It certainly seems as most, or many things, in the USA are broken. Well, perhaps not broken, but certainly we have constructed a Gordian Knot on so many issues. To fix something simply cannot be done with one easy stroke. With education, this is my complaint about things like the FCAT.
However, at the college level, things are not much better. I just finished yet another semester with some great students, yet along the way, there was such a fight to drive them to the understanding that education actually takes effort on their part.
Now, where do students gain such an opposite belief, that education is somehow easy? My casual observation would be that they have learned it over time. In other words, through a myriad of things, including their education prior to my class (which sadly often includes OTHER college classes), they have decided that merely registering for the class should GUARANTEE them a spot.
Once, while speaking in the Northeast, I had a student say as much openly. “I paid for the class,” this student said, “so I should get treated like a customer and basically be promised a passing grade.” What I told the student was that while I appreciated the fact that they had paid and in my class, I worked to treat my students with respect, treat them almost like partners in learning, nonetheless, what they had paid for was access to my knowledge and the resources of the college. They had paid for the privilege to be in the classroom to grapple with the subject, nothing more.
That student sat back wide-eyed and after the talk, came to me to thank me and said she had never heard of such a concept, but what I said made sense and had changed the outlook.
Professors are actually among the problem. Many will decry students inability to do good work, and yet those same professors will start classes with shoddy syllabi that have little to no good information. They, the professor, will capriciously skip class. They won’t clearly announce with assessments are due. Heck, at Valencia, for the past 5 semesters, I have seen professors not know when their own finals were being given.
In other words, students don’t understand that learning is hard work demanding effort and diligence because the system, the professors and teachers, no longer demand it of them.
Is college and my job as a professor about learning? Or is it to be focused on passing students?
Sadly, in my experience over the past 6 years, it clearly seems that the majority of students and apparently many professors and teachers have decided it is the latter.
We must change this! Historically, we should all know that all things of value worth doing, are worth doing right. And most things of value take effort, sweat, focus, tears, discipline, time, energy, concern and a determination to complete. Learning is this way, yet what happens in many colleges and schools is that education is made to be basically easy.
Regardless of our words on the matter, our actions as leaders shows the students that WE DON’T THINK EDUCATION HAS VALUE. We try to make it easy. We try to make it merely about passing.
This must change. And I don’t mean becoming mean or vindictive or cruel as professors. In my class, a student can take every test with a partner, yes even the final. I now give them the essays ahead of time (this actually makes the test harder, not easier). And they know I care. I hear this all the time from students–“you are the first professor I’ve had who really seems to care.” While I’m not sure I believe their other profs didn’t care, obviously the student did not see that care.
No, we must decide as professors and even as students, that learning is a challenging thing to do. We must raise the bar. Yes, that means some won’t pass. Yes, that means some will get C’s rather than B’s. Yes, that means students will think you are mean or will quit to take an easier professor. But we must go there. We must value our own work and our subject matter, and to be honest, value the student themselves and give them quality work that actually is learning centered.
That will mean its hard and challenging to get. But if its worth teaching, then its worth the effort. And if its worth teaching, then its worth teaching right!