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February 11, 2003
What are college students thinking? #1Today I had some car trouble that made me twenty minutes late for a class that I'm teaching. This is a once-a-week, three hour class. When I got there (at twenty minutes past the hour) I saw a sign on the whiteboard: Class left at 1:17. No students in sight. At The University of Arizona, there's a student tradition of "the 5-minute rule": if a prof isn't there by five minutes after the class start time, the students all feel justified in walking out. Setting aside the fact that students trickle into my classes late as a matter of course, and would be shocked if I locked the door at five minutes after the hour and denied late students entrance, this rule of waiting a limited time for the professor and then ditching indicates a really poor attitude towards learning, generally. I teach at a big state school, and maybe that's part of the problem. Because the tuition is (relatively) inexpensive and entrance requirements are so low (especially for in-state residents), UA is a dumping ground for a lot of kids who are going to college because they don't know what else to do with their lives. These students are not likely to take much responsibility for their education, and have probably never been encouraged to think about education in empowered terms. It hasn't helped much that the consumer model for higher-education is well-entrenched at UA, and that students regard themselves as paying to be educated, rather than as paying for the opportunity to be actively engaged in educating themselves, with the assistance and facilitation of faculty mentors. This incident has made me decide to add a new section to my already overburdened syllabus: What To Do If The Professor Isn't There On Time. Since there's obviously no way they're going to think of it themselves, I guess I'll have to spell out the fact that they, and only they, are responsible for reaping the benefits that college offers. Just a paragraph should do it: If the professor is late, do one of the following: a) nominate a discussion leader and discuss the week's reading or assignment; b) use the period to catch up on your course reading or assignments; c) discuss the ways in which the work and readings for this class relate to work and readings in your other classes; d) try out a new idea or exercise related to the subject of the course, and take notes so that you can tell the professor about it when she arrives. Not too hard. Really a no-brainer, if you've got it in your head that you're in college to actually learn something. There's all this prattle about "learner-centered education" at UA, but the truth is that the students are all so fixated on jumping through the hoops they believe professors set ("Do I need to know this for the test?") that education is wholly and hopelessly faculty-centered here. Getting students to think for themselves is like pulling teeth. Getting them to take responsibility for educating themselves and each other is a nightmare. Just another installment of AMERICA MAKES YOU STUPID. Posted by kalital at February 11, 2003 2:44 PM Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsPost a comment |
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