Maria’s Rainbow
Why do we promote false ideas about what a degree will do for our working-class students?
By Scott M. Fisher
Maria Gonzalez died last Thursday.
Her body finally gave out after thirty years of joyful life, nonstop activity, and one year of cancer. She was a student in my evening English composition class at our community college’s downtown extension center. Maria was the kind of student who is a pleasure to have in class—eager, hardworking, and pleasant to her fellow students, with a perpetual smile on her face. Her assignments were completed on time, on task, and with great attention to detail. In addition, she always asked if she could rewrite her papers for no credit, just “so I can get better at writing.” Nobody could have asked more of Maria.
We cheated her.
She left behind a husband of twelve years, Hector, who has his own landscaping business. We cheated him, too. She also left behind four little boys: Hector, Jr., age nine; Juan, age seven; and Carlos and Felipe, both age five. We cheated them, too.
Maria had what she described as the “perfect job.” For eight years she was a teacher’s aide at her old elementary school, helping with the school’s bilingual program for children whose native language was not English. She not only helped the kids with their lessons but often visited the children’s homes to tutor their parents and encourage them to speak English at home as much as possible. Members of more than one family became naturalized U.S. citizens as a result of Maria’s encouragement and guidance through the bureaucratic process.
She put in seven-hour days at the school, often spent several more hours helping out in neighbors’ homes, then attended classes at our community college several evenings a week and sometimes on Saturday mornings.
Through it all, she never missed one of her boys’ soccer games or band concerts. And no matter what else happened, the family ate breakfast together every morning just before Hector left for work. Her boys went to a different elementary school from the one where she worked, so she rarely saw them during the day, and at night Maria was usually in class.
I saw her upset only once. It was toward the end of the semester and the students were handing in their research papers—a semester-long project that required students to research local history, consult many sources, conduct personal interviews, and produce a text worthy of donation to our city’s public library archives. Maria had chosen her old elementary school as the subject for her research, interviewing many former teachers, students, administrators, and custodians. She located old deeds that showed when the property was purchased from the family of original area settlers. She had also gone beyond the requirements of the assignment and assembled a photo collection—a visual record of how the school had changed over the years. It was a masterpiece.
However, on the night the research paper was due, Maria arrived in tears. Apparently, she had saved her work both on disk and on her home computer’s hard drive. Earlier that day, her boys had come home from school early and decided to load a pirated game on the computer. It contained a virus that destroyed the hard drive. In the subsequent panic, they scattered all the disks and software. By the time Maria got home from work, there was no way for her to locate or print out a final copy of her paper. It appeared to be gone forever. She was beside herself. She thought all her hard work had gone for nothing and she blamed herself for leaving her sons alone unsupervised, though they had been told repeatedly never to use the computer unless an adult was in the house.
“Those boys should know better!” Maria sobbed, alternating English with Spanish. She calmed down after I offered a few days’ extension for the submission.
Finally, several days later, she located the lost disk, turned in her project, and received a well-deserved “A” in the class. She won the class award for the best project and highest overall average on her essay assignments.
False Promises?
I once asked Maria why, if she had such a great job, did she spend so much time away from her family, especially in the evenings, when they could all be together? She replied that she had heard our community college’s TV and radio ads and seen our billboards announcing that if a person got an associate’s degree, he or she was “guaranteed higher pay and better benefits.”
Did she plan to move on to a different job after that? Or pursue a teaching degree? No, she had assumed (mistakenly) that with the two-year degree, her current school would be required to pay her more as a teacher’s aide. Once she had the degree, she reasoned, there would be more money and better health benefits, so her husband wouldn’t have to take part-time work during slow times in the landscaping business. She showed me a comparison chart, produced by our college’s marketing department, that compared incomes for people who had no associate’s degree with those who did, in various jobs—teacher’s aides were especially highlighted. The chart clearly implied that Maria would receive at least four dollars more an hour by simply getting her two-year degree. Did she have to take these classes in order to stay certified as an aide because of the No Child Left Behind Act? No. Maria had taken and passed the certification test.
I asked her if taking classes was a way to get out of the house during the week and at the same time serve as a positive role model for their children. Maria laughed at that. “If I had my choice, I’d be home, because my boys, they don’t act so good with Mom being gone so much. Their dad’s a pussy cat—the boys get away with everything. I’ll be glad when I’ve got my degree and can be home with them. They are good boys, but they’re also little monsters sometimes. At this pace, I’ll be done in three-and-a-half more years, if I pass everything. Can’t wait till it’s over.”
Only three and a half more years.
Even though Maria had died too young, she wasn’t the first student I had lost in almost thirty years of teaching. Far from it. But something about Maria’s obsession with getting that two-year degree bothers me.
Selling College
We’ve all seen those college ad campaigns—on TV, in the newspaper, on billboards, even on the Internet. I’ve worked at local county fairs handing out college catalogs, bumper stickers, even pencils that say, “Want better pay? Get that Associate’s Degree” or similarly worded messages. One of our old logos, thankfully discarded a few years ago, showed a rainbow with “College” printed on the arch and “Associate’s Degree” on the pot of gold at one end.
I suddenly realized how misleading, even cruel, these messages can be to many people in our communities. These messages amount to propaganda and can actually hurt prospective students and their families, who don’t know how to gauge the level of commitment required by degree programs against the reality of the reward upon completion. Doesn’t that border on false advertising, or is it a case of buyer beware?
That’s not to say that a person who wants to transfer to a four-year college shouldn’t get a two-year degree first. In fact, many states have an agreement of “seamless transition” between two-year colleges and four-year state universities. Students who want to pursue a vocational certification or two-year program like nursing or welding or aviation technology are well served by two-year colleges. For people who are undecided about their future and want to explore possibilities for enrichment, two-year colleges offer a way to do so reasonably. I’m proud to have been a part of that exploration for almost three decades.
But those are not the goals of the Marias who show up each semester full of hope and willing to make any sacrifice they believe will provide more for their families. They’ve bought in to the message that getting “higher pay” or “a better job” with an associate’s degree is automatic, quid pro quo. It just doesn’t work that way. As faculty members, most of us know that the benefits of an associate’s degree aren’t automatic. Does that make us part of a conspiracy?
There are those who argue (I used to be one of them) that an education just for the sake of expanding one’s knowledge and broadening one’s horizons is reason enough to take college courses. There are those who might also point out that one never knows what kind of opportunities might pop up for students like Maria because of the classes they’ve taken.
But Maria wasn’t looking for a new job. She loved her job already and had no plans to leave. She wasn’t looking to broaden her horizons. Her life was already full. No doubt Maria was a great positive role model, not only for her own boys but also to others in her community who saw how hard she worked and how she went after her goals. Did she think she was a role model or want to be one? No. She was obsessed with an implied, artificial goal and in a hurry to achieve it so she could be back with her family where she really wanted to be.
Are we hurting the Marias of our communities and their families? Just how valuable is that associate’s degree if one doesn’t plan to transfer to a bachelor’s degree program or learn a vocational skill? Shouldn’t we at least have been honest enough to tell Maria that “Associate’s Degree = More Money” is a flawed premise in this shadowy syllogism? Wouldn’t the legions of Marias out there be better served if we encouraged them to spend the time with their families, especially during the years when their kids need so much direction and support? Why do we set them up with false promises like “better pay with an associate’s degree” as if it’s a sure thing? She was proud of her academic accomplishments, but what was their cost?
Besides the money spent on tuition, books, and other materials, there was the cost of her sons often being home alone, unsupervised. We know the results of studies that encourage parents to spend more time with their kids, especially during after-school and evening hours. Had Maria lived long enough to complete that associate’s degree, would her boys have ultimately been better or worse off because their mother had been away at evening classes for all those years? Might they even have resented it?
Let’s take it a step further. Had Maria’s daily schedule not been so hectic, would she have had time to go to the doctor sooner, which could have led to earlier discovery of the disease? This is the point at which college marketing gurus likely put up their hands in protest and say, “Whoa, there. That was entirely Maria’s decision. That’s not our responsibility. We didn’t cheat anybody.”
Okay. Maybe “cheated” is a bit too strong. And I sympathize with the marketing number crunchers whose job it is to bring in the students and increase the number of generated credit hours each year. They aren’t mean, cold people. They’re just doing their jobs, and the tuition money they help bring in does pay our salaries, right?
But just think of all those Marias out there in two-year college classes every semester all over the country. Occasionally, I’ve had a whole class full. Now, every time I read the little information cards I have students complete during the first class and learn they have young children at home and they are taking a full load of classes in order to “make more money for their families,” I want to tell them: “For your children’s sake, and yours, go home and spend this precious time with them. They’re young only once. We’ll be here later when you’re ready and their needs aren’t so great. We are no pot of gold.” But, of course, I don’t. Should I? I’m just wondering.
Names have been changed throughout this article to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Scott M. Fisher has taught for almost three decades, primarily at the two year- college level. His experience includes teaching English and writing courses and vocational technology courses. His e-mail address is SMF43 at aol.com.
Comment on this article.
|