----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Rasimus"

As a student in the class, it is not as easy to have your optimism
shattered, since you don't see the literary efforts (or lack thereof)
from your classmates. Online, you also don't get as much of the impact
of blank stares that greet such overhead questions as "does anyone
here read Hemingway"" or, has anyone seen the movie Patton, Dr.
Strangelove, The Last Emperor, Seven Days in May.....

Probably my lowest expectations were unmet the time, on Nov. 11th, I
asked the class what was significant about the day. Few knew, until
after prompting that it was some kind of holiday, one student
remembered it was Veteran's Day. When asked if they had ever heard it
called Armistice Day, none had. Asked why it was 11/11, they didn't
know that the armistice to end the "War to End All Wars" had been
signed at 11:00 AM on 11/11. When asked which war that was, they
guessed Vietnam, Korea and the Civil War.....all high-school grads and
all enrolled in college! Amazing, isn't it?

There are always bright spots, of course.

Your wife probably went to the same school as mine, who regularly
quotes a professor who liked to say to his idealistic under-grads,
"it's not right, but it's real!"



Ed Rasimus

Ed,

I have a lot of hours in college and the thing I liked about community
colleges and commuter campuses was the mix of students you encountered. The
students who entered directly out of high school, with few exceptions, had
little to contribute. Without some life experience their horizons were very
close.

Perhaps no student should be permitted to attend college until they had
worked a couple of years to smooth over some of the unfinished edges. I was
particularly struck by a literature class where we had just read "Death of a
Ball-turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell when one of the older students spoke
up and described his experiences as a WW-II ball-turret gunner.

I'm sure my USAF travels did not handicap me in class.

Regards,

Tex Houston