May 10th is the day of my last exam of my undergraduate career, and although I will save my complete book of rants about NCSU until after I graduate you'll hear me talk about the education system in general over the next month or so. What I would like to talk about today is the issue of teacher and student apathy in the classroom.
The one thing I realized from my high school experience was that the vast majority of my peers were incredibly apathetic towards the free education they were receiving. Most people took the education for granted and what was worse is that a lot of people took some of the most caring and concerned teachers for granted.
For whatever reason, I had much more passionate and caring teachers in high school than I've had in my 4 years of college. I'll save any possible hypotheses about why that is for later, but while high school (for me) was domianted by teachers caring and students taking them for granted - the exact opposite has been the case in college.
I'm sure a big part of the change in attitude of students is the simple fact that in college, you're paying to be there (in some cases a *lot* of money) so you might as well care about it. What's interesting is that although professors in college bring in higher salaries than high school teachers, for the most part, they seem to care less. Now this is definitely a generalization, as it does not apply to every single college professor, but I will say that in my four years of undergrad I've had a total of 4 or 5 professors who actually cared.
I'll start with the worst: The worst type of professor is one who has received tenure and as a result becomes complacent with his/her teaching style and material. I've had a number of these professors; they are either teaching at a university as a necessary evil to do research sponsored by the university, or they are honestly fixed in their ways and do nothing to adapt to each succeeding generation of students.
There are other professors who may want to teach but are honestly horrible at it. Any professor who becomes defensive of his/her ways and will not approach teaching with an open mind with a desire to help the students does not make a good professor.
Some professors teach by PowerPoint and although I appreciate the use of technology in the classroom, if the class is taught as little more than a recitation of slides then the professor becomes fairly useless. Anyone who has been through high education is probably intimately familiar with this teaching style.
I've encountered entirely too many professors who honestly don't even try to make their classes interesting (and I'll get to possible reasons why in a bit). I've even had professors who understand the uselessness of the class they are teaching and just accept it as a fact and move on. Your professor admitting to you that the class you are taking is a waste of time does wonders for a student's enthusiasm about his/her education.
My dad is a professor and he has a lot of the same complaints I do. He sees people in his department that are guilty of the very complaints I've voiced above - and it frustrates him too. Some of his students are putting every dime they have (and don't have) into getting this education and they're essentially being taken for a ride. It's just not right.
Some of this has to do with the fact that the curriculum is often times poorly made or decided upon by equally apathetic individuals. Another problem is that some professors are honestly turned off by students who are apathetic. I'm not trying to paint this angelic picture of students, because honestly there are even more bad students than there are bad professors, but it's a self feeding and repeating cycle.
Those professors who could care are often turned off by students sleeping in class, reading newspapers in class or just plain not coming to class. I've been in classes of close to 100 people where only about 30 have shown up. Ask the students why they don't come and they'll tell you that the professor is boring, the material is useless (or that they already know the material - more on this in another blog) or maybe a more invalid excuse. Some students don't care so some professors stop caring and things just get worse and worse.
So how do we solve the problem? I'm not exactly certain, but I definitely think it's one that needs to be addressed. And this is only the tip of the iceberg; class is over so I've got to run, how ironic, complaining about student apathy while blogging in class :)
Take care.
The one thing I realized from my high school experience was that the vast majority of my peers were incredibly apathetic towards the free education they were receiving. Most people took the education for granted and what was worse is that a lot of people took some of the most caring and concerned teachers for granted.
For whatever reason, I had much more passionate and caring teachers in high school than I've had in my 4 years of college. I'll save any possible hypotheses about why that is for later, but while high school (for me) was domianted by teachers caring and students taking them for granted - the exact opposite has been the case in college.
I'm sure a big part of the change in attitude of students is the simple fact that in college, you're paying to be there (in some cases a *lot* of money) so you might as well care about it. What's interesting is that although professors in college bring in higher salaries than high school teachers, for the most part, they seem to care less. Now this is definitely a generalization, as it does not apply to every single college professor, but I will say that in my four years of undergrad I've had a total of 4 or 5 professors who actually cared.
I'll start with the worst: The worst type of professor is one who has received tenure and as a result becomes complacent with his/her teaching style and material. I've had a number of these professors; they are either teaching at a university as a necessary evil to do research sponsored by the university, or they are honestly fixed in their ways and do nothing to adapt to each succeeding generation of students.
There are other professors who may want to teach but are honestly horrible at it. Any professor who becomes defensive of his/her ways and will not approach teaching with an open mind with a desire to help the students does not make a good professor.
Some professors teach by PowerPoint and although I appreciate the use of technology in the classroom, if the class is taught as little more than a recitation of slides then the professor becomes fairly useless. Anyone who has been through high education is probably intimately familiar with this teaching style.
I've encountered entirely too many professors who honestly don't even try to make their classes interesting (and I'll get to possible reasons why in a bit). I've even had professors who understand the uselessness of the class they are teaching and just accept it as a fact and move on. Your professor admitting to you that the class you are taking is a waste of time does wonders for a student's enthusiasm about his/her education.
My dad is a professor and he has a lot of the same complaints I do. He sees people in his department that are guilty of the very complaints I've voiced above - and it frustrates him too. Some of his students are putting every dime they have (and don't have) into getting this education and they're essentially being taken for a ride. It's just not right.
Some of this has to do with the fact that the curriculum is often times poorly made or decided upon by equally apathetic individuals. Another problem is that some professors are honestly turned off by students who are apathetic. I'm not trying to paint this angelic picture of students, because honestly there are even more bad students than there are bad professors, but it's a self feeding and repeating cycle.
Those professors who could care are often turned off by students sleeping in class, reading newspapers in class or just plain not coming to class. I've been in classes of close to 100 people where only about 30 have shown up. Ask the students why they don't come and they'll tell you that the professor is boring, the material is useless (or that they already know the material - more on this in another blog) or maybe a more invalid excuse. Some students don't care so some professors stop caring and things just get worse and worse.
So how do we solve the problem? I'm not exactly certain, but I definitely think it's one that needs to be addressed. And this is only the tip of the iceberg; class is over so I've got to run, how ironic, complaining about student apathy while blogging in class :)
Take care.
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Anonymous - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
You speak the truth. I attend the UW and the teaching has been horrible. You have all these super smart graduates and what not but they can't teach for crap and would rather just work on there own projects. College has been a major disappointment.naj - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Well said Anand. We've got the same problem here at UCSB, and I imagine a lot of other universities do as well.iRonManNCSU - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
I agree with that 100%... it is exactly the same thing that occurred to me after my second semester in college (i'm in my 4th now)...That post should be in the Technician... you should submit it for one of the opinion articles.
Adam K - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Wow Anand, that was deep.I must say that I agree in many cases. But one thing that I noticed is that often students can influence their teachers to enjoy or hate the topic they teach. You might find a professor going through parts of their lives that are difficult. He or she might not like their students because there is one or two that really piss(ed) them off an earlier semester or quarter.
msva123 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
"Some more entrepreneurial types might skip it entirely and engage themselves in an aggressive self-learning regiment á la John Carmack style."Good book related to this topic: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553...
It looks dumb, but it suprised me with how good it was. You can probably get it at the library.
GhandiInstinct - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
You are a genius anonymous, I stand behind you in the next presidential elections.Anonymous - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I think a major problem with post-secondary education is that many people go into it with the idea that it is a means to an end. How common is it today to see high-school aged teenagers determining the university degree they will pursue based on the job market? I would argue that many people value their education only for the opportunity it affords them in the post-academic world. To really understand what I'm implying, I suppose I should define my interpretation of an education.To me, the primary goal of education is to instill in a person, an ability to teach themselves. As simplistic and obvious as this might sound, I believe a great deal of the current education system is actually a hinderance to this goal. The way many teach is shameful. I felt in many classes the same way I do when I read lyrics to a song without actually having heard the song. There is a sense of deep abstraction and an obvious disconnect. Another gripe of mine is testing. At worst, testing is an evaluation of one's ability to regurgitate material over fixed periods of time. At best, it's a benchmark of some neural hashing function we've acquired over the course of 12 weeks of study. You may be familiar with it. I believe the hashing function is something like this: if the professor said the material is on the test then store as much of the material in short term memory for quick recollection; otherwise discard the material or rely on long term memory from the first and only exposure to it. I would be willing to bet if a professor handed out a blank piece of paper for an exam, with a simple instruction - "Tell me as much about the subject as you can" - that the results would be horrific. Where to start? What to emphasize? How to explain? But in my opinion, these are the very questions that need to be answered in order to teach ourselves effectively. Not surprisingly, these questions were what the professor had to ask him/herself prior to the course. If the primary goal of education is to be able to teach oneself, then there is a duality - one must be a student and a teacher.
Now, before you think I'm off on a tangent, let me bring this discussion back to the topic at hand. I believe 95% of post-secondary students are unwilling to accept this duality. They are merely a student; a consumer. They are there to consume their product - the degree. Universities are seen as little more than degree factories with a wide variation in degree quality and price that is seen in the products built in actual factories. I think much of the experience of post-secondary education depends upon the people with whom you share it; your fellow undergrads. I share your observations that many professors and undergrads are apathetic. I'm not an expert on this matter. But I would be willing to bet that students in general became apathetic first and that is what caused the professors to fall to that state. Following the simple rule of the market they're just being good producers and giving the consumers what they want, right? So how do you deal with this problem? I would say you deal with it the same way you deal with Walmart if you're offended by its business practices. Shop elsewhere. Universities may have a large marketshare of the post-secondary education market. But they don't have a monopoly. Some more entrepreneurial types might skip it entirely and engage themselves in an aggressive self-learning regiment á la John Carmack style. I think most people have disposed of the notion that a degree equals a particular level of intelligence. So if obtaining a degree does not enhance your intelligence, what is the point of obtaining it other than for the superficial reasons I mentioned at the beginning?
Gino - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I couldn't agree more with Anand about undergrad. My public high school was a fantastic center for learning. The ambivalence of undergrad was a big letdown. But I went to law school and was amazed because they teach using the Socratic method.Students are expected to read the material and then discuss it. Everyone learns through questioning and thinking on your feet.
Too many professors just lecture and use PowerPoint. Nothing happens in their classrooms.
I understand that its difficult to teach 200 people in an auditorium, but unless a teacher engages the class there is little point in having a "talking head" standing at the front of the room. Why not watch it on video--or just read the book?
Wally - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
One useful way to get better classes is to have a major that is small. In my undergraduate studies my major had 18 students. The professors new everyone and if you missed class they knew it. I did have the 200+ person classes with a professor reading notes (that he also made you buy, and never once deviated from) but that was a relative exception.The University overall was 37,000+ students and very heavy into research.
Grad school is a bit different since so much of your time is spent doing research and not in classes, and the classes tend to be much smaller anyway.
GhandiInstinct - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
Anand, completely agree. My explanation of all this is, people who choose a tedious career like professing tend to get so smart with themselves(because you need a PHD) that they feel like its all useless now. The ones who want to get class over with as fast as possible are the ones who join the field for money.