The standard for survival in college is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153two hours of study and preparation for every hour in class.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Go figure: You enter college as a full-time student, signing up for five courses totaling 15 credits. The credits, or units, correspond neatly to the number of hours of class time each course requires.<\/p>\n
And to be successful, one ought to devote twice as much time preparing and studying as time spent in an actual class. For most college students, that adds up to 45 hours devoted to college classes. Now we all know that some courses require little preparation or homework, and many students spend far less time boning up than the two-hours-for-one formula recommends.<\/p>\n
Even when I taught at Highlands, and professors touted the 2-to-1 formula, there were countless students working full time and somehow managing a full course load.<\/p>\n
But yet, an Albuquerque student was in the news only last week for having acquired two college degrees before even graduating from high school. The student at Southwest Aeronautics Mathematics and Science Academy, in the Duke City, admits to some careful jugging of classes to enable her to earn degrees in liberal arts and in fine arts, from Central New Mexico College. The success story, reported on Albuquerque\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s KRQE TV station, does not specify the kinds of degrees the student, Kelly Watson, earned. Presumably, the two-year degree, called the associate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, is manageable, even for a student still in high school.<\/p>\n
But a four-year degree, a bachelor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stretching it. It might be possible for students to have two separate majors, courses of study that require work in particular disciplines. But earning two degrees seems implausible.<\/p>\n
A degree is more than a major. A major consists of a number of core requirements and electives in addition to the main course of study. Can Kelly Watson claim two degrees from distinct colleges, other than Central New Mexico?<\/p>\n
Clearly, whoever wrote the item for television must have incorrectly assumed that college majors and degrees are interchangeable. As a two-year junior college, CNM doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t offer degrees beyond the associate level.<\/p>\n
Whatever timesaving, corner-cutting steps the college took, or allowed, on behalf on Kelly Watson may be doable, but how can a high school student be physically present at two sites, going, for example, from high school chemistry to a college-level course in Western Civ? Where do students find the time?<\/p>\n
In common practice is dual enrollment, the practice of earning college credit while still in high school. The question then arises (or should arise) as to the meaning and or necessity of attending high school. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say, for example, that a dual-enrollment student has signed up for courses in English in both high school and college. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that some of the assignments might even overlap. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also possible for a term paper, for example, to satisfy requirements for both courses.<\/p>\n
Does any of this compute? Aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t college courses \u00e2\u20ac\u201d by definition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d more concentrated, more demanding, loftier? In my own tenure as a teacher in high school and later in college, I never accepted high-school-type work in college. At the higher levels, we presuppose a certain level of intellectual maturity.<\/p>\n
Of course, I dream a lot.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s utterly pointless for any student capable of passing college courses to remain mired in high school classes in which they cover adverb clauses and split infinitives, whereas in college, the goals ought to be set higher.<\/p>\n
Likely, many young students can manage college studies. But doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the mere idea of college connote a level of maturity, even if only a chronological age? True, we can give Kelly Watson kudos for doing something admirable, but we can still wonder where her childhood went. It would seem that whenever a high school student is able to master college-level courses, doing so renders high school pointless.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d welcome feedback from anyone currently involved in dual enrollment, and who can give a different angle to the issue, someone who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave the teaching profession a decade ago, as did I.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a line in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My Fair Lady,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a musical based on the play \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pygmalion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by George Bernard Shaw that I find profound. Eliza Doolittle shows her impatience with a would-be suitor, Freddie Einsford-Hill, whose words, and lack of action, annoy her.<\/p>\n
She shouts (sings), \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Never do I ever want to hear another word; there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t one I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That line fits Sara Harris, a Spanish professor at Highlands, whose name has appeared often in this column.<\/p>\n
I phone her often to set me straight on Spanish words and expressions. She often emails copious amounts of documentation.<\/p>\n
Weeks ago, when I wrote about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153carrilla,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d an apparent regionalism, I heard from Sara. She emailed me, admitting that she too was unable to find the word in any dictionary. The lack of such a word was precisely what I had commented on.<\/p>\n
Sara just might be the Spanish-language equivalent of Eliza Doolittle. If Sara hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard the word, does it exist? That question is a variation of a feminists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 eternal question, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If a man says something in the forest and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no woman to hear him, is he still wrong.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrilla,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a word I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard only in this area, apparently refers to good-natured ribbing, usually involving a boy- or girlfriend. When my son, Diego, worked in Portales, he mixed with a workforce consisting mainly of Spanish-speakers. Diego once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Me dan carrilla,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand until he explained he was being teased.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrillo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (with an o) and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mejilla\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are Spanish words for cheek or jowl. And many nouns in Spanish end with an a or an o, to distinguish male from female, as with ni\u00c3\u00b1o and ni\u00c3\u00b1a, and hijo and hija. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting that the feminine form of carrillo is not cheek or jowl but (we assume), the act of teasing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The standard for survival in college is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153two hours of study and preparation for every hour in class.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Go figure: You enter college as a full-time student, signing up for five courses totaling 15 credits. The credits, or units, correspond neatly to the number of hours of class time each course requires. And to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}