The One Word That Says it All

"Proswayed," a female student in one of my classes wrote. When I pointed this mistake out to her, she was befuddled. "It's spelled 'persuade,'" I said. "Oh," she replied.

This one word sums up much of what is wrong with education these days: carelessness, inattention, lack of pride in a job well done, unconcern about one's own language, rushing to finish one project in order to hurry through another.

The flip side is that my fellow educators seem unconcerned about the deterioration of standards. Over the years, I have seen such a steady decline, and this has been disheartening for me. I wonder how sloppy we will eventually become, how much further into the mud we will sink.

And that's one reason why I am glad to be leaving Cal State. Professors who don't care and students who care even less. I will certainly not miss either one.