(If you want to be pedantic, it’s the kids’ parents, the K-12 system, the creation of the smartphone and social media, and society more broadly that has wrought such a crap generation.)
Oh, another piece blaming teachers for all the sh*t we are eating as a society. Great! Before blaming teachers (AGAIN) maybe you could ask why people go to school or college. Better yet! Why do their parents send them? Sure, they are so thirsty of knowledge we should erradicate educational titles and grades—really, we should. Then we would have like 1% of the students we have now: those Who reeeeeally want to learn something. The rest of them could just continue doing what they want. Do you know why this would be better? At least there would be no one blaming teachers for the f***** up system we have!
As a prof, I disagree with Benjamin's point on a literal level...but I do agree on the hyperbolic level. No, it's ultimately not my fault that students are addicted to their phones and have been conditioned to treat their education as a purely transactional experience. Yet I must ACT as if it was my fault (even if it really isn't), doing all that I can in my power to teach well...rather than complaining about how fked up the system is. The system is fked up, but my complaining won't change that.
Sure I must ACT, and I do it every day in my classes, actually. I am also a part of that system. To live is also to adapt to the environment and teachers are always doing it (man, I am always doing it or I would be mentally and spiritually dead by now). But we must also be aware of our limits: as a teacher, I can act only as far as I can act. I receive students with a mindset that does not depend on me and most of the times I can do nothing with lots of them, no matter the harder I try (and believe me, I try really hard).
We are working under pressure from everywhere, we are trying hard, we really care about this, and I am tired of this strawman of the professor or teacher that "sucks" just because there are some teachers that are not good. Well, you know what? I don't suck, I dont' f- suck. There always will be bad and good teachers/profs., we are always improving ourselves, but hey, in life there are good and bad things, not only teachers—let's stop validating the students' in the classrooms instead of saying to them: study hard! Own your education because is YOURS! If you are in a classroom, just leave your f- phone out of this! Just study hard and work hard on developing your abilities!
In that case, I don't think this article is targeted toward profs like you...but more so toward apathetic ones who are content to blame everything on their students, the system, etc, but won't take any responsibility or seek to improve their methods.
Again, I think this essay is meant to be read more so as a hyperbolic provocation than as a direct accusation. At least that's how I read it (and why I commissioned it).
My most memorable professor in college was a professor in Ankara, Turkey, a professor of aeronautics teaching physical laws of motion and relating it to meta ideas of life. He was so passionate about his subject! I hardly remember anyone else :)
100% this is the right take. And it's even more the right take in the AI era. If a faculty member can't deliver this message to students -- "I am giving you knowledge and wisdom you will not find anywhere else" -- well, AI should deliver the lecture (on their phones). Faculty value has to be made explicit in every way, in every setting. For the sake of knowledge!
Do live lectures even make sense in this day and age? Why go to class when you can watch it online? Seminars, by contrast, are an essential in-person experience.
Higher ed is ripe for innovation. The current model is costly and dated.
The American campus is now the church turned museums of Europe. Most go to college for the work credential and rely on amateurs if they want passion since amateurs are consistently the most in love with their subject. To quote Matt Ellison on the current state of higher education at Harvard:
"The fire became protocol. Critique replaced covenant. Career replaced vow. Its graduates no longer sought to be holy, but to be influential. And in that shift, the ears to hear fell deaf."
I now work in the trades and any laborer with a true passion for a subject can hold the room in the palm of his hand longer and with more intensity than any of the profs. I listened to during my 4 years of college on a multi-million dollar government subsidized campus
Do you think or have you experienced the administrative machine making it harder for lecturers to care? Adjuncting can be demotivating and wear people down. Not having that support from colleges can be a real anathema to enthusiasm, combined with low pay. Loss of rights to teachers to speak freely and focus on their own things, or simply not feel support is part of the fight invisible to students.
I've never forgotten one 1st year anthropology prof. He was witty, acerbic as all hell, and then something else besides. It wasn't the content of his lectures so much as his capacity to set my mind racing. We can all probably identify this as desirable brilliance, asking that we all have it, however, might be expecting too much.
Thanks for this. I agree that the lecturer is the problem. I doubt students were sitting in rapt attention pre-smartphone. Most were bored, carving stuff into tables, doodling, looking out the window, nodding off, etc. It does not take that much to enhance a lecture and engage students (even lectures without "interactivities") - but you have to be a weird/quirky/interesting/adventurous person. Most faculty are not.
Nah, it’s the kids, not the profs.
(If you want to be pedantic, it’s the kids’ parents, the K-12 system, the creation of the smartphone and social media, and society more broadly that has wrought such a crap generation.)
I say it's more the kids than the profs...but let's not let the profs off the hook so fast. See my reply to Francis's comment.
Oh, another piece blaming teachers for all the sh*t we are eating as a society. Great! Before blaming teachers (AGAIN) maybe you could ask why people go to school or college. Better yet! Why do their parents send them? Sure, they are so thirsty of knowledge we should erradicate educational titles and grades—really, we should. Then we would have like 1% of the students we have now: those Who reeeeeally want to learn something. The rest of them could just continue doing what they want. Do you know why this would be better? At least there would be no one blaming teachers for the f***** up system we have!
As a prof, I disagree with Benjamin's point on a literal level...but I do agree on the hyperbolic level. No, it's ultimately not my fault that students are addicted to their phones and have been conditioned to treat their education as a purely transactional experience. Yet I must ACT as if it was my fault (even if it really isn't), doing all that I can in my power to teach well...rather than complaining about how fked up the system is. The system is fked up, but my complaining won't change that.
Sure I must ACT, and I do it every day in my classes, actually. I am also a part of that system. To live is also to adapt to the environment and teachers are always doing it (man, I am always doing it or I would be mentally and spiritually dead by now). But we must also be aware of our limits: as a teacher, I can act only as far as I can act. I receive students with a mindset that does not depend on me and most of the times I can do nothing with lots of them, no matter the harder I try (and believe me, I try really hard).
We are working under pressure from everywhere, we are trying hard, we really care about this, and I am tired of this strawman of the professor or teacher that "sucks" just because there are some teachers that are not good. Well, you know what? I don't suck, I dont' f- suck. There always will be bad and good teachers/profs., we are always improving ourselves, but hey, in life there are good and bad things, not only teachers—let's stop validating the students' in the classrooms instead of saying to them: study hard! Own your education because is YOURS! If you are in a classroom, just leave your f- phone out of this! Just study hard and work hard on developing your abilities!
In that case, I don't think this article is targeted toward profs like you...but more so toward apathetic ones who are content to blame everything on their students, the system, etc, but won't take any responsibility or seek to improve their methods.
Again, I think this essay is meant to be read more so as a hyperbolic provocation than as a direct accusation. At least that's how I read it (and why I commissioned it).
My most memorable professor in college was a professor in Ankara, Turkey, a professor of aeronautics teaching physical laws of motion and relating it to meta ideas of life. He was so passionate about his subject! I hardly remember anyone else :)
100% this is the right take. And it's even more the right take in the AI era. If a faculty member can't deliver this message to students -- "I am giving you knowledge and wisdom you will not find anywhere else" -- well, AI should deliver the lecture (on their phones). Faculty value has to be made explicit in every way, in every setting. For the sake of knowledge!
Do live lectures even make sense in this day and age? Why go to class when you can watch it online? Seminars, by contrast, are an essential in-person experience.
Higher ed is ripe for innovation. The current model is costly and dated.
That's the issue.
The American campus is now the church turned museums of Europe. Most go to college for the work credential and rely on amateurs if they want passion since amateurs are consistently the most in love with their subject. To quote Matt Ellison on the current state of higher education at Harvard:
"The fire became protocol. Critique replaced covenant. Career replaced vow. Its graduates no longer sought to be holy, but to be influential. And in that shift, the ears to hear fell deaf."
I now work in the trades and any laborer with a true passion for a subject can hold the room in the palm of his hand longer and with more intensity than any of the profs. I listened to during my 4 years of college on a multi-million dollar government subsidized campus
Extremely strong "I'm the cool professor!" vibes here
Do you think or have you experienced the administrative machine making it harder for lecturers to care? Adjuncting can be demotivating and wear people down. Not having that support from colleges can be a real anathema to enthusiasm, combined with low pay. Loss of rights to teachers to speak freely and focus on their own things, or simply not feel support is part of the fight invisible to students.
I've never forgotten one 1st year anthropology prof. He was witty, acerbic as all hell, and then something else besides. It wasn't the content of his lectures so much as his capacity to set my mind racing. We can all probably identify this as desirable brilliance, asking that we all have it, however, might be expecting too much.
Thanks for this. I agree that the lecturer is the problem. I doubt students were sitting in rapt attention pre-smartphone. Most were bored, carving stuff into tables, doodling, looking out the window, nodding off, etc. It does not take that much to enhance a lecture and engage students (even lectures without "interactivities") - but you have to be a weird/quirky/interesting/adventurous person. Most faculty are not.
Beautifully written, and 100% the truth.