It is the end of another term and as I think back over the many students that I have encountered in past dozen or so years, I am surprised at how little students have changed. We may have computers, cell phones, and Twitter but every spring even my most dedicated students begin to stare out the virtual window. They are wandering in Facebook, checking e-mail and reading movie reviews. This really isn't all that new; it is just that the virtual window provides greater opportunities for wandering away.
I recently heard a speaker promote this as a good thing since it shows that students are computer savvy and that they are curious about learning. I cannot agree with this. Not all knowledge is equally valuable or interchangeable. There really is some basic content that everyone should know to be a functioning member of society. Not all of this information will be picked up by a random walk though the Internet.
I was a high school student during the contract era of education. For those of you who do not remember that era, students signed a contract that committed them to complete a certain number of assignments to earn a specific grade. You could work as fast or as slow as you wished. The end result was a mad rush for everyone to finish Algebra in the last few weeks and the favored few who were done early had too much time in that class and were engaged in a dead run in some of their other subjects. This system lasted only one year. The honest truth is that not everyone is equally curious about every subject.
So how do you decide what is worth knowing for you as an individual?
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As an older student, I decide what is worth knowing, if and only if, it will help me down the line in my other courses or life in general. You know one only has soooo much space in that brain of ours to hold stuff and well...I have to keep some space just free.
ReplyDeleteI think some professional schools may be designed to encourage students to learn based on their committment to the profession. At least in law school it appears that the persons who are the most motivated and do the work at a steady pace are the ones who excel, and that mirrors real life practice. Lots of lawyers and law students wait until the last moment because there is only "one exam" even though we're actually being tested the whole semester.
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