<p>[Essay</a> on teaching students who seem unengaged | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/01/16/essay-teaching-students-who-seem-unengaged]Essay”>http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/01/16/essay-teaching-students-who-seem-unengaged)</p>
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<p>Too many people are going to college for a BA, not too few.</p>
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What does that mean?</p>
<p>^If they are not learning anything, what is the point of their being in college?</p>
<p>The author of the article (who writes under a pseodonym) is supposedly a postdoc at a British university–so perhaps these slackers aren’t Americans!</p>
<p>I’d take it with a grain of salt, especially since we don’t know what school this is supposed to be.</p>
<p>I think that article is hilarious. It’s just the latest version of, “kids these days! sheesh!”</p>
<p>And, I think the author is teaching in the US, based on all the references to “State University” and NCLB. With that sense of humor, it’s no wonder he/she gets great evals at the end of the semester.</p>
<p>And, of course, the subject itself must be considered. I’d hate to paint many students with the “disengaged paint brush” based on their lack of interest in medieval wanderers.
Beli demonstrates a good point that if the survey contains too many limits (topic, persons surveyed, etc) that the result can lead to a meaningless or at least, inconclusive conclusion.</p>
<p>I think the key is that it’s a large lecture course in the humanities (some sort of history) that seems to be required, or on a short list of courses that meet a requirement. The students are there because they have to be, not because they want to be. They are unfamiliar with courses that don’t have a single text with lists of things to memorize and problem sets at the end of every chapter.</p>
<p>Their Beliavskyite parents have doubtless told them that courses such as this will not get them a job, and are a stupid imposition on their time and educations by a benighted, out-of-touch university administration that fails to recognize that this time could be better used on an internship or another STEM course. In any event, they have assimilated the message that this does not matter and they shouldn’t waste energy on it.</p>
<p>I’m a humanities major and I’d be bored out of my mind in a medieval Europe class. I have no idea why that would be required. </p>
<p>Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s not just the students :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I’m also a science student and really couldn’t care less if we send a man to Mars. I’ll admit that. I’d much rather spend my time focusing on down-to-earth issues rather than racing to Mars.</p>
<p>If I had a penny for every nap I took in a History, Lit, Pol Sci, etc class as an undergrad, I’d be a rich man. Most were taught by boring, arrogant a-holes.</p>
<p>Very amusing writer “(after bracing myself for comments akin to, “If there’s a village somewhere missing an idiot, we’ve found her!”)”.</p>
<p>I’d say this was in the US with the references to NASA, large state university, Verizon and NCLB.</p>
<p>No question it’s in the U.S.</p>
<p>It’s not medieval history, though. My guess is that it’s got something to do with the history of exploration and colonization – hence NASA/Mars, issues with vagrancy in medieval Europe, penal colonies (and their alternatives), and a historical topic big enough and of enough general interest to be part of a Gen Ed requirement.</p>
<p>It’s probably a gut course called “Exploring Our Earth.”</p>
<p>With the talk of freshmen, juniors and seniors, it’s definitely not about a British university - they’re just called first / second / third / fourth years on the other side of the pond. Ditto the mentions of Target and Verizon. </p>
<p>However, this is just once of those standard “kids these days, aren’t they terrible, much worse than we were at our age” things that people have been writing about since Plato.</p>
<p>Yeah, and I always want to say to professors who complain about the students, “Hey, it’s fine for you to get a different job if you aren’t doing a good enough job of keeping the kids’ interest. There are hundreds of boring people just like you who want to take your position.”</p>
<p>Blaming the professor is always fun :).</p>
<p>I teach middle school students, but I see some of the same behaviors. The author was saying the students can’t think, don’t know the vocabulary necessary, can’t bother to get the required books and would rather just not do the assignments. I see some of this with students every day. Kids who just don’t care enough to work on a quadratic equation for 10 minutes, so they just skip it. Skip so many questions on a test that there’s no way to get better than a 70 just because they didn’t want to work the entire hour and wanted to hurry up and be done. Kids who, despite weekly vocabulary studies, don’t want to learn the meanings of the words and just want to be able to list a synonym on the test! It goes on. US History class gets boring really quickly when no one has any thoughts at all to contribute on the difference between the need (not just the right) to “bear arms” in the 1790’s vs. today. There are many good, motivated, thoughtful students who move on and succeed in college. But, I dare say, there are many who move on to college, but did not develop the knowledge and skills needed and can’t think and analyze, and just want someone to give them the answers even in college!</p>
<p>I do think things have changed. My brother in law is a prof and he has some tales. In my day (says the old fogie) if you had a problem with the class or a grade, you had to go talk to the prof. No email. I’m not a technophobe…I love my iphone, but I do think our electronic devices aren’t always so good for us. </p>
<p>And Elementary and secondary schools are so focused on testing these days. And taking the right classes to get into college. I took so many “fun” classes in high school; horticulture, lots of art, shop class, cooking…and I still got into a good college. That doesn’t happen much these days. The kids are like drones…Ap, Ap, Ap…I think some of them are burned out before they get to college. I worry about that with my son. I did NOT want him to take so many APs this year, but he insisted he needed them for college. And even some of the really good students I know have an amazing lack of curiosity about the world. </p>
<p>And I agree that there are many kids in college today who shouldn’t be there.</p>
<p>As long as there are “checkbox courses” there will be some students who simply want to get a grade and get on with their lives. It has nothing to do with this particular generation of students. Some classes are just classes to endure and most students are smart enough to realize that the professor is ok, they just weren’t interested in the subject.</p>