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Re: book sharing (was: Re: Pedagogy)



RE: book sharing (was: Re: Pedagogy)At this point in my life (I am 54
and have taught at college for 27 years) Fernanda is correct that I am
not at the same financial place she is. But I was there, I persevered,
and in doing so I made some good decisions and some bad decisions. I am
sad it is difficult for those who have learned from mistakes to help
younger people avoid the same mistakes. I guess it is part of life that
people have to make some of their own mistakes. I at least hope I can
help some people avoid big mistakes.

When a person is spending tuition, room and board, and time to take a
college course, and choose not to find the means to buy the textbook, I
believe this is a bad decision. The financial cost and time cost are so
high that $100 spent on a textbook strikes me as easily justifiable if
there is even a small chance that having a personal copy of the textbook
will make the educational experience better. The $100 expenditure is
crucial if there is reasonable chance of failure without it.

The car example is a good one. It does not have to be a $20,000 car.
When I was in grad school I had a $2000 car (probably a $5000-$6000 car
today). I was so stretched for money, and I didn't have much time, that
I kept putting off oil changes. Worse, I didn't even check the oil.
Eventually the oil got low and thick and grimy and the valves started
sticking. This caused the valves to burn. The car kept running worse
and worse and eventually would not start in cold weather. At this point
I had no transportation. The valve repair cost me about $400 and that
seemed like an immense amount of money at the time. Plus, not only did
the car run poorly for a month before it quit, I was then out of
transportation for two weeks getting the valves done.
If I had taken the time to have the oil changed even a couple times, it
would have cost about one-tenth the cost of the valve job, and the
couple hours of time lost would be way less than the couple weeks
without transportation.

My neighbor did indeed pay some big bucks for landscaping, and during a
summer drought decided he didn't want to pay the price for even a
minimal amount of irrigation. He paid a much greater price.

Another friend did buy a $10,000 piano that is essentially a piece of
furniture that serves no function other than something that can be
looked at because after a few months it was deemed too expensive to have
the kids take piano lessons.

In the first case, the transportation might be viewed as a necessity.
If that is true, then it was really dumb to let it fall apart. Some
might view college this way. If college is necessary for what you want
to do, then make sure your college experience does not fall apart
because you cut corners on expenses, time, health, etc.

The landscaping and piano cases may seem like frivolous projects from
the start. Some also view college this way. If you go to college
because you have nothing better to do, or because everyone is doing it,
perhaps you have embarked on a project similar to buying a piano when
you currently do not know how to play piano but you think it might be
nice, fun, etc. In this case I think the lesson is that you should not
embark on an expensive project if you are not willing to spend what it
takes to see it through.

I see about equal numbers of students in both categories. Some truly
want to be in college for specific good reasons, and some of these
students make poor choices that adversely affect their education. Other
students have no good reason for being in college, and an even greater
percentage of these make poor decisions that adversely affect their
education. In both cases students will say they made some of the bad
decisions because of financial necessity. This is almost never true.

I could cite many examples of why this is not true. Let me give just
one... food. The largest source of waste cardboard on campus, by far
(like a factor of 100), is pizza boxes from the dorms. But everyone in
our dorms is required to be on our meal plan. Every time a student
orders pizza for supper, that wastes about four dollars they already
spent on food service, and it costs an additional $6 to $10 dollars for
the pizza. If a student does this once a week, how many weeks does it
take to spend the price of a textbook?

Worse, when I make a fast-food trip at supper time to the "golden
arches" or someplace similar, I always see students there. That not
only has food costs but also transportation costs because our fast food
places are not within walking distance of the college.

Worse yet, almost every time I go to a restaurant on Friday or Saturday
night I run into students at places where the average cost per meal
(including everything) is about $20. How many Friday-night restaurant
trips does it take to equal a textbook?

And their cars, stereos, video games, clothes... oops... sorry... I said
I was going to give one example.

Not buying the textbook is always a choice. For some, the sacrifice
made in another area in order to afford the textbook is substantial.
For most it is trivial. Either way, it is still a choice. I have had
many students come to my office and tell me they cannot afford to stay
in school. Some have not been willing to discuss the situation, so I
don't know what their financial situation was. However, I have never...
never... had a student tell me they could not afford to stay in school,
and upon further examination found that this was true. What they really
mean is, "I am unwilling to give up what is necessary in order to stay
in school."

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu