I was sitting in a lackluster history class earlier this morning that nobody had cared enough to do the reading for, and that the teacher felt the need to monopolize with his irrelevant political takes, when I felt a sudden tinge of indignation and disillusionment at the state of higher education around me. With my classmates fervently typing away on their Discord server complaining about the class all around me, I was compelled to think back to my own experiences with school.
- It took up to the seventh grade for a teacher to notice that I was asleep for the majority of my classes and to suggest that I talk to my doctor. To be completely fair, the teachers were probably more occupied with sedating the troublemakers and writing their lesson plan than picking up the kids slipping through the cracks.
- I explicitly recall not doing any of the semester-end projects in 4th grade and still passing. Apparently, all a kid had to do to pass was bubble in the right answer on a standardized test. Were the projects just busywork?
- With the introduction of laptops into the mainstream lecture hall, multitasking has become the norm. My classmates will check their mail, browse their social media feeds, or have fully fledged conversations over text. I’m aware that those people might be better wired to handle all these inputs at once, but I can’t help but wonder how easy and empty the class material must be for it to be understood with a quarter of the average Joe’s attention. This is by no means a boomer rant about technology - these students would have probably been the ones making faces at each other and passing notes during class. One quirky bonus is that I learned a lot about my classmates just by peering over at their screen and reading their messages or search history. What juicy gossip do I find? … nothing. The most mundane of the mundane - nothing worth interrupting the $69,420 classes their parents or local taxpayers paid for.
As an aspiring teacher, I pay close attention to what the teachers I am given do right and what they do wrong, and for the most part, I appreciate their effort. But never have I wanted to bang my head against the wall as much as a communications teacher for a GE (General Requirement) class.
- Sloppy and careless diction and enunciation. Hell, as a native speaker, I had to strain to make out what this also-native speaker was saying, so I could only empathize with the many foreign students forced to take this iteration of the class due to scheduling restraints.
- Reading off the publisher-provided mountain of text that masqueraded itself as a slideshow, assuming of course the teacher was in the mood to teach that day
- Beating jokes into the ground long after they’ve served what little educational or social value they had in the first place
- The eloquence and lexical prowess of your dying alcoholic uncle mid-brain aneurysm
But we all walked out of that class with an A and a (literal) pizza slice, so I musn’t be so mopey about my wasted time, I guess, or the disparity between my paycheck and his.
Going on…
- Test curving (adding fake points until the class average meets state standards) is expected by entitled students and used as a crutch to not ever be mentally present in class, which is justified considering the average Joe is guaranteed a passing grade.
- COVID has completely turned tests and quizzes into a joke; Quizlet and other flashcard-like webapps have gotten dozens of cohorts through classes nobody wanted to take in the first place. Last week, I saw someone get texted the answers for a quiz unsolicited, and needless to say, he immediately regretted having studied. The student culture overwhelmingly encourages cheating with teachers either fighting an uphill battle or turning a blind eye while the class average and their annual review benefit. The expectation is no longer that information be recalled from memory, which is fine in this post search engine world, but still calls into question the purpose of such a quiz in the first place.
- Lord bless your soul if you decide to learn a foreign language in a classroom setting. I audited my friend’s junior-level (Only Japanese majors take this class, so they must be good, right?) class, and all I heard was the teacher speak at almost fetishistic length - primarily in English, mind you - about the homework and about the class. When the students did have a chance to talk, Day 1 mistakes were rampant and went mostly uncorrected, with about half of the class too apathetic or scared to break free from their “American Soldier in Imperial Japan” accent. Hell, I’d recommend Duolingo over these 4 hours of weekly purgatory.
I had always assumed that this complacency would disappear up the ranks as the compulsory students dipped and the serious ones stayed behind, and while this is true to some extent, there is still a lot of bureaucracy and face saving that students are inculcated into.
At some point, I hope to survey some strangers on campus about their hot takes and offer fresh data for you, dear reader, that isn’t anecdotal ramblings. I know for a fact I am not the only one eager to find a better status quo for themselves and those they care about, and neither are you.