Some of my students stare down at their notes, while others are asleep already. It's only ten minutes into a 2-hour lecture. Many of them stare back at me, but there isn't anything resembling a thought skittering behind their eyes.
"What happened during the Enlightenment?" No response. "What is empiricism?" Nothing. "Why is science important?" Dead quiet, and I thought that was an easy one.
"OK, then. Someone guess what the average life expectancy was in Western Europe in 1800, the end of the Enlightenment." One hand goes up!
"Sixty?" she says, tentatively. Uh, no, not even close. Life expectancy was about 37 years. Infant mortality was around 50%.
I know what these kids need.
Mandatory service, two years of it after leaving or graduating from high school. Two years of cleaning graffiti off the overpasses, picking up trash and trucker bombs from the side of the highways, serving in the military, swabbing out toilets in the public schools, cleaning up rest stops, planting trees... you get the picture. Two years, then you get to go to college.
Yes, I would send my own Angry Kid to do it, too.
22 comments:
I didn't have any military or civil service, but I did spend a couple of years in jobs that were pretty rough and entry-level while I was trying to pay for college. Some of the lessons I learned there were pretty significant in my development.
I see a lot of younger people whose prospects of success seem tenuous, given their apparent lack of ambition, attention to detail, or experience. You can fix the last one with time, and the second is a handicap one can overcome. The first, when combined with a sense of entitlement...
However, it makes for good blog fodder, so what the heck.
A great idea. Other countries do it.
And more vocational training so that people don't have to go to college to get jobs that don't require what they are supposed to learn at college.
Yours,
A professor who is lucky to have some really good students but also shares some of your pain.
An excellent idea. God knows I would have been happy to sign up my youthlet in that year he spent between high school and college.
I have been known to stand silently in front of a class for what seems like a long time, then, if no-one answers, issue a threat. Sometimes it is that I will just keep talking or they can answer my questions. Works best for classes with students who talk to each other. Other times it is that if no-one volunteers I will randomly choose people to answer. I don't know if these are ice-breakers or actual threats, but they do seem to work. There are still students who never talk in class, but since I was a shy student I sympathize.
I've found that making name tents and calling on folks to force them to speak works wonders. Though I have a class of fifteen. And, yes, I do believe a service experience would do wonders for buy in into society. You didn't get Roman citizenship unless you'd served your time, and they had a damn good run.
This is all your fault.
You're boring.
You expect too much.
You're too hard.
You're not teaching them what they need to know.
You're asking trick questions.
You're expecting them to guess what the real answer is.
You're not fair.
These [and more] are the criticisms from Spring's batch of student, who made me flee academia for my sanity's sake. I am still unemployed and about 30 days from having to move back in with my parents, but I just got tired of facing that crap as a lowly paid, unappreciated adjunct. As I was reading your description, I saw myself in that same position every semester over the past 3 years. It was uncanny.
I do not envy you. I wish you well. Keep fighting the good fight. May at least 1/3 of your class get it together and make something of themselves. And may a few of them actually be vocally thankful for your time and attention.
Dang, and here I thought you had some plan to off 50% of your class!
Well, I can definitely see how two years of menial labour would cultivate a lifelong love of learning and a real desire to engage with the class readings. After all, that's why our libraries are always flooded with off duty shift-workers, coal-miners and cleaners.
Wait! No!
Unless your area features a graffitist rejoicing in the title of "The average life expectency in Western Europe at the end of the Enlightenment was 37.", two years of arbitary, punitative "hard work" is not going to make them more able or likely to answer your questions.
Picking up trash won't build discipline, pride, self-confidence or maturity. It certainly won't build knowledge or useful skills. Students are going to have to work those things out for themselves, and if some of them don't, well, that's their problem - not yours. If you're going to embark down the dark path of dictating employment to people, you'd at least be better off putting kids to work in a soup kitchen, a medical center, a legal aid or social security office, a library or some other environment where they can feel like they are making a positive difference in people's lives.
Further, how about trying to find out why the students are in a class they're not interested in studying? I know in the case of my students (ESL), it was because it was government mandated. How about yours?
Does your society place too much importance on getting a college education? Are they there at the behest of their parents?
Do students feel the subject is irrelevant to the overall direction of their course? Has nobody attempted to correct this misconception? ( If it is a misconception... ) Are the subject descriptions reflective of the covered curriculum?
Is the course material badly written, out of date, dull or unengaging?
While any of the above are true, that student is unlikely to get anything out of two years on the side of the road but a glassy look in their eyes and a dislike for the people who put them there.
Frankly, a student is likely to get an appreciation for hard work after two years on the side of a road. He's also likely to get the idea that there's a right side and a wrong side of a desk, that he has to show up and do the work or there are consequences, and the pride in setting a goal, and achieving it.
A lot of this comes with tincture of time. I prefer to get someone older with life experience in my classes. And there are classes or other experiences in life that aren't fun or engaging. Sometimes you gotta slog through the calculus to get to the Batchelor of Science. You have to take the mandated classes. You gotta pay the taxes.
I wish more of my students would go do SOMETHING else for a couple years before coming to college. My adult students who've been working (or serving in the military, or raising a family, etc.) are SO much more focused than typical right-out-of-high-school students. (Sure, I have a few good traditional students, but they're the exception that confirms the rule.)
You're probably an awesome teacher, but our students, sadly, have NO way to objectively judge teaching and decide that the problem might be their own lack of attention spans. It's their loss. Fail 'em all and let God sort 'em out.
When I graduated high school . . . some time ago . . . I joined the wonderful world of work. After applying to many jobs and being rejected (at McDonald's for being 'too smart' and at another company for being a woman - even the air force recruiter didn't want me) I found a job at a department store. Boy, was that fun! After being fired I went to work in a factory.
These experiences motivated me to get an education, and wallow in this place where my job was to Think. So yes, these experiences made me a better, more involved student.
I was shy though, so I still didn't answer a lot of questions. Sometimes I had to, because if no-one answered I felt I would just explode.
I also think service between high school and college is a great idea. Did you see the recent Time cover story on National Service? Not just picking up trash--and curious jp is splitting hairs between service as picking up trash and as serving in a soup kitchen--but building up a trained civilian infrastructure while letting our youth mature.
Colleges need to start publicizing that they will offer automatic deferrals for joining any programs that exist.
The problem with a national service would be that the rich ones will find ways to escape it.
One of my history teachers (about 200 years ago), when faced with a situation like the one you described, would stand there silent for about 20 seconds and then say "OK, pop quiz. Yes, it *will* count toward your final grade." He got much better class participation after that.
Try this: step in front of the lectern and ask (in a nice, curious way), "So why aren't you answering the questions? Are they too hard? Are they too easy? Are you bored?" Point to one person, let him/her answer, then point to another. If their answers aren't clear, say, "I'm not sure what you mean by that. Can you clarify that?"
It works in comp. Sometimes.
Is that Padma Lakshmi?
A fantastic idea but not one that is likely to get much support in our shallow, appearance focused society. I strongly encouraged my eighteen year old to take some time to work and find his bearings before starting college, but he wouldn't hear of it. Despite the fact that he spent his senior year battling drug addiction and mental illness, eventually dropping out and taking the GED, he is convinced that he must go directly to college or everyone will see him as a failure. I have great sympathy for his professors.
Mandatory national service is wonderful idea! On the other hand, bemoaning the deeply ingrained and trained response of students to a learning environment designed more for the convenience of faculty, the needs of administrators, and the retrenchment of taxpayer commitment to public education, rooted more in benighted history and a model of productivity associated with the assembly of vacuum cleaners than an enlightened understanding of advances in neuroscience and empirical results in research about effective learning - the suspect phrase here is a TWO-HOUR LECTURE - is, um, unbecoming. When my students - frequently, large classes, in an intro course most don't remotely want to be in - don't respond in class I usually blame myself. I am by no means a great teacher - I get by - but I recognize how many of my students have had the joy (and the effort) of learning crushed out of them, typically one miserable lecture at a time.
Ok,I am a bit calmer now - I apologize for my crankiness above. Let me see if I can turn this into a teachable moment: for anyone who would like to think about and learn different and more effective ways to engage students in learning, I would strongly recommend starting with "Classroom Assessment Techniques" by Angelo and Cross. It's only a starting point but it is, in my humble opinion, a very good one.
One more thing: if you are interested in a theoretical basis for understanding why typical lecture-based instruction is a learning environment that strongly reinforces the lack of critical thinking responses from students I recommend - again, just as a starting poing - reading about the Perry Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development.
I like your ideas (and kudos to the "pop" quizzes). And who cares if the few rich found a way to get out of it? Then the not rich will be the ones applying themselves in school later, and THEY will be the ones who get ahead.
It helped me- my parents kicked me out at age 17 after High School to go get a job. I worked in construction, on the road crew, even in a factory over a span of about 6 years. After maybe a month of picking up road kill for the Dept. of Transportation, I was ready to commit myself to my studies.
Hear, hear! Someone needs to make french fries and pour Sprite. One of my colleagues likes telling students, "If you don't get some joy out of it (whatever the assignment is), there's a problem."
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