Several years ago Stephanie Land published a fascinating memoir of her work as a house cleaner, struggling to be a college student, mother and writer. Maid was very well-received for good reason: it tells a compelling story of a smart woman struggling with poverty. Land writes well and her observations, coming from a place that often does not have an informed voice, resonate. Maid was developed for the screen and became a very successful series on Netflix.
In 2023, Land published Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger and Higher Education. The book was widely promoted and received significant attention. It focuses on Land’s life in Missoula, Montana, as she finishes her B.A., raises her daughter, and has a second child. A continuation of her life in Maid, Class is both a richer and a less satisfying work. It is noted in this blog for one key reason: Land’s account of her life as a college student. Class is as much about the tremendous gap between student and professor as it is about myriad of ways that class-based thinking, poverty and policy constrain lives.
Land writes from the first person. She is totally committed to being a writer, to being a good mother, and to keeping it together without sufficient resources. It’s a heck of a burden for a single mom with no reliable source of income. When we meet her in Class she’s fled an abusive relationship with her daughter’s father and decided to make a go of it at the University of Montana, an institution known for its writing program. Land chronicles her day-to-day, the extraordinary complications of finding enough money for this and enough time for that. Land is exceptionally strong, almost anthropologically incisive, in explaining the day to day impact of this or that policy, practice or expectation. From finding childcare to dealing with kids who hate socks, from battling the bureaucracy to get parental support to SNAP benefits, Land’s accounts are memorable. Anyone involved with setting or implementing public policy for the poor would benefit from reading her.
Class also goes deeper into Land’s personal life. The results here are mixed. It is difficult to understand and appreciate her emotions, her choices and to get to know her as a person. The arc of the book, student to graduate, single mom of one to single mom of two, does not fully resonate with her descriptions of herself. Nor do they reveal the kind of growth or changes that one might expect.
Where Class hit me, as an educator, is in her descriptions of her life as a student. If I could lift those passages out of the book, I would strongly encourage my colleagues across higher education to give them time and consideration. Land’s challenges as a student are extensive and from my experience, far too common. We often do not understand, appreciate or give time to the student without resources. And by resources, I am thinking broadly of things other than money. Money, though, still matters greatly.
Land transfers to the University of Montana as a college student from another state. She was not well-advised, or the advice did not stick, for she completely misunderstands tuition rates for in-state and out-of-state students. She’s got debt and adds to it for her education, seemingly without a long-range plan. Did the financial aid office make her really think through her plan? Adding to the problems, Land talks about wanting an MFA without understand the value of the degree.
More problematically, Land’s description of her interactions with her instructors are almost all problematic. She feels judged – as a single mother and then as a pregnant woman – and not necessarily heard. Her sense of investment from her faculty is inconsistent at best. Comments from teachers sometimes sting and occasionally are enraging, yet Land does not speak of a safe space or of sufficient mutual respect to effect meaningful dialogue. She’s a student, but lonely and often disconnected.
In fact, Land’s account of her education offers scant evidence of meaningful student-teacher interaction. From a gifted writer and talented student with great faith in college, why didn’t it happen? Was there something in Land as a student that prevented meaningful interaction? Did the faculty not take enough time? And where were the many others at the institution, the teams we regularly employ and encourage, to help build those additional connections with students? Colleges depend upon these professionals to do more, to do what systems often cannot, and connect with students. If anyone from UM did, their impact was missing from Class.
To be fair, Land’s aim in Class was not higher education.
For this reader, reading from a particular viewpoint, Class was a well-narrated reminder that every student – and by that I mean every student – has a story. That story may or not be published, but we, as educators, would greatly benefit from hearing it.
David Potash