapordizing his academic future in pursuit of his brainwashed need to promulgate right-wing propaganda. He is as sick as a moonie who sleeps in an airport handing out flowers and business cards to potential recruits instead of getting a job so he can eat.

Psychiatric intervention is not enough. This person needs deprogramming before he hurts someone. Incarceration is in order.

Posted by: Cheryl | January 18, 2005 at 11:14 PM

Huh. Well, I am not a professor, but I was a history major, and I TA'ed a history class. (This meant that I got to grade all the papers and all the tests, although I didn't teach the class and I didn't write the test.)

I probably would have given this guy a low score. As others have noted, he didn't answer the question. What amuses me the most is that the question specifically asks the students to talk about America at the time of the creation of the Constitution, but Mr. Al-Qloushi spends almost no time talking about that time period. He certainly never backs up his statements with evidence, either from the correct time period or the other time periods he alights on (ever so briefly, like a butterfly, and with just as chaotic a flight pattern.) It's like a bunch of talking points that have been thrown at a wall, with no real connections.

All in all, it's a very bad freshman essay (though I have seen/heard of freshman essays that were as bad or worse.)

Posted by: Technocracygirl | January 19, 2005 at 12:47 AM

So Incertus, being a former teacher, is it common to suggest a student needs psychological help because of a poorly written essay? I think the issue is the treatment of this student, not because of the quality of his writing but because of the content. Referring the student to the school psychologist seems way over the line.

Posted by: drm | January 19, 2005 at 07:15 AM

Yes! D is back! I was missing his wit and his efforts to distract us from the point of these arguments.

D - did you actually read the essay? It's alarming not because of it's content but because of the clear problem the student had in understanding the question. What he embarks upon is clearly a rant. His supporters claim the teacher "tried to intimidate student Ahmad Al-Qloushi into seeing a therapist." How do you intimidate someone into therapy? This guy went on an emotional partisan rant in answering an exam question. After reading the question and the essay, I wonder about this kid's stability as, too.

Stick to the facts. Don't try and deflect the argument.

Posted by: MikeS | January 19, 2005 at 08:59 AM

Thanks for highlighting this topic.

I have a whole host of problems with the Academic Freepers' arguments. Mostly, it centers on how they want to replace academic debate (left, right, center, nowhere, anywhere) with their ultra-conservative views.

This book review on Horowitz's site caught my attention yesterday, which I posted on my blog:

Yowling from the Fencepost- Righting history to serve conservative purposes.
http://www.mirocat.com/2005/01/righting-history-to-serve-conservative.html

As a student of history and a prospective teacher of this subject, I am concerned that that book will become the standard text for many history classes.

Posted by: Moses | January 19, 2005 at 02:46 PM

from the Wash Times article: "Ahmad Al-Qloushi, a foreign student at Foothill College near San Jose, Calif., said he was told by professor Joseph A. Woolcock to get psychological treatment because of the pro-American views expressed in his essay."
Standard practice? No. But then again, we only have this student's story to go on. It's entirely possible that the student is a) lying about the teacher's statement, b) exaggerating the teacher's statement, c) downplaying the nature of his confrontation with the teacher, d)really needs psychiatric help or e) some combination of all five. But we'll never know as long as the student is the only one talking.

Posted by: Incertus | January 19, 2005 at 11:31 PM

as incertus points out, we only have the student's version of the events to go on. and what's more, we have a limited version of the student's version. there's only one news article i've come across that has more:

Still, the 17-year-old says his professor accused him of being foolish for believing in the greatness of the United States and even threatened to visit a dean of the college to ensure that the youth received psychological intervention. "At 7:30 in the morning I entered his office," the student recalls, "and he basically said that I needed mental treatment for emotional needs and a failure to critically think."
Al Qloushi recalls a long list of personal critiques that Woolcock made: "I was too naïve, and I needed to see a therapist to control my emotions," he says, "and I need to critically think and reason. And he didn't stop there. He threatened to go to the International Dean of Admissions to make sure I get the treatment -- and the International Dean of Admissions has the power to revoke students' visas."

now, the stuff about the student needing to control his emotions is new. maybe he's a really angry kid. maybe he's agressively angry. and perhaps when the teacher refused to grade his essay, the kid got really mad.

of course, we don't know, because we only have the kid's side.

d, of course, you shouldn't jump to conclusions without having all the facts. but i guess that's never stopped you before.

Posted by: here's what's left | January 20, 2005 at 11:33 AM