It seems like everyone has a hot take about everything during the pandemic. Personally, I've kept a low profile despite the many controversies of recent months. It's not because I don't have thoughts but rather that I'm unconvinced anyone (let alone me) can communicate through the complexity to actually change perspectives. Still, something happened recently that has moved me to comment.
And since it happened a few weeks ago, it might not even be a hot take anymore.
You likely heard of the political pundit who used an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to criticize the future first lady. Specifically, he attacked her using the title of "doctor" to describe herself because she has an education degree and doesn't practice medicine. It was a petty, weak take that incited rolling backlash, specifically around the topics of sexism and classism.
In this reflection, I don't examine the sexism charge even though it is a legitimate gripe. In the midst of questioning the doctor’s legitimacy, the author used the word "kiddo" to describe the female professor. Even if the chauvinism was unintentional, the article reads like a platform of the patriarchy. Would the author have written the same words and used the same pejorative about a man? I highly doubt it. As a result, people on both ends of political spectrum have condemned the article because of its sexism.
DOCTORAL GATEKEEPING
Yet if you look closely, this controversy transcends sexism and more interesting raises the issue of classism. The broader issue I’m interest in is, who may rightly claim the title of doctor? Perhaps the best synopsis of this issue comes from the comedy Brooklyn 99. This question normally mattered very little in my life even though the controversy hits close to home, having earned a theological doctorate in my thirties. Typically, I never use the title "doctor" to describe myself unless it's for a gag. For example, a couple of years ago I was in the midst of a check-up and my (Harvard educated) physician offered a solution to what was ailing me at the time. Upon hearing his advice I deadpan remarked, "actually, as a doctor myself, my studies concluded that I should just pray harder." He wasn't amused, prescribed amoxicillin, and my cold was cured.
The WSJ article unified a legion of non-health care doctors, something I found ironic since the greatest levels of snobbery I've witnessed as a result of credentialing have occurred AMONG academics themselves. The educational hierarchy is robust, especially among the social sciences. It pays special attention to pedigree, starting with your degree-granting institution and continuing down to your field of study.
I was ignorant of this earlier in my education; to me, a college was a college was a college. But the more degrees I pursued, the more evident it became that I would never have high standing in the system. My doctorate was a practically-based degree (like Jill Biden's EdD) and not research-based one (a PhD). This is important to clarify as I recall for a conversation from a few years ago with some professors. I made an observation about some lofty subject based on sources that I read. Not only did an academic sneer at my “ignorant” comment, but responded that such an opinion was "outside of my area of expertise;" In this circle, my thought was rejected because my doctorate wasn't a PhD. Apparently I was unqualified to comment intelligently on the issue because the letters after my name were insufficient.
COVID CATECHISM
My sharing this incident isn't mere self-therapy. I've been thinking a lot about education lately, especially during the pandemic, as I've watched my teenager struggle in school.
To be clear, my daughter is a sharp kid. She's the only child of intelligent parents (well, at least her mother) so she has certain advantages that set her up for success. I've fully accepted the fact that she'll be more brilliant than I ever will be. She's always performed well academically . . . until COVID. Her college-prep magnet high school has been completely online since March and, in these past two semesters, her grades have declined. Objectively, her struggles aren't due to lack of effort or of comprehension. After scouring through her work and habits, it's evident that the real issue is the inability of her teachers to transition to teaching on a digital platform.
Our kid's school prides itself for being an academic powerhouse so faculty are continually focused on maintaining the highest standards possible. In their view, this is best reflected through harsh grading. Even though 50-minute lectures don't translate well to Zoom and assignments submitted through inferior LMS's (learning management systems) get lost, the online rubric hasn't changed from the in-person one. In the end, the inability for certain educators to adjust to online learning has harmed the educational process.
One example: one of my daughter's strongest subjects (a foreign language) is taught by a teacher that has openly admitted his greatest concern is that kids would cheat with untethered access to the internet. As a result, the instructor designed tests around the translation of texts. The teacher’s request to “provide the most accurate translation” is highly subjective, as an linguist will attest. Even though my daughter received national recognition in this language, she's struggling to get a grade that reflects her mastery. And there's absolutely no recourse to move this needle as the teacher's ultimate classroom goal has become the prevention of fraud.
This isn't an isolated example as I've heard similar stories from other parents. While these teachers aren't deliberately misleading their students, they're most definitely messing with their minds.
While this has created a tense environment in our household, I can't even imagine how challenging it is for those parenting younger children. And what about households with multiple kids learning online in different schools? How do you engage a teacher to let them know their content simply isn't landing? How can you encourage your child to persevere when grades are nonsensical? And this doesn’t even consider low-income households with students forced to grapple with defective hardware and slow internet speeds.
The easiest response would seem to call a school counselor or principal and report the injustices but, from my observation, they're swamped from helicopter parents advocating for their own kids. And while this is just another negative byproduct of the pandemic, it's shedding light on a societal shift we all must acknowledge.
We're teaching our daughter to view her education differently: we're constantly telling her that grades really don't matter.
Grades are as trivial as test scores and are far more subjective than we ever care to admit. A lack of high marks may limit acceptance to an elite college, but if the system is unable to appropriately measure outcomes, does it really matter?
REBEL WITHOUT A CLUE
Admittedly, this is a contrarian position but it runs in my nature. I've been that way since my youth. Another story to illustrate this thinking:
In the spring of 1995 when I was wrapping up my freshman year of college. A guy in an adjacent dorm room got a tattoo. I was impressed by the edginess of this decision. In those days, no one had tattoos except for sailors and bikers. When he asked me to come along for his second one, not only did I go, but I was convinced to get ink myself—a bit of religious iconography on my ankle.
For me, it was the ideal opportunity to display my rejection of social norms. When my mother first saw the tattoo, she was so incredulous that she ran a washcloth under the sink and attempted to scrub it off my skin. The tattoo was essentially a symbol of my uniqueness—a fringe position where I was one-of-a-kind.
Yet when I returned to campus that fall, it seemed like everyone had a tattoo. What I thought would be visual attestation of my belonging to the cool class was instantly devalued.
What was once extraordinary had quickly become commonplace.
Likewise, the educational system is no longer capable of distinguishing average from exceptional. Good grades were once the hallmark of brilliance. But the digital era has all but obliterated this model. Grade inflation sheds a bright light on the subjectivity of grading. Parents now frequently advocate to their children’s teachers, pressuring educators to switch grades; it reminds of Clueless where Cher suggests that her report card is merely "the jumping off point to start negotiations.”
A closely related issue is the rise of high-priced tutoring, providing children of wealthy families an obvious educational advantage. While I won’t detail how this impacts grades, the second season of Michael Lewis' podcast does a good job of explaining this.
The easiest way for a student to transcend the limitations of grade inflation was to amass more diplomas. Immediately after my undergraduate degree, I started in a master’s program. Eventually, as more and more people were earning their master’s I decided that doing doctoral work would provide even more value, separating me from my peers. But in the years since I became a "fake doctor" I've witnessed an explosion on people continuing toward a terminal degree. There's been a 70% increase in non-medical doctorates in the last three decades and this trend looks ready to continue. Like my tattoo, my doctorate means little in today's world. Diplomas are no longer an automatic pass to class ascendency.
Generations of students were taught that the path of education was the road to success. Instead, it's become an industry that's more akin to a Ponzi scheme.
IT DOESN'T MATTER
This isn't your standard "higher education is dead" take. Years later, I don’t believe my doctoral studies were a waste of time or money.
In fact, just last week I had a long conversation with someone deciding whether or not to pursue a PhD. My advice to them was "go for it, provided you have a good idea of where you're going." While ROI (return on investment) is a business term, it must now be applied to academic pursuits. Credentialing is losing its value in the modern world (especially in the social sciences), but the study process is as valuable as ever. Every good degree program ought to provide the student with the opportunity to transform how they think. Through the discipline of directed study, one can create learning habits essential in the emerging economy.
The ability to self-educate will be the currency of the coming age.
That's why I don't concern myself with the controversy of who gets to be called a doctor. It's also why I encourage my daughter not to worry about her GPA. If you can learn how to learn, you will have the ability to create new opportunities for yourself.
But what about us adults meandering through a changing world? For some of us who never learned how to learn, this will be quite challenge. Society is still in the midst of a massive shift: while we spent thousands of years in an analog world, we’re in the midst of a digital world. Before you lament that “things were never this crazy before,” take the time to acknowledge that despite living in a digital era, the majority of our systems are grounded in analog. Of course it’s a wild time to be alive.
If you were born before the 1970's, you were reared in the rigidity of the analog world. This context was both hierarchical and limited. Yes, there were opportunities, but you had to climb the right ladder (and many women and minorities couldn’t even access the first rung. It was a rigged system but, if you could get in, it had a clear pathway.
If you were born after the 1980's, you came of age in the digital world. You haven't known life without the internet. The lenses through which you view society expose you to limitless possibilities. Interestingly enough, the diversity choices can actually stifle decision making, obscuring the path to success.
As a Generation X'er, my journey has meandered through both the analog and digital era. I didn't have a computer when I started college; by the time I graduated, I had access to the world wide web. While Gen X’ers are often labeled the forgotten generation, perhaps it's because we were neither analog or digital natives. And in the end, while X’ers haven’t obtained the wealth of the boomer generation or the recognition of diversity of Milennials or Generation Z, we learned how to survive. The ability to navigate between the two worlds is a primordial skillset for the emerging world.
It's not about who gets to be called doctor and it definitely has nothing to do with your GPA. Those arguments are as relevant as a tired tattoo. In the future, opportunities for distinction will come with originality and adaptability.
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Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash