which is more discouraging?

Friends, we have two options: the ill-prepared students; and the incompetent administrators.

Poor students, all they have been socialized to understand as "learning" is the memorization of terms. One bright young woman asked me today, "So, if I just memorize the class slides, I will do fine on the midterm, right?" I tried to explain about deep thinking, and applying ideas and concepts, and synthesis, but she looked a little blank.

I have seen my students making flashcards of terms we use often in class, for heaven's sake. So narrow a conception of learning: "as though to breathe were life."

Then on the other side of things, we have people who just aren't ready for primetime trying to do real jobs. There's the IT staff who fluffs off all reports of problems with "oh yeah, we're looking at that, we'll get back to you." (They never do.) There's the coordinator who responds to questions about how to find info about his program with, basically, well, just send out the info to everyone since we don't know how to reach our target population. There's the dean who never listens because his mind is busy working on the next riposte (or the next job opp?). It's a pathetic, not-ready-for-real-life group and sometimes I just want to scream out in search of competence. Do your fucking jobs, people: is that too much to expect??