Gems from Rough Stones: Teaching with Technology in the Two-Year Environment

Abstract

HISTORIANS AT TRADITIONAL four-year colleges probably haven't heard their students say things such as mine often do. While they might have been told, May I turn my paper in late-my four-year old has the chicken pox?, they would probably not have heard, I'm sorry I missed class-I had to get my son out of jail or I'm sorry I was late-my husband is a policeman and got wounded last night. Two-year students are a different breed, a fact to which instructors in any such college will attest. At Floyd College in Rome, Georgia, forty-nine percent of our student body is nontraditional, twenty-five years or older, and those who are traditional college age usually work a substantial number of hours off-campus. I have great respect for most of my students-what they accomplish seems unbelievable to me. Their difference and diversity causes me constantly to reevaluate my expectations. These people are caught up in jobs and families, and intellectual stimulation has to compete with immediate problems in their lives. I always hope that a few out of each class will connect with me and develop an appreciation for history, related to life on a certain plane, that they did not have before. They all have the potential to enrich their minds if student and instructor can reach common ground. I try to get to that ground even while explaining that, no, they cannot use the terms Europe and England interchangeably.