Many of my professor friends know this experience: A student came by my office the other day. Up to this point in the semester, we’ve had something like 16 days in class. This person had missed 6 days and come unprepared for another 6 or 7, so fully 3/4ths of the semester had been a loss for this person. Finally, at this late date, the reality had come clear. “I’m in trouble.”
I told this story eight years ago. What did I do? Short version–I gently helped this person see that a withdrawal was a better option than failing. I don’t like students withdrawing, but getting an F is a worse idea. It was a sad interaction regardless; it remains sad when I experience it still years later. It happened this past spring semester, though this time there was a better conclusion. The student came slightly earlier, and was willing to dig in deep, re-writing a major paper and investing more time in my office to better prepare for her final.
The interesting part from eight years ago was that it seemed very clear that only at this late date had the idea emerged in the student’s mind that coming to class was a good option. And, even as we talked, it was very clear that this person assumed that I would just “fix it” for them. The reality that their choices could have (and did) cost them the class seemed out of reach.
This sad story about a student reflects, to me, the issues of our country. Realize, there is a LOT that is still right with our country and I do think we can build on these positive things. Yet nonetheless my exchange with my student seemed a perfect picture of all that is wrong. What we are missing is any ability for most people to understand there are choices to be made.
What I mean is this–less than two decades ago, my student would have known that his choice was between fulfilling the responsibility for the class (a responsibility basically to himself, mind you—there is nothing owed to me the professor) or CHOOSING to blow off class. But, we’ve spent the past 2-3 decades teaching that there is no such responsibility. There is no choice, or so our children seem to be grasping. The responsibility of attending or completing work now is only the problem of the professor perhaps, or maybe the school, but not the student. In other words, for this student, my conversation with them was eye-opening. For the first time he saw that a choice HAD BEEN made already.
We see this same sense of a loss of seeing the options in all kinds of areas. Take, for instance, the area of honesty or academic integrity or journalistic integrity. Almost always when I approach a student about material that has been plagiarized, “cut and pasted,” they give no indication at all that they understood that he or she had made a choice to cheat. In other words, for the past 2-3 decades, from the highest levels of our lives and the most powerful, what we’ve taught is that to lie is almost always the accepted behavior. Today, to lie is normal, or so it appears if you watch TV or our politicians. By doing this, we’ve removed from children learning to choose honesty over truth. It’s as if, when presented with the idea of being honest, of doing their own work in their own voice, this concept is a foreign concept to them. Thus, lying or cheating and the acceptance of such is at an all time high.
Or, consider the area of purity, not just avoiding “sex before marriage” but in all forms and areas. Again, 2-3 decades ago, while students engaged in sex, they did so with a clear idea that they were choosing to go against the norm. Today? Today, the mere mention of chastity and purity is again to raise an almost foreign concept. What has happened is that society has allowed free sex with, apparently, no consequences to be the norm. In doing so, the other choice of purity is not merely ignored. It is unknown…or even mocked.
What happens to a society in the throes of this kind of change to our foundational ability is destruction. Before long, all concepts of choice from a moral voice are gone. People can’t be honest because no one knows what honest is; the norm has become to lie. People won’t work hard because no one knows what diligent effort is; the norm, especially in school, has become to have everything spoon-fed. As an aside, this is to the point that if a professor doesn’t offer a study guide, that professor is “mean” or “unfair.” People won’t obey authority because thwarting authority has become the norm. Its not that they choose internally “I will not obey authority.” Rather, the only thought is “of course I will do as I choose because there is no authority.”
It is often said that it only takes one generation to change a society. It probably takes two, and there we are. We can however work to re-claim the society of our founders, the people of America that worked for 150 years to build a certain society. It must start with you. Remind yourself that there is a choice involved. Remember my student from spring 2016? She decided, unlike the student from 2008, to put in the effort. Later, she told me “I have never really believed in myself as a student until this class.”
Maybe next time if we start today, both nationally and in each of our private lives, we won’t wake up to an outcome from a very poor series of choices that leaves you or I deeply in trouble….with the decision already made.