More thoughts from the classroom
In my first class after coming out of retirement to teach one section of Financial Markets and Institutions, I told the students that I was an unapologetic capitalist. I told them I loved this country and that I was going to work to help them understand how to separate truth from propaganda. I said that they need to examine everything with a skeptical mind. Did they believe in global warming? Why? Did they think America was racist? Why? Did they hate capitalism? Why? How do they define freedom? I told them that yes, my African ancestors went through hell in this country as slaves. But they would have gone through a greater hell had they remained ”free” in Congo under the yoke of Leopold. I said that if you combined the household income from my African countries, Congo, Mali and Cameroon you would be able to buy groceries at Publix for a couple of months and then you would starve. So I am blessed and awfully lucky to be here. I said that I see ads touting pizzas for $9.99 which much of the world would look upon as a luxury. I said would you rather be in Gaza? In Sudan? In South Africa? In Libya? In Russia? In China? In the Congo, heaven’s forbid! Is there anywhere else in the world where you would rather be than here? Why? Is there an economic system you prefer? Why? Aren’t you really lucky in the randomness of your birth? What do you think about Critical Race Theory? Is Trump a bigot for dismantling DEI? What do you think about ESG? Now what evidence do you have to support your opinions?
Of course hardly any have thought about any of this. At this stage of their maturity they have just adopted views and opinions that feel good to them. They do not care about current events. I am trying to get them to at least read the Wall Street Journal daily. Yes I know that the Journal has devolved into being a quasi-leftwing paper but it still reports valuable news and events. In class I was talking about municipal bonds, state income taxes and local property taxes as collateral for certain issues. I said that Ron DeSantis is floating the idea of the state, rather than the municipality, controlling property taxes. I asked a student “Who is Ron DeSantis?” She didn’t know. I then asked the class if they knew to raise their hands. Only 5 raised their hands. I told them that I felt like crying.
I talked about bond covenants, both affirmative and negative covenants. I talked about ESG and whether the author of an article that the students should have read is correct in classifying ESG as an affirmative covenant. Spoiler alert: I bet that only a couple of students read the article and most have not heard of ESG. We talked about JP Morgan and Blackrock dropping ESG and why I think Larry Fink is the most dangerous person on the planet. BTW, I also mentioned that I was in a high school band with two of the Pips. Only one had heard of the Pips. The others probably thought my two band members were soliciting for Atlanta’s red light ladies.
I have told the students to not believe anything that I say. I don’t want them to blindly nod their heads. I know that what I say will go against most of what they have been fed by their media sources,Tik Tok, teachers K-12 to the university and what feels right. Even after class discussions I don’t know if they really believe that usury laws and minimum wage laws are harmful to the poor. They probably still believe, despite my best efforts, that if you have no usury laws that the poor will be forced to pay predatory rates and if there were no minimum wages, the poor would be forced to work for $2 an hour. I have told them not to believe me. Just prove me wrong and if they do I will adopt their opinion.
I told them the first day that I tested using short answers, problems and essays. That their grades would be lower than if I used multiple choice/true false but they would learn more. Seven students immediately dropped. After the first exam, 17 students failed to come to the next class to pick up their papers. At the last class there were only 32 students out of the original 59. I actually was a bit depressed that they would opt to run away rather than face the challenge. However, one student came by my office and said that although she had made the lowest grade on the exam than she had ever made, that this was the first exam in four years that tested her knowledge and that she would do better. Yet another student said that I was being unfair in how I tested. I told her that she could drop the course.
But should I get depressed because the students don’t know Ron DeSantis? Should I get depressed because they can’t figure out what 5 percent of $10,000 is? Should I get depressed because they are college seniors and will join the workforce this naïve? Should I get depressed because almost half the class has dropped? I know that once they start working for a living that many will morph into something other than what they are now. But it gives me no small comfort that they are basically clueless. BTW this is nothing new. Before I retired I had a student chide me for expecting him to know stuff. He said “Why should I know geography when I have mapquest?” “Why should I know how to spell when I have spell check?” “Why should I know anything since I can google it?” Why indeed?
This all, of course, is a result of our dumbing down curricula. Many school systems no longer teach reading, writing and arithmetic and those that do teach it badly. Many systems no longer give grades. I had French and Latin in my segregated high school. How many schools offer Latin? I once had a student say to me “How do you know so much?” I told him that he was not asking the right question.
This is what the liberals have given us. If this were a corporate product, it would be driven out of business and the company would declare bankruptcy. Yet we allow this to happen to our children. Isn’t it time to completely blow up the education-industrial complex?
haroldblackphd.com 
Now if you could just teach the teachers….Great to hear this information.
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What is really sad is that when I go to talk to the secretaries about something that I have yet to see a professor in his/her office. All the doors are closed. Unlike when I was full time, today’s professors and staff consider this as just another job. One told me that they go “offline” when they are away from the university. A friend who just retired said when I told him that I was going back to teach a course said “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
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Wonder what would have happened back in the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s had u closed my door or considered my position as “just another job”? Have so many parents given up their privilege to raise their children to tv, the internet, etc? I realized early in my employment in the Finance Dept. that some of my undergrad work study students who were supposed to be among the smartest students in their high schools did not have as good an education as I had in grades 1-12. We didn’t have kindergarten and only a half day in first grade. But i soon realized my high school education was better than two years of college in the basics. I also had 4 yrs of Latin and one of French. Several of my work study students were from private schools and the difference was obvious. I doubt that I would be able to understand today’s college students and would definitely be underwhelmed. Even though I had an accounting degree, I learned a lot from you and some of the other professors. I typed their journal papers for submission, their class exams, the textbooks they wrote (John Wachowicz, Fin 301), and i typed some of the PhD students thesis papers. I “read” what i typed and l earned things. Then you insisted i read the WSJ everyday. So my learning curve was greatly extended for almost 20 years. I worked 2 jobs to jeep my child in private school. I guess I was just too busy to be an activist for better K-12 education back then. Shame on me. How does this situation get turned around?
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I have some thoughts on what we can do and will post it in an upcoming blog. However, I have little hope that it will be adopted unless we can get our elected officials to decertify the teachers’ union.
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Hello Dr. Black:
I enjoy reading all your articles and especially this one. Reflecting on our lives and recognizing how much we have to be grateful for is so important. I am thankful there are students who will benefit from your influence, even though they won’t realize it until later. I had a job in high school and off and on afterwards, working at a gas station which was full service. We were taught to trot out to the cars, wash all the windows, check everything under the hood, make change with a changer on our belt and how to fold and carry the paper money correctly. We wore white uniforms with a black belt, black shoes, a tie and ball cap with WARECO embroidered on the front. We were expected to run out to the customer, run back to the building to retrieve oil, washer fluid, etc. and cigarettes. We were not allowed to sit down or take official lunch breaks. We weren’t Allowed to use the phone unless it was an emergency. Any deviation from anything that was expected of us led to being fired after the third infraction. And guess what. We all complained about how stupid white uniforms were, how running was going overboard, that never getting to sit down or take breaks was unfair. But somehow over time, we started taking pride in our abilities. How fast we could get a customer off the lot. How well we washed their windows. How we could time in our heads how quickly five dollars of regular would dispense in the tank while we washed the windows and check the oil, then just in the nick of time, get back to that pump handle and snap it off exactly at five dollars. We would race to see who was the quickest with our little belt coin changers to make change for a dollar. The weather didn’t matter. You dressed for it. We scraped ice off of windows and the dreaded soybean dust, which fell out of the sky from the A.E. Staley’s plant. Once again, at the same time we claimed we hated our jobs, we were underpaid and if we ran the place, all the things we would change. Dr. Black, when I look back at that experience in my youth, I am very thankful. It taught me so many good qualities that have helped me throughout my life. I find myself reflecting on that experience as though I wish I could live through it again. If you would have told me back then that I would one day appreciate that job, I would have adamantly refused to believe it. Your students are unaware of the impact you are having on their lives. The ones who stick it out will one day be thankful for you and the lessons that were forced upon them. I am so glad there are still educators like you out there bringing reality into the lives of young people.
Kevin
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Kevin, Thanks. That brought back memories of all of the things that my parents “forced” me to do when I was in high school. One summer I bused tables at iHop. Another summer I had to work construction as a hod carrier – boy did I get buffed! Another summer I was washing dishes at a local restaurant. Funny I never thought that this was demeaning it was the only way I could get spending change. Dad pointed out that he and his brothers worked as migrant workers in Florida to help pay for their college tuition. Later while at Georgia I waited tables in a restaurant where I could not eat as a customer and waited on my friends (who were very generous with their tips). It wasn’t until my senior year that I could eat there without being arrested. I guess today I would be criticized but like you I took pride in my work and actually told the owners that one day, they would be serving me. But I thanked them for the work and sure enough went back as a customer. I wonder if today’s youth would do the same.
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In reference to Kevin’s great remarks:
Remember the UT pre game lectures? On a Saturday home game day a professor would hi light a dept— and this one professor told how he intentionally was cruel to his secretary to let her know her place, but when any UT official was around, he would be at their side, laughing at any joke, praising any words. All I got was the intentional cruelty to a person who had to take it..
DESPITE that, thanks Kevin, we should all be glad to see a young person in a small business, seeing how companies start, seeing up close the pillars that keep a company afloat, and that young employee’s work with others – before the closed doors of corporate power create segregation.
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