The Student's Background and College Teaching

Abstract

The foregoing is but one of a number of similar examples of an educational chain re action. It may have its counterpart at the col lege level where the faculty, department chairmen, deans, president, regents, parents (also generous donors and members of legislatures), and the students themselves frequently exhibit reactions equally notable even though not the same. It is a common understanding that colleges place the blame for poor student preparation upon the secondary schools from whence it passes to the primary schools where, in turn, it is transferred to the parents. It is perhaps too much to hope that such criticism as is included in what follows may escape the oblivion always associated with the buck passing technique. In the technical-professional college curricula, one person completes the requirements for a first degree out of every two who start. In engineer ing, for example, to insure a normal, yearly com plement of 30,000 graduates, 60,000 young men must start an engineering program. In this time of acute shortage of technical personnel, and keen competition among the professions for the better high school student, the most fruitful field for recruitment is among those who are included under the repugnant phrase normal attrition. Professional schools already have the young peo ple, most of whom are from the upper half of their secondary school classes. To keep these young people is both a professional responsibility and an educational objective. Efforts must go deeper than the college pattern, however, and therein the chain reaction starts. There appears to have been no comprehensive study of the of attrition since the 1937 bulletin College Student Mortality published by the U. S. Office of Education. Circumstances undoubtedly have changed since the foregoing date, but it is still quite probable that the same exist although in modified numbers. It is certain that the very factual of mor tality, such as illness, finances, scholastic failure, and lack of discipline, still hold, and it is believed that the group classified as causes unknown is probably as large, if not larger, than previously reported. The latter group plus those who ex perience scholastic difficulty form a pool of po tential candidates for graduation. It is the writer's opinion that students drop from the technical professional patterns or experience difficulty therein primarily for one reason. They lack background.