“Do as I say, not as I do.” We’ve all heard this quirky expression and perhaps even have said it ourselves. Hopefully we don’t make this a habit as educators, administrators, or supervisors. And if we do, I hope we’re aware of how bad it makes us look.
Today’s blog entry, is the second of two parts, where again I could ask, “Can you hear what you are saying?” This is about an experience I had many years ago where someone I know well might as well have said, “I don’t do as I say.”
He is my cousin and I’ll call him Jim. We are the same age. When I returned from living overseas, Jim decided to take me under his wing and teach me what it meant to be American. He used to tell me how he worried about me getting hurt in a country and culture that I really knew very little about. What Jim never bothered to learn about me is how adaptable I’ve always been. The irony here is that Jim was not the least bit worldly, but that didn’t stop him from being a self-proclaimed authority on every subject.
This attitude continued into our college years.
In a previous post I had mentioned that I did not have SAT scores, a high school GPA, or high school transcripts because of the nature of the overseas country where I spent my childhood. My only option for a higher education was to attend a community college for two years, then transfer to a university, which I did.
I lived in southern California at the time and the community college I graduated from with my Associate in Arts degree was Santa Monica College. This community college had a great transfer arrangement with virtually every university in California: 56 transferable units meeting the appropriate criteria and a 2.0 GPA and a student could transfer pretty much anywhere. I had my pick of USC, Stanford, UCLA, or pretty much anywhere.
I chose to finish my bachelors degree in northern California, so I transferred to Sonoma State University, the only place I wanted to go to.
Cousin Jim worried about me.
His first concern was that my courses may not transfer to the university, because in Jim’s own words, community college classes are held to a lower standard than those of a university.
I hope that everyone reading this who has either attended a community college or has ever taught at one is feeling dismay at Jim’s words. Of course the question is whether or not Jim actually believed what he was saying.
Anyone who has taken classes at community colleges knows that if classes transfer to a university, that is clearly indicated in the course description.
Cousin Jim was currently attending UCLA, a university which he regarded as difficult academically. Jim also believed he was so much smarter than me, and since he was having difficulties himself, he worried about what would happen to me when I finally transferred.
Let me digress. In the overseas country where I grew up, I received at tenth grade leaving certificate. In American terms, that’s the equivalent of a twelfth grade education. My twelfth grade higher school certificate is the equivalent of two years of college. Thus, my community college experience was largely a repeat of my last two years of high school, where I learned very little. Unfortunately I received no college credit because I had no transcripts to show!
So Cousin Jim worried about my intelligence, worried about my adaptability, and worried about whether I could succeed in college. He questioned whether or not I really could have transferred to USC or Stanford because I told him I did not want to go to either of two places. Jim would have gone to either place if he could…
I went to Sonoma State University, a state university in the California State University, and the only place I really wanted to go.
Cousin Jim went to UCLA. Said Jim, “I wouldn’t set foot in a state university even if you paid me to.”
If he could actually hear what he is saying.
Later Jim and I went to graduate school. I went to a state university while Jim went to a private university, where the standards for admission were so much lower. Later he transferred to UCLA where he finished his graduate work.
As we go about our daily business, let us be mindful. Let it not ever be said of us that we don’t do as we say we do.
