Heads or Tails

Every year for Rosh Hashana I cook up a fish head and every year the reaction is the same when I go to pass it around: "No way!" This year I got a little sneaky and just ground the head meat in with the rest of the gefilte fish. All that effort and sneakiness just so we can say "Sh'nihiyeh l'rosh v'lo l'zonov."

My mother has a related saying. "Besser tzu zein a shvantz bahn a kop vi tzu zein a kop bahn a shvantz"--better to be a tail attached to a "good" head then to be that good head dragging along a useless tail. I can see where this would apply but I also see where it doesn't. I don't think it applies to college students.

Why bring this up now? It must be something to do with the weather change--or maybe not--but I've overheard and read dozens of conversations that all seem to be dissing everyone's favorite college in Flatbush. It would seem that the college is everyone's candidate for "shvantz of the year" and no one's candidate for a "kop." Or the speakers believe that they are the "kop" and everyone else around them is that useless "shvantz," the college included.

College is what you make of it. You can learn anywhere you attend college. It's not about how good a college is or isn't--it's about how good a student you are or aren't. A poor student at Yale (Can anyone spell Bush?) is no better than a good student at T. College.

Of course, it is easier to diss the college then to look in the mirror with a finger pointing. Here's how I see it: if you are that "kop" at college, then you got what you wanted when you ate the fish head; you can't now complain that you are dragging along a tail. And if you are that "tail" just remember that "tail-ness" is not a permanent condition--it's up to you to do something about it. Blaming the fish for your position in its anatomical makeup is counter productive, not to mention unrealistic.

Midterms are over and final exams are just around the corner. The talk "blaming" the college for bad grades will start intensifying. It's always the professor who is too hard a marker. It's always the professor whose exams contain "impossible" questions. It's always the professor who "didn't teach enough." Mediocre colleges have mediocre teaching staff. Mediocre colleges "cause" mediocre students to come into existence. Of course, in a "good" college you would have had stellar grades; that's a given. Therefore, if your grades aren't what you want them to be, the college must be at fault.

Let me repeat what I've told thousands of students over the years--it still holds true: I do not "give" grades; I merely record the effort that you have shown me. Whether you are a "kop" or a "shvantz" lies in your hands, not mine. "You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink" still applies. It applies to all teachers and to all students. And yes, it applies to all colleges.

Carnival workers have long known that if you toss a coin you can influence the toss of the coin so that the side you want ends up facing up. It's about time college students learned the "trick." It takes work and study and diligence to learn that "trick."


Here's a coin for you college students. It's got two sides. YOU toss it--heads or tails?