Mark Twain once wrote that you should “never let your schooling get in the way of your education.” In other words, make sure that whatever you are doing in school doesn’t stop you from doing things that will help you grow intellectually.
Twain is one of the many reasons I was excited to come to college. University! I remember thinking, finally, a place where my schooling and education will be the same! I was so excited for tough, intellectually challenging and rigorous classes.
Generally speaking, my classes at AU have not fit the bill. At AU, I’m given boatloads of reading every night. Trust me, if I ever felt the need to drown myself in the academic word, I’d have plenty of options. But that’s exactly the issue. I never feel the need to. For most of my classes at AU, I can follow along and participate perfectly in class discussions without reading a word assigned to me. For many of them, there’s almost an active incentive against doing the reading—if you read, you are sure going to be bored when the professor summarizes the reading for your next class.
Professors, don’t assign me something if I don’t need to read it. A rigorous, challenging course does not mean more reading. It means reading what the professor actually refers to in class. It means talking about the facts, arguments and discussions that the author had presented. It means creating a culture where students and professors can refer to these things on the fly, as something that everyone knows, because everyone is expected to know it. It means asking students to make connections between the reading from last night and the reading from last week. Hard to do if they haven’t read either one.
Professors at AU either don’t require you to read or they give you a reading quiz. The class and the readings often feel separate. One of my most challenging classes right now has less than 10 pages of required reading a week. But the professor will randomly call on students to discuss those readings. They’re referred to constantly in class—to the point that I would consider not going if I didn’t do the reading. The professor gives us supplemental readings to do if we are interested but the required readings are truly required.
Having a connection between class and the readings is a hugely important piece of intellectual challenge. Without that connection, class discussions aren’t grounded in anything. And when class discussions aren’t grounded in those readings, it leads to students referring constantly to personal experiences, like studying abroad, as their source for comments they’ve made. Or an article that only they’ve read. Or a word or phrase, like ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘check your privilege’ that they’ve locked onto.
When class and readings aren’t connected, it leads to everyone being on different pages. And it leads to people being able to leave the class on the exact same page they started on. No one ever is talking within the same context enough to be able to challenge one another. If I tell a story about my study abroad experience that proves one thing and you tell me about an article you read that proves another, there really isn’t much else for us to say to one another.
But when you do have students starting from the same place, with the same information, because they’ve all done the same reading—the discussions are wonderful. People can disagree, agree, make connections and share experiences, and because the students have done the reading they have something to ground all of their thoughts and ideas to. There is a starting point to bounce discussion off of.
Professors, please stop assigning reading you and I both know I won’t do. Burying me in unnecessary readings isn’t rigor. It’s not a challenge. Giving me one reading a week that is actually required, that challenges me, that forces me to consider new perspectives? Well that’s what I thought college would be like.
sostergaard@theeagleonline.com
