Editing self

September 13, 2011, 8:55 am

Being a new administrator in a new system is an interesting process of learning: about the institution, about my colleagues, about my community, and perhaps, most interestingly, about myself. My newest lesson is about editing self.

With a snip here and there...

I have long prided myself in being open and honest. That isn’t because it comes naturally. I grew up lying a good bit as a kid. At some point in my teens, though, I started to think about integrity and needing to be consistent in my presentation and my actions. I wanted to be someone with integrity, someone who was respected, and lying just didn’t fit into that vision.

That said, I have learned that being in the leadership position means sharing information thoughtfully and sometimes editing my real opinions and reactions. I have had a couple of times in meetings where I nodded my head while I thought, “Seriously?” Or I have had people ask me what I think of something, and I have to fob it off with a comment about how I am still learning about the school/culture/program/community, etc. Even questions about how I am doing need to be answered more diplomatically, especially if I am having a bad day, because people who work with me seem to want to read into my answers. If I am stressed out, perhaps I am thinking of leaving. If I respond too positively to one idea, maybe that means I will invest in it rather than some other idea.

I don’t want to become some namby-pamby administrative type who never takes a position, but I know that isn’t likely. I tend to err on the side of being overly honest and expressive. So, I am working to reel it in.

Slow down? But I just got started!

My second way of editing myself is to try to slow down a little. When I come into a situation where there is a problem, I immediately want to go into assessing and addressing mode. I want to talk about the problem with people who are affected by it, get people involved in working on the problem, and move forward on a solution. Yet, I know that most organizational problems are many years in the making, many people have gotten used to the problem, someone is often benefiting from the problem, and fixing the problem may have unintended consequences, including creating new and different problems. I know the challenges of making changes quickly, but I still find it difficult to act more slowly.

Going slow is especially difficult when people in my unit come to me asking for me to fix the problem. It is even harder when the administration supports the idea of quick changes, as the problems are longstanding and annoying to them.The pressure is there to do it all, right now!

My approach right now is to triage, identifying the most pressing problems, the ones that are easiest to address, and the ones that are least upsetting to people in my unit. I am reaching for the low-hanging fruit, and occasionally dealing with something more complicated if the negative effects are just too glaring. I am dividing these issues as I identify them, putting them into categories of immediate, mid-range, and long-term. Then, I am trying to address them more-or-less methodically.

I keep a list of my projects and where they are in process. It is nice to review, sometimes, as it reminds me (a) why I feel so busy and (b) what I have already accomplished. I *am* seeing some positive results. Of course, they are accompanied by negative responses from some folks in my unit. Change is hard, and I knew people would react to any changes I put in place. I am keeping my eyes on the long term, though, and encouraging others to do the same. Because while I am editing self, I am keeping my sense of hope and excitement. Sometimes, I think that is all an administrator can do.

Moving forward with hope

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chguk

I think this situation arises because access (and hence outcome) in the US education system is determined by class (mostly ability to pay) rather than ability.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with there being different types of education – different people need different challenges in order to thrive. I would also challenge interpretation of the (questionable) fact that the “best” undergraduate programs are “known worldwide for their focus on a strong liberal arts foundation” to mean that a liberal arts foundation is the best type of education – this is a fallacious argument deriving “B implies A” from “A implies B”.

Simply put: if you actually make access to education need-blind, you solve a lot of these problems. But then that would mean some more middle-class kids not getting into the Ivies.
marylchurchill

chguk – Thanks for your comments. I started working in higher ed as a financial aid counselor in the late 80s/early 90s and we were need-blind when it came to admissions but not when it came to aid packages and the results were devastating.

Regarding a liberal arts foundation, I firmly believe that a strong liberal arts foundation provides the best education and that if we are not providing access to that type of education, we are recreating existing inequities.
mbelvadi

You make it sound as if the 8th grade algebra class enrollment was decided strictly by parents’ income or job titles, as if the students’ 7th-grade grades were unrelated. My own middle school started intensive tracking at grade 5, at which point it was already obvious, in math at least, which kids had the foundational skills established and which ones didn’t. The real class issue is the one that ties back into what’s happening in the home, which you don’t mention. My college-educated parents were teaching me the alphabet at age 3 and one of my earliest toys that I remember was Cuisinaire Rods which were teaching me math. I doubt that was happening at the homes of the kids who ended up in the non-college tracks. This is why programs like Head Start are absolutely critical to educational equity.
What really scares me is that it appears that all of the public schools except the very best have completely abandoned teaching the foundational skills at all – basic grammar, spelling, and arithmetic. I don’t understand how this happened, but we who work in higher ed see the consequences every day.
A man with a hammer thinks everything can be fixed with a nail. Just because we work in higher ed, we tend to want to solve society’s problems where we are. But we’re much too far down the pipeline – the problems you’re addressing need to be solved much further upstream, like kindergarten. The best higher ed can do is to conduct the research that provides the early childhood and elementary practitioners with the best practices advice that we can give.
marylchurchill

mbelvadi – Thanks for your comments and yes, we have to start with pre-K. I was in a Head Start program in 1971, the summer before I started Kindergarten. I had just moved to the community and that program really gave me the confidence to enter a classroom filled with so many new faces. Although I had started reading at the age of 3, the real preparation I lacked was in regards to my ability to socialize with kids my own age.

Regarding the 8th grade Algebra class – invitations were definitely based on grades in 7th grade math classes BUT, parents played a key role in lobbying to get their kids into that class and the number of seats in the class were limited. Middle-class parents were much more aware of the influence they could have on getting their children into the class.

When it comes to higher ed, I agree that we have a role to play in the area of research. I also think we can do a much better job bridging the senior year of high school/freshman year of college gap and that there are roles for both high schools and colleges in bridging this gap. Too often, it seems like we just complain about how under-prepared students are rather than work on fixing the problem. I am hopeful that the common core will, at the very least, give us a way to assess the size of the readiness gap.
jonbower

Ms. Churchill is right that every child deserves the opportunity to prepare for, attend, and complete college – the prerequisite to high income in our society. However, we must also realize that never in the history of Western civilization has over 50% of the population of any country completed higher education. We also need high quality work and life preparation programs for the 60% of our children who will be the farmers, plumbers, technicians, salespeople, hairdressers, etc. who do most of the work in our society. Let’s treat every child as valuable by giving them the opportunity to succeed at the level that they can attain – irrespective of race or class – by delivering high quality education at every level, not just elite colleges.

marylchurchill

Jon – thanks. My focus is definitely on equality in opportunity. College is not for everyone and it is also not for everyone at the age of 18. Two of my younger siblings didn’t start coursework towards their bachelor’s degrees until they were in their 30s – after marriage, kids, divorce, life. We need a high school education that prepares all kids for college and then, they have choices, rather than closed doors. And I completely agree that all college students deserve an education that we can be proud of, an education that we would want for our own children.

pam_annas

What I’m missing in this conversation so far is the value of the practical arts and skills for everyone. One of the policies I appreciated in the high school in an upper middle class suburb my son just graduated from is the requirement that all students take at least one hands on course–in carpentry, culinary arts, theatre stagecraft, graphic design, childcare–in order to graduate.

mvclibrary

Excellent point. Reminds me of Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft. and his thesis that what is considered ‘knowledge-based work’ is often less intellectually intensive than skilled the trades. One without the other is intellectual affectation at best.

marylchurchill

Pam and mvc – I think that practical arts are important but I would not place them at the foundation of an education. When I think back on my high school years, my best learning moments happened in my science classes – those with labs – biology, anatomy, chemistry, and physics. I happen to love science but the joy of being able to learn a theory and then test it was uncontainable at that age. As I mentioned in my post, I have a 6-year old son and his best learning moments occur when he is working hands-on with materials. He loves art and science and both occur together in the “real” world.

rick1952

I tend to agree with Ms. Churchill’s argument about the class-based nature of the educational guidance given to children in schools. But, mbelvadi makes a cogent point about parental influence.

Personal anecdote: I recall that when was in the 8th grade, I wanted to enroll in an auto mechanics class as part of my high school curriculum. However, my mother was having none of it and made it clear that I would not be permitted to enroll in any high school class that was not “academic.” Needless to say, I went on to complete most of the college prep curriculum (most because I never did enroll in chemistry, as it was optional and I was told by my 10th grade homeroom advisor I would never need it) and ultimately completed a bachelors, masters and doctoral degree.

I should note that neither of my parents nor any of my grandparents (or any other relatives I knew) attended college. Over the years, I realized that my mother’s insistence on “academic” preparation was deeply rooted in her lower working class experience of completing what was then called the “vo-tech” curriculum in high school and how that had severely limited her options. It probably did not help that my father had dropped out of high school (he eventually earned a GED.) They understood the value of a college education, or at least a college degree, and recognized that it was accessible only to those who completed an “academic” high school curriculum.

My parents high school careers took place during the 1940′s; I was in 8th grade in 1966.

The strong liberal arts education which I received at a highly selective college opened up a vast world of opportunity I could not have imagined and planted me firmly in the middle class. It also gave me what Ms. Churchill describes as the capacity, “…to consider what it means to play a role in society and to participate in the social world. Education should challenge students to think differently and to think critically about the assumptions they hold.” I am an active citizen, serving on several community boards and volunteering my time to a number of community agencies. So, I agree that a strong liberal arts education is valuable in more than just an instrumental way.

Each of my children graduated from college. And I marvel at how my pre-school grandchildren are being raised by my children with a clear agenda that points to college. I think of Geoffrey Canada’s observation that children of the middle class learn thousands of words before they are two years old each time my 2 year old and a 3 year old grandchildren make the effort to “talk” to me and how their parents talk to them (both know the alphabet, follow along in books when read to, and even know how to use computers to a limited degree!) I suspect my children will insist, as their grandmother did with respect to their father, that their children be prepared for college. The difference is they know what they are preparing their children for much better than their grandmother knew (so, no amount of bad academic advice from a homeroom advisor will permit them to escape high school chemistry.) Of course, my children and grandchildren are upper middle class. They will be “career-ready” no matter what. So, I wonder how we will insure that those who are not headed to college (for whatever reason) will also be “career -ready.” It will require the same focus and determination exhibited by my mother as well as high quality educational programs, “academic” or “vo-tech”, available to this next generation of students.

jffoster

One observation: Most people who go to and graduate from college do not have _careers_. They have jobs. If they’re fortunate, they have a job — or a career — which is also their vocation.

betterschool

I appreciated this article and its importance in uncovering our unintended biases. A minor aside: as a group, the professoriate is not a particularly creative bunch. The requirements of getting here emphasize a variety of other attributes such that the truly creative seldom make it through “the system.” That said, there is little reason to think we can be effective in fostering creativity in our students. What we can do is broaden the appreciative horizons of all students, regardless of class status.
crunchycon

It isn’t just “those who can pay” but “those who can garner sufficient financial aid”, i.e., the poor, who have access to higher education. It is the middle-middle and lower-middle classes who have less and less access. “Rich”, i.e., those can pay, and “poor” have all the access they care to take.

22086364

Not so much, crunchycon. I’ve had students who supported themselves, but whose parents chose to keep claiming them as dependants. Thus, no financial aid.
And students whose parents forbid the filing of the FAFSA, which is the ticket to obtaining financial aid. They, often politically conservative, crunchycon, think filing the FAFSA is inviting government intrusion. But no need-based aid for them.
And then, even though the FAFSA suggests that MY EFC (expected family contribution) to my daughter’s education is about 9K (since I make under 60k), her school expects 24K. I provide 20K, and the school gets more than half my monthly income ten months a year. Luckily, my needs are simple, I have no debt, and I’m willing to eat cheaply. Not everyone can do that.
So, basically, the cost of education exceeds what all but the richest can easily pay, and the middle class AND the poor suffer.
Do you work with students? I’d like you to meet mine. Some sleep in their cars; some raise their younger siblings; one has one pair of shoes; the fruit and candy we leave out in the office is sometimes the bulk of some our students’ caloric intake, and I’ve enterted the washroom at work some morning to see students giving themselves sink bathes. I work at a nice state university, located in the nice outskirts of a major metropolitan area.

22086364

When I was a (scholarship) student at Phillips Exeter, such luminaries as Ted Kennedy, John Irving, Gore Vidal, and Father Flye, James Agee’s old mentor, exhorted students to take our leadership responsibilities seriously, and to live lives of nobless oblige. When I transferred to a public high school, we were herded into the auditorium to be told by HR directors about the wisdom of learning Japanese and Spanish, since our employers would likely find those useful skills.

My husband and I, middle class in salaries, but culturally wealthy, placed our children in schools that matched their interests and abilities, travelled (on the cheap) to Europe, and were lucky enough to fill our house with interesting people.

Now my children are in fine schools, and in fine academic programs within those schools, and I work with equally intelligent, ambitious young people for whom the horizons are, or may be, much more limited. Some absolutely brilliant students are unable to afford to even consider study abroad programs, unpaid internships, or the possibility that they might qualify for a Fullbright or Rhodes scholarship. Their college educations may help them move a step or two up the conomic ladder, and they may well surpass their parents’ station in life; however, there are wonderful opportunities in life they have and will be denied, simply because they’re poor, middle-class, or unconnected.

Students who drop out of school, or whose academic aspirations and possibilities are narrowed by things outside their own control represent a moral and economic loss for the world. It’s profligate to waste human potential by cultivating some people, ignoring others, and outright squashing some.

Answers? I don’t have any. But, since I get students at the university end of things, I do my best to work with them where they are, and to make as many possibilities as possible available to them. I’m sure I fail quite often.
geoz32

There is no better cure for the anti-leadership bug, than putting that person in leadership.
iriselina

Hi,
Interesting article.When I found myself as Director after years of being a Professor, I was forced to think anew especially about relationships among us all. I bought myself a book called ‘The Accidental Leader’ ( Robbins &Henley) and that helped me slow down and think. It also helped me take stern action where I had to and not seek mere harmony. I was 69 and still learning that academics is not about what you know but on how you get along with others and help others to do so.
lifenbalance

I found a good way to respond to people proposing ideas is to shift the responsibility back on them. For instance, “Good idea, telling me more about how you would go about implementing that.” or “It sounds like you have a strong interest in developing this project, keep me informed on your progress.” The toughest part of moving from a non management role to management is holding back on the “doing” part and putting more energy into managing the “doers”.

Chalchihuite

The “you propose it, you implement it” strategy can also backfire for managers, though, because it’s a disincentive for people to tell them about problems. If I can’t talk to a manager about some issue without getting handed a new assignment and a new reporting responsibility, I’m much likelier to either deal with the problem on my own (which is not necessarily the way that management would prefer that it be resolved), or decide that the problem isn’t important enough for me to bother about (which may not be a reflection of management’s priorities). This isn’t to endorse micromanagement, or to say that managers shouldn’t encourage worker initiative, just to point out that a manager who holds back too much on “doing” can inadvertently cut herself out of the loop.

lesboprof

Geoz32, I agree with that, though there are many folks you wouldn’t want in leadership positions, often because they fail in areas irselina and lifenbalance note: getting along with people and follow through! And strangely enough, even after they have failed, they still sometimes resent the leaders. And thanks for the book suggestion, Irselina!

iriselina

Most welcome. I was totally confused when the Admin. asked me to sack someone as young as my daughter ! I delayed, trying to be motherly, but it didn’t work. I sacked her later. I felt I had grown up in the bargain !

dvakil

Thank you for this article. As a new administrator coming from the faculty, I share several of the sentiments expressed here and also need to find ways to edit myself.
tsylvain

I’m not surprised that students criticize the professor who uses classtime to regurgitate the material in the textbook, but the reality is that many students arrive in class without having prepared in any way (there are studies that show this: the number of hours of out-of-class preparation is much lower than it was in previous decades). The professor can’t assume then that any discussion that he or she has planned will be productive. Perhaps with the desperate hope of getting across a few essential points to the largely passive class, the professor resorts to covering the basic material. No, it’s not entertaining and it’s certainly not ideal, but one has to fill those 50 minutes.

While I hope I don’t quite fit the mold of the boring professor described here, I teach in a supposedly selective institution and routinely see students looking baffled about what’s going to be covered that day in class–despite the very detailed syllabus that I passed out and uploaded, despite my reminders in the previous class, and despite (alas) emailed reminders and/or links to the readings for the next class period.
rpaterson

The role of a “teacher” is to inspire an interest in learning, not just to deliver knowledge. The analogy I use is fishing. You throw out a line with bait on it, reel it in, if it doesn’t work, change the bait, and keep trying until you get a bite, then you set the hook… once the student “gets it” and is listening to you, you can take them anywhere. They need to understand “how to acquire knowledge.” So if, as part of getting their attention, one needs to do a little song and dance (even poorly, ’cause few of us have been trained to do that) then one needs to try the old soft shoe. (mixed metaphors – sorry)
alexanderc

The biggest problem I see with the student-as-customer point of view is that consumers really do know what they need. If I want a chair of a certain size and style and a salesperson tells me I can only buy a different chair, then I leave the furniture store disgruntled.

On the other hand, most of our students have never seen the room where the chair will go. They don’t know what kind of chair they need, but their teachers do. I am extraordinarily thankful that my teachers were willing to say, “you are not always right.”

Of course we can strive to be better teachers, but part of that is making sure students learn what they need to learn, not just what they want to learn. If the students don’t care about a particular subject, or spend the class on Facebook, they are wasting their own time and money and have no good reason to complain.

Learning to learn in “boring” classes (and what’s boring to me might not be boring to you) is very valuable. A good education is about more than obtaining a skill set; it is not the same as buying a chair.

patrick_murtha

I agree with you completely! Students need to be learning warriors, ready to learn by whatever means necessary. The professor is engaging and the texts are lively? Great, that’s helpful. But the student still needs to buckle down and learn the material. The professor is weak and the texts are dry? That’s unfortunate, but the student still needs to buckle down and learn the material.

I always tell my students that they should not wait for great classes or teachers in order to learn; they could be waiting a long time. They need to be able to get as much educational value as they can out of every educational experience, even the sub-optimal ones. In one semester in graduate school, I had two of the best professors I have ever had, and two of the worst; but I worked very hard to get all the learning I could out of all four classes.

As for the distractions that students employ during classes, the reasons offered for their ubiquity are incredibly lame. America has become a whiny society of excuse-makers trying to explain why they couldn’t do what they didn’t want to do in the first place. If learning isn’t your bag, then I’d suggest school isn’t your place. If boredom-killing is your bag, there are better places. I will do everything I can to be engaging and not-boring and even entertaining within the context of the subject-at-hand, but I will not distort that context. The subject is sacred. The class-time we spend on it is sacred, too; Facebook can wait.

Call me idealistic, call me unrealistic, call me ornery, call me old-fashioned. Fine by me.

urspider

“America has become a whiny society of excuse-makers trying to explain
why they couldn’t do what they didn’t want to do in the first place. If
learning isn’t your bag, then I’d suggest school isn’t your place.”

Exactly. A nation in decline, full of bored consumers. Our Chinese students may show the Americans a thing or two, however.

Facebook? I don’t have a good use for it in classes, and I do richly use technology in and outside of class.

curmudgeonintraining

Students don’t know what is in their best interests and will allow themselves to be distracted if the option is available. We are the professionals and it’s our job to instill in them best practices to prepare for the workplace. Classrooms where electronics are a distraction exist only because the professor allows them to exist. I ban all cell phones and laptops and enforce this policy through punitive grade measures (marked absent for the day). I hate to do take such a tough stance, but it works incredibly and after the first time or two I implement the policy it is not an issue for the remainder of the semester. Since I’ve started doing this, students have become more focused, speak more in discussion, and engage more with the material. This obviously would not work (or would it?) in a large lecture, but for seminar classes I am a believer.

cordelia

I’ve tried the banning with penalties. But lately I’ve encountered the problem of students who do not buy print textbooks but rely on digital text rentals. It might look like they are texting or reading Facebook during class, but in fact they are reviewing the assigned material and their notes . . . (or are they?).

curmudgeonintraining

I’ve started to encounter this as well and unfortunately I don’t have a good answer for you. My courses don’t usually have digital versions of textbooks, so I’ve been able to side-step this issue for the most part. We rarely get so nitty-gritty into a reading that they would need a print-out. On rare occasions when students work closely with readings, I have allowed them to pull it up on their laptops for that portion of the class only. I have received criticism from some peers about not allowing students the opportunity to take electronic notes during class. While I acknowledge this is unfair to those students, I find the benefits outweigh the costs. Honestly, it is a rare student who actually takes useful notes with a laptop.

vlghess

So you object to students’ using laptops (or, these days, tablets) for note-taking?

curmudgeonintraining

I do. It’s unfortunate that the few students who would legitimately use such devices for notes are punished by everyone else, but that’s life. Most students just can’t resist the distractions such devices bring and it’s detrimental to their education and the class atmosphere. My courses are usually more discussion than lecture based, so students don’t usually take many notes anyhow.

morgnan7

This is show business. I’ve always viewed class time as a performance. If I can’t hold an audience, I can’t impart knowledge. When I lose the attention of my students, I consider it a personal failure. I go back and rewrite the script.
deller

So much of this is just depressing. It all makes me feel so old, so irrelevant. “Entertaining” people. How did that word get into a discussion of “higher” education? Silly me. I constantly, every semester, weekly, try to engage my students, try to improve. 90% of the students, alas, do not. They are fed by discussions like this, which take their ignorance, laziness, and media reflexes seriously. I don’t care about the “changing world.” You have to hold the line somewhere. People with the standards that “academics” should have should not bow down to any marketplace or technology. Have some self respect, for your discipline and yourself, for heaven’s sake. I care not if this sounds elitist: you are the authority, in your venue, in your discipline. Don’t let any gaggle of distracted students, or any silly feeding-frenzy, technologically driven [read $$$] marketplace intimidate you. Stick to your guns.

I think it was [T. S.] Eliot who said something like: “We are not trying to ‘win,’ but to keep something alive.”

As opposed to comatose bodies who require instant stimulation [not thought] to galvanize them.

Lord have mercy. At least Jesus gave people something to think about [parables]. Many left, presumably because he refused to perform miracles on demand.

Quit performing [good word choice]; challenge people on terms that don’t require idiotic trend-driven reactions [it's called thinking].
dehrensperger

“ the premise of the enterprise is that students are paying to be elevated out of their ignorance” – Actually, no. The sentence – and the entire consumer mentality – implies a passive perspective. Education is an active endeavor requiring active participation of all parties involved. Students are actually paying for access to an education, or for the opportunity to elevate themselves with the assistance/guidance of the faculty. That is the so-called product. What many students don’t seem to realize is that actually making full “use” the “product” (getting an education -coming to class, being attentive in class, doing the readings, actually thinking about the material, coming to office hours if understanding is lacking, etc.) requires hard work, persistence, and even sacrifice. It’s more than just showing up. Those in front of the class can be as entertaining as Stephen Colbert (or any other entertainer), but they simply cannot open up the students’ heads and pour in the knowledge and understanding (which is what the business model seems to imply or even require). Education requires engagement on the part of those wishing to elevate themselves.

“…once enrolled they can’t very easily take their business elsewhere.” – simply put, enrollment is the easy part. Students pay the tuition money and go to class. Then, they must make use of the product they’ve purchased – the access.

Do professors need to figure out better ways to teach? Yes, without question, and that can even involve humor. Too much of the rhetoric surrounding the business model, however, focuses on the responsibilities of the professor, but neglects the responsibilities of the student.

lucero

I definitely agree with you. In a way, what is currently being professed, that it is the responsibility of the professor to engage the students, DISEMPOWERS the students. His/her learning becomes dependent upon whether he/she likes the professor and how said professor presents the material. It is so different from the mentality when I was a student (in the 1980s). Not all my professors were perfect, but I felt like it was my responsibility to read the material, do the assignments, prepare in anyway possible so that I would be able to understand what was going on in class. If I could not, then I always looked back at myself and my preparation as what was lacking (and would fix it–I needed to study more, get a tutor, etc. If I couldn’t improve then, maybe that field wasn’t for me–organic chemistry had to be dropped after a semester). I never thought that it was the responsibility of the professor or teaching assistant to motivate me or change his/her teaching. That was very “high school” in my mind. Adults did not need that handholding in class. I’m not saying that teaching should not be worked on and improved but thiis shift in the students’ thinking is a paradigm shift in higher education, I think.

collegeskeptic

The real issue here is not that students are too lazy or just expect entertainment. The issue is that in academia today, or at least legal academia, universities prioritize good scholarship over good teaching. These two things are not necessarily correlated, and in fact usually are not. Big-name professors often aren’t even just “boring” – they can be incoherent and totally irrelevant during class time. Many also seem to feel that actually teaching content, as opposed to theory, is somehow beneath them and their intellectualism – even as content is we get tested on in the form of legal issue spotters. It seems to be universally assumed that students can just pick up the black letter law on their own, as if we weren’t paying to be in school to be taught it.

Banning laptops solves the wrong problem in this dispute. If a professor is going to so waste my time in class that I feel compelled to do other work or even goof off, the professor is the one who should be forced to make his or her material relevant and at least partially engaging. I should not be forced to pay attention to something that in my judgment is not worthwhile – I’m a grown up, and I don’t need a patronizing university to tell me when I should and should not have to engage. I am sick of subsidizing a bunch of law review articles with my tuition dollars, because my doing so seems to be coming at the expense of a good education.
mycantarella

I was glad to see the word relevance in this piece. I am not sure that students seek alternative entertainment in the classroom but they do seek to know why they are being asked to engage certain materials or processes. They are consumers to the extent that they are paying mightily for what they are getting and want to know how it will pay off. To use the crass business term –they seek the ROI. More experiential activity, more capstones, more group work, more explanation of why certain activities or knowledge are important can go a long way to helping them be more satisfied with what they are getting. These are students too who engage every thing interactively, unlike most of the faculty who were trained in a different pre-facebook era. This is how they learn– they can get a tutorial on YouTube that is visual, they look for dynamic powerpoints that echo the Sesame Street they grew up with. We can’t stay stuck in dated methodologies. Our students are moving forward and we have to be where they are. At the same time we do have an obligation to teach civility and courtesy (as in no facebook in class.) It is a two way street.
Marcia Y. Cantarella, PhD. Author, I CAN Finish College: The Overcome Any Obstacle And Get Your Degree Guide.
sivavaid

This article misrepresents my position. I am very disappointed in it. Mr. Selingo cast me as the character in his play, the grumpy conservative who resents students and defends traditional methods of teaching for their own sake. My students and anyone who knows me understand I am not that character. Mr. Selingo knows that as well.

When Mr. Selingo spoke to me at length about my sense of responsibility in the classroom, I outlined for him what I consider to be the professors’ duties (or, terms of the “contract”): A professor must have and be able to demonstrate mastery of the material; A professor must maintain control of the classroom environment to allow for open flows of opinion and discussion with no distractions; A professor must use the class time responsibly (including showing up on time, making the class time flow, and concluding his or her points at the end of the session).

Instead, Mr. Selingo asserts falsely that “Both Gandhi and Vaidhyanathan seem to ignore the classroom contract that requires the professor to be responsible and the student to be prepared and engaged. They each want to place more accountability on the other party, when learning in the classroom is an activity shared between a teacher and a student.” I never said anything close to that. I don’t believe it. And I should not have been used as a foil in his manufactured conflict.

Mr. Selingo did describe me accurately as a critic the “consumer model” of higher education. But he neglected to reveal what I told him was the proper model of higher education and thus the motivation for those of us who do this for a living (usually at alarmingly low pay for high workloads). We have a civic responsibility to do our best in the classroom (and in our communities, and for our institutions, and in our research). We are motivated by professional pride in our craft. We regulate each other to encourage quality teaching as any guild does — sometimes effectively, sometimes ineffectively.

Mr. Selingo’s most serious error in this article, however, is not that he misrepresented me. It is that he misrepresented the problem. Students do not demand to be entertained. Students are stressed, busy, and sometimes bored by boring subjects and boring teachers. They know the difference between a professor who is mailing it in and someone who brings a sense of passion and pride to the subject and the craft. Selingo disrespected students in this piece. More seriously, Mr. Selingo ignored the political and economic problems at the root of the “consumer model” fallacy and the absurd cost of higher education: the steady rollback in public support for higher education that has shifted the cost to both the labor (every year more of us teach more students for less pay) and the students (they must assume the risk in the form of loans and career choices that 20 years ago was spread across society). If there is a problem in the classrooms of America, it’s that we don’t spend enough collectively on the classrooms of America. We don’t support teaching, just as we don’t support research. Bracketing off “teaching” as if it is merely a matter of style on not part of a multi-variant political problem fails to enlighten readers on what the real problems are and how we might address them.

tsylvain

I wish I could “like” several times. I have not elsewhere seen such an apt description of the serious political and economic problems undermining higher education in this country.

sivavaid

Thanks. We do often pick at the edges of the problem, imagining that this or that teaching method or technology will make a measurable difference. It’s a bad habit.

jselingo

Siva — I’m sorry that I didn’t write one paragraph near the end as clearly as I should have and I made a slight change to reflect that. I didn’t mean to imply that
you placed more accountability on the student. But in your comment above I think you specifically left out one part of the classroom “contract” that
I believe is essential: professors need to be engaging. Maybe not
performers, but they need to be good teachers and at many universities
good teaching is not valued as much as research.

-Jeff

mbelvadi

“Engaging” is one of those new buzzwords in eduspeak that never quite gets defined, so anyone can use it to mean whatever they want.

By the meaning I pick up from context in CHE, being “engaging” can’t be a burden on the professor alone because it is really about the student choosing to allow him/herself to be engaged.

Almost anything (short of reading straight off powerpoint) can be interesting or boring to anyone – it’s all a matter of the state of mind of the receiver. (Did you find “Dances with Wolves” engaging? I found it utterly boring and walked out part-way. Did you find high school algebra boring? It was my favorite class. I could go on…)

And if the state of mind of the receiver is unreceptive, focussed on relationship problems, family finances, or the latest personal-social-circle or even Hollywood scandal, or if in their own mind, they’re only there to purchase a credential, there is no point in accusing the professor of failing to be “engaging”.

lisbeth_s

The underlying problem here — the use of “distracting” electronic media in class, during a lecture, at a meeting — is not limited to college students. I am scandalized at every faculty meeting I attend (including a recent meeting featuring a nationally-recognized guest speaker) and every K-12 event I attend with my son by the number of adults — professors and parents — who spend the entire time on their laptop, smart phone, etc. These are the same professors who ban laptops in class and the same parents who “just don’t get kids today.” Is it any wonder that students think they can and should multi-task in class or entertain themselves when things get “boring?”
http://nathaniel-campbell.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel M. Campbell

Though I heartily disapprove of the “student as customer” model of higher education, the idea of professor as “performer” does point us in one very important pedagogical direction. Whether because we are evolutionarily hard-wired for it or because it is a central component of human interaction and thus society and culture, the narratival form is an essential way in which we organize and construct that vast amount of chaotic data around us. We naturally process information in the form of a story. Thus, it seems little surprising that telling stories would be a successful way of teaching material. And the story-teller is the oldest of performers.
csgirl

I desperately don’t want to be regurgitating the textbook in class! I hate doing that. But it is what my students want. Most of them will not read the textbook – in fact, around half in a typical course will not even BUY the textbook. I have tried solving that by doing quizzes on the reading – only to run into endless problems as students insist that they don’t have to take the quiz because “the book is being shipped from India and hasn’t gotten here yet”. What makes my students happiest is a nice neat outline of the book’s contents in Powerpoint slides, with tests only on the material that appeared in the bullet points.

cosmo10

But why give them what they want when it is clearly not educative? (My daughter doesn’t want to eat her vegetables. Does that mean I should feed her what she wants (which would be a fatty, starchy diet, supplemented by candy? No, I make her eat her vegetables, but I also make an effort to make those vegetables taste good.) You create objectives for the course along with assignments to help meet those objectives, but students have to do their part. Because they won’t, doesn’t mean you dumb it down. You assign a book, they need to get it in time to complete the reading and the assignments (quizzes or whatever). If it hasn’t arrived in the mail, then they need to figure out a way to borrow it. If they don’t, then they don’t complete the assignment and their grade (and learning) suffers. Also, have you consider other means of motivating students to read, such as reading journals with brief responses, students preparing discussion questions from the reading, students preparing brief outlines of the reading, etc? There are great resources available with good ideas.

patrick_murtha

I agree. Don’t let the students dictate to you in that way. If you’re giving quizzes on the reading, give them. If the students are unprepared when the expectations of the course have been made clear, that is their problem.

All of cosmo10′s ideas for getting students to do the reading are good; as I go through several cycles of teaching a course, I try using more of these all the time. Make the students work, hold them accountable, and keep the ship afloat and on course!
emmadw

And, depending on the subject, are there good OERs available? Could you find something on Wikiversity etc., that covers the bulk of what you need? (And have part of the assessment to add the missing bits for your particular course??)

n_lin

I have come across a bunch of articles on college education and student debt in many newspapers in the last two weeks. So my two cents on it. I am from the physical and mathematical sciences and engineering so while I try to keep my opinions limited to these fields, I also feel that the problem is systemic and not just limited to my fields or classrooms.

First, I have to point out the general tendency in such discussions to assign ‘blame’ to every party involved. This gives the discussion a seemingly wise and ‘balanced’ feel, but really this is just an indication that the writer does not have or want to take a strong position. Hence the vacuous conclusions or non conclusions.

The problem is that students are under prepared to attend college. In fact I will say that eighty percent of even a junior class is unprepared for even high school classes. When I first taught sophomore and junior engineering classes I was stunned to realize that most of the students had no knowledge of basic algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. Many would struggle to even add fractions. I have to wonder about the state of (public) school education if such vast number of students graduate having learned virtually nothing. School is supposed to teach students basic math (and not just arithmetic with calculators) and science and more importantly instill a good work ethic. Billions of dollars of education budgets produce worse outcomes than schools in third world countries. Remember that science and especially math is a young mans (woman’s) game. Most of what passes for college math in most state colleges should be the requirement to enter college. If students do not have a strong math ability by the age of 18 then they are not going to do well, however much professors entertain them in class. The problem is worsened in college by all the professors who aim to ‘entertain’ students in class instead of doing serious teaching. The solution to improving school education is not spending additional billions on programs to ‘catch the attention of students’ or show that science can be fun. American schools do enough of that already. The only solution is to not let students pass not just high school but even middle school until they demonstrate that their knowledge. I know that this is ‘unrealistic’ because it will offend too many interests from teachers unions and politicians to parents and students.

Then there is the problem of ‘educationists’ and ‘entertainers’. The emphasis on teaching style, ‘communication skills’, people management, the use of technology is a distraction from the actual subject. Most teachers have reasonably good communication and management skills. Entertaining teachers can grab the attention of students through their antics but real learning is rarely possible in such a class. On various campuses I have been to, the most popular classes are also the most useless ones leaving the students with a false sense of satisfaction and completely unprepared for the next step. I am sure there are studies and statistics to prove that what I claim is wrong, that teachers who entertain students do produce great results. But I fail to understand how anyone have any faith in such studies. The litmus test is the ability to do serious math and science and to put it politely the vast majority of students fail miserably at this because education and entertainment usually do not mix very well.

There is way too much commercialization and students are treated as customers by university administrators and politicians. Universities today are interested in the money that students generate and in exchange sell them degrees along with expensive entertainment for a few years. To me the biggest cultural shock when I first enrolled in graduate school in the US was that the football coach earned the highest salary. Libraries and labs at many state colleges face budget cuts, class sizes increase because there is not enough money to hire new faculty. But colleges have ramped up their sports budgets, built new stadiums and spent ridiculous amounts on building expensive campuses. The only conclusion is that university administrators are interested in entertaining students and selling them degrees in exchange for money. The students waste their time and money and go into debt and usually kill their chance of having a good career. This is really a predatory business model.
The solution is again obvious but unpopular – recruit more teachers (not classroom clowns), reduce class sizes, teach and do not pass students if they do not meet minimum standards.
Bring some seriousness back to the colleges.

patrick_murtha

Great post, sir. The problems you describe are epidemic across all academic subjects in both American high schools and universities. When education becomes a product, it becomes impossible to tell the truth about serious learning – that it is a strenuous, difficult, time-consuming, sometimes frustrating, and yet completely rewarding process. To tell all that would be to get in the way of the sales pitch. But I do tell it to my students at the start of every course – this is going to be hard. I am not adverse to lighter moments in class, indeed I relish them, but I will never try to pitch my subjects in the humanities – history, philosophy, literature, economics (all of which I teach in an international university high school) – as a walk in the park. I indicate to my students that any form of dumbing down would be an insult to their considerable (if often undeveloped) abilities – and as you rightly point out, young minds have made some of the most astounding contributions to the most difficult disciplines.

crazyfrog

While I agree with the
last line–instructors are there for the students–I disagree with this part:
“learning in the classroom is an activity shared between a teacher and a
student.” This is rigorously incorrect. Learning selected content and
skills is an activity that students must bear responsibility for (setting aside
teachers learning how to teach, something that students are not responsible
for). Teachers are there to help students learn but ultimately the learning can
ONLY be done by the students. As I tell all of my students on the first day, I
cannot get into their heads and rewire their neurons (the biological basis for
learning); only they can do that.
22122118

After almost every class, at least (in the context of our institution) large lecture classes, I observe–ruthlessly plagiarizing the legendary JB–”hardest working man in show business.” Most students seem to agree.

Alway’s been that way, always will.
electronicmuse

“A professor starts regurgitating exactly what they’ve read in the textbook; paying attention won’t clarify confusion; a professor starts on a random tangent that is neither interesting nor relevant; students need a break to refocus; students feel pressed for time and decide to multitask.”

Bottom line: why don’t “students” try this at a business meeting when they become “employees,” and see how far their decision to “multitask” gets them? Ridiculous!

More on “students:” (1) how many of them will actually have read the textbook? Yeah, right! (2) How is it that paying attention ” . . . won’t clarify confusion.” Who is confused, the teacher or the student? If it’s the latter, paying attention might pay great dividends. (3) Assuming the professor is steeped in the subject matter, who the hell are students to determine whether something is ” . . . a random tangent,” or not? (4) Why would students need a break to “refocus” when they were never focused to begin with? (5) Who taught the students to be ” . . . pressed for time?” Was it the same people who sold them the tools they use in fruitless attempts at “multitasking?” The ones who taught them that one must be “connected” 24/7? Google “multitasking” and “multitasking 2010″ and read the myriad scientific studies about the futility and pernicious effects of trying to “multitask.” Then, take control of your classroom-your students will thank you for it later . . . who is the adult here?

The solution is beyond simple: do not allow students to turn on any electronic device in the classroom. Again, ridiculous!

22208120

Simple, but verboten. Faculty are often told to ignore students’ use of electronic devices in class. “They pay your salaries,” we are told, in effect. Administrative support on this question is simply not there.

lucero

I never bothered to ask anyone else, I just forbid the use of cells and laptops in my class from day one. I only had one student who had a problem with it. And eventually after being talked to privately, called out in class, and then spoken to privately she finally stopped texting in class. I understand though that sometimes faculty can’t make that rule depending on the school. I think the problem is deeper than just gadgets in the classroom. A student who values his/her learning is not going to sit there texting and playing on FB during class. They will respect a rule of no gadgets IF learning is important to them. The real problem is not the gadgets it is that some students do not belong in college to begin with, or have no desire to really learn. I think the examples at Harvard and other elite universities are probably not the norm at the schools and those students think that they are geniuses and can do the FB and texting AND absorb the lecture/class or they are smart enough to learn it on their own and don’t really need to sit in the class. That is not the case of the majority of students in U.S. universities IMO.

22208120

That is precisely my point. Many of us teach at colleges where the students do NOT want to be in the classroom at all. They are there because their parents tell them they need to get a degree, or because they can’t get a job. The drop-out rate is, of course, extremely high (in our case, only 42 percent of entering freshmen eventually get a degree within SIX years. It’s almost impossible to entertain an audience that doesn’t want to be there in the first place, and which has no desire at all to learn the subject matter being taught.

lucero

Actually our students are supposed to be adults–but some lack the majority and initiative to take control of their learning–they want it to be passive and fun.

22208120

This article, while interesting, makes the serious mistake of overgeneralization. First of all, it’s one thing to be teaching a class at, say, Harvard University, in the politics of Modern Europe or in the sociology of male-female relationships. It’s quite another thing, however, to be teaching a course like Elementary Spanish or remedial mathematics to undergraduates at a school with minimal requirements for admission. Just how “entertaining” can the teaching of verb conjugations be to a classroom full of college undergraduates — usually freshmen, but almost as often seniors!! — taking first-semester Elementary Spanish in college (having put it off as long as they could), commonly after failing Spanish in high school? How many times have I heard the lament: “I took Spanish for SIX years in high school [sic] and HE gives me a “D” [in first-semester Spanish]“? Not only have such students failed to acquire the most basic skills of learning and good study habits, but they are also so distracted by cell phones, video games, Facebook, match.com, cafeteria menus, tonight’s TV program schedules, football scores, the campus dating scene, Lady Gaga, the latest fashions, new cars, etc., that it would take a hundred Hollywood entertainers to “entertain” them. The conjugation of irregular Spanish verbs cannot provide the “entertainment potential” that a bevy of electronic devices can provide. It does the world of education no good at all to tell classroom instructors that they’ve “got to be more entertaining” to their students!
urspider

Put it in the syllabus…”use a hand-held device in class and you will be counted absent. Use a laptop in class, and you must submit notes to me.”

I’ve done this, in classes with enrollment under 30, and the problem nearly vanished. I e-mail students who violate the policy, noting the skip the first time, and the problem vanishes completely.

Class time then becomes for using technology productively, for discussion, and for short writing exercises. How to handle a LARGE section? Now that is a different problem…
torshi

This column doesn’t reflect any of the abundant research on student attitudes toward courses, professors, and learning–and it doesn’t match any university at which I’ve taught. For one thing, teaching is much more than what happens in the classroom.

For another, my students don’t want me to entertain them. That’s not the main influence on how much or well they learn, or my customer-rating numbers. They want to be able to get the grade they think appropriate with as little work as possible. (For most, their target grade is a B or C; it’s a separate issue from grade inflation.) That work includes attending class, getting involved in the content of the class, paying attention, taking notes, studying–and especially, reading and writing. My students are not self-directed and most do not really want to be in college. More than half of them are first-year, straight from “follow the rules and don’t open your mouth” high school classes. They are bewildered by college and upset at the expectations that they will become independent and resilient. The last thing they want is challenge. I genuinely like them. I do my best to meet them where they are. But simply making class more exciting does not address the fundamental problem. They would much rather have me bore them but ask little of them than be exciting but ask slightly more. Of course I push against that feeling, every day for eight courses a year. But it’s still there.

When I started my current job a few years ago, I was gung-ho to implement the paper-writing requirements that are officially part of my upper-level courses. (These are in the course descriptions for a university requirement, well less than the 20 pages per course that national reports on higher ed want from us but a start.) I was excited to develop projects tailored to their interests. A few threats and some car damage later, with no support from my department and with the realization that I was asking students to do something their other professors weren’t requiring, and I backed the heck away from papers. My numerical evaluations were the same during and after the writing emphasis. Sometimes it’s not about pleasing students as much as it is about not displeasing them to the extent that they’re nasty or violent. And faculty expectations of students don’t work unless they’re consistent throughout the college.
insouciant

Students often forget that learning involves them as much as it does the teacher. They are also not disabused of this notion by university leaders, who feel they must placate students because of their tuition dollars or because of upset parents.

It would benefit students and professors to realize that the students are the ones who have paid tuition, and so it is up to them to take the best advantage of what is offered in the class. It is not nor should it be the professor’s responsibility to ensure or enforce student learning or entertainment.

I provide the platform, expertise, and materials for learning. The students must take advantage of this. When I teach a large class, this is why I do not enforce class attendance. The last thing I want is bored and distracted students disrupting class by using smart phones or reading the paper. I would just as soon these student not attend class, so that the serious learners can have a better environment.

Again, it is not my responsibility as a professor to ensure that students take advantage of what is being offered. I offer a learning opportunity, and they can choose to take advantage of it or not. Their tuition dollars are the same in each case.
bleckb

I appreciate this sort of discussion. When I have students texting or using their computers in class, it’s not because they are looking (rarely anyway) for further information related to what I’ve said. It’s because they aren’t engaged for more reasons than I can count. It may be that they didn’t do the reading so they don’t know what we are talking about. This is probably the biggest reason. I assume that pretty much every teacher does all they can to share the love of their topic, but some of what we have to teach, especially when I teach composition, is, in fact, boring. How excited can one get, or can one make, argument formats? Frankly, I’m flummoxed by students who take a literature class but don’t do the reading. I know they probably won’t love reading as much as I do, that they won’t make literature their first bit of homework because it’s what they enjoy most, but I do expect that the class can’t work, that ideas can’t be exchanged, if they haven’t read the literature. Certainly I have to do what I can to engage the little darlings, but if they won’t do even the minimum, I’m hosed, as is class for the day.

What does all this rambling mean? Well, not much. For the most part, students are looking to be credentialed, not educated. Most of us look to educate them, so the disconnect is so fundamental that the twain is unlikely to ever meet.
Howard Isaacs

I try to make classes interesting and lively—but I’m interested in education, not entertainment. The one thing that more than any other keeps my classes from being interesting to the students is that 75% of them have not done adequate preparation to benefit from lecture or participate in meaningful discussion.

On the customer metaphor: fine, but the student is the customer of the college, not my customer. The college has employed me to give it an evaluation of the student. The student has contracted with the college to be evaluated according to its declared standards. What I owe in this commercial relation is to present the course to students to the best of my ability, and then an honest answer to the college as to how well they did.
debdessaso

When, oh when, will higher education get the message that professors to be certified to teach just as most K-12 teachers must be? How many times has the mantra to be repeated that just knowing one’s subject does not automatically transfer into the ability to teach the subject?
oh_richard

“Students are going to school to gain a skill set that will help find them work.”

I honestly fear the shift to edutainment… Do you want to see a medical doctor who doesn’t want to hear about your boring symptoms? Do you want to see a stock broker who is on Facebook while you outline your investment hopes? Do you want to have your taxes done by accountants who expect clients to be entertaining?

Maybe we should be teaching student to entertain US…. that might be a more useful job skill :)
lucero

Tardigrade: I would say about 99%. I was the “goof-off” first semester, freshman year. My roommates made fun of me for not studying–I learned after I got my grades that semester that I had to put more into it. I went to an Ivy League university, and the majority really studied. Those that didn’t failed courses and were kicked out.
tardigrade

Ok, thanks for answering, though I do think attending an Ivy League school says something about your cohort versus the larger cohort, even back in the 80s.
lucero

I’m not sure about the answer to your question. I do know when I was in highschool, late 70s, early 80s, that there were high schools in my area that were vocational and offered training in aviation, mechanics, secretarial studies, etc. Those students trained for a career in HIGH SCHOOL. They did not go to college. They often worked through part-time internships set up through the HIGH SCHOOL and local businesses.

I do not think it makes sense at all for a teenager who does not like studying, reading or writing to attend a college. They usually have not been prepared well in high school and they do not like to read or study. Expecting them to be successful in college, where you have to read, study and write A LOT, makes no sense. If you happen to attend one of those colleges that gives out degrees for showing up and sitting there you have basically wasted your money and 4-6 years of your life. You may have a degree at the end but it is not a respected one in the job market. No worthwhile company will take it seriously. Secondly, the student will have learned nothing in terms of future work skills, or even basic time management skills and if he/she does manage to land a job (above a fast food restaurant) then he/she is going to bomb at the job. I have heard countless employers complain about “young college graduates” having bad work ethics and not ready for the work force. I think the teenager who doesn’t like reading, writing or studying, would be better off going to local businesses and asking if they could help out by working part-time even if for a very low wage. Eventually you’d have to turn up something and since you wouldn’t be paying someone to sit in a classroom and do nothing you wouldn’t go into debt.

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